There has seemingly been no end to all of the albums coming out warning of a coming dystopia from the standpoint of a near omnipotent totalitarian state. From the likes of Iced Earth’s recent offerings to a number of thrash and progressive metal acts dealing with the issue of future enslavement. However, there has been little attention payed to the other potential dystopian nightmare, namely a world plunged into total anarchy following the collapse of society, even and including a massive totalitarian one, save maybe the first couple releases out of the German power metal outfit Mob Rules. Some are coming along to remedy this preference for a “Brave New World” over the “Road Warrior” scenario, of which Children of Technology has come to be a new forerunner of sorts.

While they’ve been at it for a few years, they have started to come into their own on their sophomore LP Future Decay, sporting an all too appropriate crossover punk sound for their Mad Max themed lyrical subjects. The air is rich with angst and cynicism with a side order of Sci-Fi as this flamboyant four piece outfit gets down to business, assaulting the ears with an unrelenting foray of rapid shifting power chords, gritty shouts and melodramatic wails, riding the tidal wave of a near endless sea of high speed d-beats. Indeed, this is the sort of album that addicts of Discharge, D.R.I. and Suicidal Tendencies can enjoy along with that of Motorhead and Hellhammer.

On the whole, this tends to be a highly predictable musical affair, one that offers up a more traditional hardcore meets speed metal version of what those mid 80s all fast, all the time thrash albums that are often imitated by the current thrash revival scene. It starts off in somewhat unconventional territory with more of an ambient, haunting piano intro with some guitar and percussion sounds before launching into a body-destroying thrashing fest that stops just a tad short of matching Metallica’s “Motorbreath”. Familiar territory strikes a bit harder on “Blackout”, which is an all but perfect amalgamation of an up-tempo Motorhead song with a more punk edge, complete with brief bluesy leads and a raunchy bass intro.

There isn’t really much to complain about with an album like this if a stripped down, bare-bones take on the ambiguous middle ground between punk and metal is the desired outcome. It takes several notable occasions to mix things up a little bit, such as “Eaten Dust Overload” and “Under the Ripping Storm” where the guitar riffing gets a bit more adventurous than typical hardcore and almost reminds of early Slayer, owing in large part to the band’s tendency to not dwell on a single riff for too long. Indeed, the longer the song, the more metallic it tends to be, while still regularly resorting to the usual tricks one might expect from the early 80s pre-thrash period of hardcore. It’s raw, it’s short, but it definitely gets the job done and will assuredly put some needed Mel Gibson styled action back into the circle pit.