Hirax, Raging Violence (Metal Blade Records, 1985)
Here we have a missing part of history, with the big four of thrash bands going on to sell millions and make a great living from it. Here we have a band that could easily have slotted into the Anvil documentary as they seem to not get any breaks as well.
This album is the first by the band and what a great start, first up is it really is quite a different album than most thrash bands. Some like Metallica had a very mediocre singer where as say Slayer had a vocalist that really just talked. The closest to this band is Flotsam and Jetsam with a more operatic style vocal. The album is very much in the 80s metal area but for me one of the better examples of thrash metal about. Even more so for the time.
The speed and timing of the music is very different to other metal bands and has a great punk feel to it bit like the Ramones drumming the relentless hitting of the snare drums you could use as a metronome. But it does come over as fresh and with those vocals it hits the spot. The recording even now does sound good considering it was on Metal Blade I doubt there was much money for the bands debut. Near everything sounds clear but with that more live feel, you can even hear the bass guitar (something very unusual for thrash).
With fourteen tracks over 29 minutes I really am not bothering to review each track as it is kind of all the same but here and there are blistering all out solos, way more epic than the other bands of the time. Not so much trying to steal the show but prove they have it as well. Some of the music has that great groove feel you got in the late 80s with Pantera and Faith no More metalers in any rock pub would be happy to hear this album.
The reason I have it here is more a shock to me as I was looking at gigs coming up and there they were playing near me soon. As they only did this and a few EPs back in the 80s before splitting I did get last years album "Immortal Legacy" (and great it is too) thinking I would never see them. But it seems after many false re activations they have managed to finally get to the UK for the first time ever. So an album you may have missed and a live gig I have never had the chance of seeing in one post.
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