Narcotic Wasteland

Fourteen years into his two-decade tenure with acclaimed Greenville, South Carolina technical death metal band Nile, guitarist and vocalist Dallas Toler-Wade was itching to explore new musical and lyrical frontiers. So he hooked up with some old buddies from his hometown Fayetteville, North Carolina and started writing old-school death metal inspired by some of their favorite bands, including Gorguts, Immolation, Incantation and Suffocation. “There was something really powerful about those bands, especially Gorguts,” Toler-Wade says. “They had these twin guitar compositions that felt different than the kind of death metal other bands were doing. So, Narcotic Wasteland is partially my way of rediscovering what I first loved about death metal.” Narcotic Wasteland self-released their self-titled debut in 2014. Then in October 2016, Toler-Wade left Nile and Narcotic Wasteland became his main priority. “It was just time for me to do something different,” he says. After talking to several companies, Narcotic Wasteland signed with Megaforce, which historically has launched the careers of Metallica, Anthrax, Testament, Overkill and others. Narcotic Wasteland’s second album, Delirium Tremens is a dramatic musical evolution from the band’s first release. Not only is the production better, the chemistry between Rhone and Toler-Wade is impeccable, each feeling out and feeding off of the other’s playing. Coupled with trenchant grooves and impacting vocals, Delirium Tremens is more than an homage to the band’s favorite musicians, it’s a new style wrought from some of the best pages of the past.