Review Summary: An excellent and highly-underrated album which helped resurrect a genre while avoiding the groove metal and nu-metal tropes that even legendary thrash giants had embraced.
By the end of the 1900's, thrash was almost completely dead. Everyone had pretty much abandoned pure thrash metal and made groove and/or nu-metal albums with some thrashy flavoring. The bands that stayed the most true to the thrash sound were Overkill and Sodom, but they didn't release memorable albums. Exodus released Tempo Of The Damned in early 2004, and the thrash was back, but they still retained a lot of groove-metal tendencies. It was a banger, but it was not a pure thrash album.
In 2000 and 2001, the seriously underrated LA thrash burnouts Hirax released two EPs that were nothing but thrash. They were pretty good releases, but they did not have the greatest songs. Then in May of 2004, Hirax dropped their first full-length in almost two decades, and it was just what we needed.
The New Age Of Terror was the first pure thrash album released in a long time. There's no groove/nu-metal jams here...only thrash. From the opening salvo of "Kill Switch" until the closing classic "Unleash The Dogs Of War", Hirax brings the thrashy goods. At just 47 seconds in length, "Into The Ruins" revisits their old style of short bangers, as does the 1:48 "Hostile Territory". "El Diablo Negro" gets a slight update from the same-titled EP and still makes the setlist to this day, along with "Hostile...". "Hell On Earth" rages like hell, and closer "Unleash The Dogs Of War" is an apocalyptic riff fest that sounds like the theme for the Battle of Armageddon. To this very day, "Unleash..." is one of the greatest songs in Hirax's catalog and one that I wish they'd bring it back to their setlists.
It's so good to hear Katon De Pena again. He sounds better than ever, reminding me of a wild-ass Messiah Marcolin thrashing away on a Sam Cooke banger (if he had one). Some people can't stand his vocal style, which is singing and shouting, but many of those people seem to want just a non-melodic thrash voice which straddles the death and black metal worlds. Well, Katon never does that, and God bless him for it.
The band is pretty hot ***, too. Glenn Rogers brings the riffs and the killer solos which sound like classic thrash solos from the Golden Age of Thrash. He really was a great fit for Hirax, along with second guiatarist Dave Watson. This band could thrash and never got out of control in a bad way (like their 80's output tended to do) thanks to the tight rhythm section of Angelo Espino and Jorge Iacobellis. These were the players that Hirax deserved, and from here on out, Hirax's lineup has had some great musicians and has made the best music of their career.
Hirax had the guts to avoid the trends and release a straight-up thrash album when still wasn't cool to do so. It was instrumental in the resurrection of thrash along with
Tempo Of The Damned.
The New Age Of Terror deserves a listen, and even if you don't like it as much as I do - or even don't like it - it deserves your respect as an album which helped to kickstart an all-but-dead genre.
HAIL HIRAX!
