NEFARIOUS

Thrash metal is turning into a contest to see who can survive the longest. Virtually all of the genre's original protagonists are still around and still touring and making music. But nobody seems remotely interested in retiring. This is obviously a good thing, but something's got to give. Eventually. But not quite yet. Give it a decade or two. In the meantime, NEFARIOUS are throwing themselves into keeping the old-school thrash dream alive. They certainly have the credentials. With DEATH ANGEL drummer Will Carroll, legendary HIRAX frontman Katon W. de Pena, and former EXODUS guitarist Rick Hunolt all on board, "Addicted to Power" is a debut album that wears its Bay Area thrash colors with pride. And yes, it does sound almost exactly as you would imagine.

A deliberate throwback to the days when METAL CHURCH and VICIOUS RUMORS were operating at metal's cutting edge, "Addicted to Power" is an unashamed heavy metal record with a potent edge of high-octane speed metal and occasional dips into something darker and more extreme. The opening "Mirror Death" sums it up nicely. This is raw and aggressive trad metal with a taste for speed and a singer, in the perennially underrated de Pena, who scales octaves for fun, and wails like ex-CANDLEMASS singer Messiah Marcolin, spitting out every word like it's come straight from the thrash gods. Which, in a sense, it has.

The faintly trashy production keeps everything in the right aesthetic ballpark. "Addicted to Power" is avowedly straight ahead, but zips along with youthful vigor, never making any foolhardy attempts to update or modernize NEFARIOUS's gritty, classic sound. Songs like the title track, which has a brooding, BLACK-SABBATH-like feel, and the textbook, old-school mosh-fodder of "Master Plan" are fully immersed in heavy metal at its purest. At times, repurposed cliches fly by at an alarming rate, but the quintet's sense of urgency and commitment are such that resistance is useless.

"Addicted to Pain" was plainly a lot of fun to make, and its finest moments are very fine indeed. "Together We Rise" welds gnarly, crossover thrash to robust chunks of mellifluous, classic '80s metal, with glorious results; "Snarler" has the cool simplicity of Dee Snider's recent solo records, the epic rush of early MANOWAR, and a guitar solo that will make people's eyes twitch; and the closing "One Nation Enslaved" runs a few thousand volts through early '80s JUDAS PRIEST and then circle pits the results to dust.

Nothing about "Addicted to Power" is going to change the world, but it might make everything seem a little less shit for a while. Thrash metal rules. These guys are the experts. Act accordingly.