REGICIDE

Regardless of the problem, thrash metal is nearly always the solution. Newcomers from Essex, England, REGICIDE make angry music for angry times, and "Resist Control" is one hell of an opening salvo. Marching in amid the sound of machine-gun fire and the wail of an air-raid siren, "One By One" is all jagged-edge riffs and grim destruction, and guitarist/frontman Niall Byrne is a bug-eyed, feral presence, spitting hardcore fury.

Immediately, REGICIDE demonstrate their mastery of shapeshifting grooves and beats, but with a core of rock solid Big Four swagger underpinning it all. It's rough around the edges and raw as hell, but precise and powerful too. "You Ain't Nobody" strips things down further still, to a furious, sustained beatdown with no time to waste; REGICIDE have a punkiness hidden deep in their sound and it adds extra electricity to everything they do. "Suppression" is thrash at its most primitive and vicious, with riffs that proudly mangle old-school tropes and a gritty, thuggish pulse that owes just enough to the PANTERA-dominated '90s. The final riff is a lurching, post-SABBATH-ian atrocity that has nothing but malice in mind.

As comfortable as they are with thrashing outside the box, REGICIDE have plenty of the genre's original essence boiling away in their veins. The title track is a straight-up aggro-fest; an avalanche of incensed down-picking and crossover-style changes of pace, it gets heavier and slower, lurching to a near-halt before exploding all over again with another flurry of rapid-fire tempo shifts and punishing, all-for-one breakdowns. Next, "Disposable Crown" scythes and stabs with an acute case of rock 'n' roll psychosis, with strong echoes of latter-day EXODUS, audibly unhinged vocalist included.

REGICIDE may not be world beaters quite yet, but this is a ferocious and compelling debut that has no obvious equivalent elsewhere in the thrash world. As it progresses, "Resist Control" begins to reveal greater depths and darker shadows. "Dying To Be Liked" is a harsh blast of reality wed to some pointedly black-hearted riffs and a stealthy, bare-bones groove. As it slows to a morose crawl, REGICIDE's thinly veiled affinity with death metal slithers to the fore, adding more gristle to the album's temple of bones. In contrast, "Unified Strength" takes its cues from the dark side of '80s metal and takes a pitilessly direct route to making its point, Byrne's rabid vocals arriving shrouded in gaseous spittle (shards of shattered tooth optional). The closer, "Run Your Mouth", conjures a new strain of turbocharged speed metal with dirty streetcore trimmings, which becomes momentarily grandiose and mysterious and then, just as Robb Flynn intended, unleashes a disgustingly fat and filthy stop-start riff that will lead to a lot of broken furniture if we're not careful.

Debut albums should be belligerent blizzards of confidence and conviction. "Resist Control" is dangerously pissed off and ready to deliver one of this year's soundest thrashings. First mission skillfully dispatched.