The Iron Curtainby Parabellum

Old school thrash by high schoolers. I was pretty taken aback by how good it is. They pretty much nail everything shut. Youthful passion is a given but the surgical precision of the songs is what makes the band such a surprise: there's no fat, no song listlessly wandering in search it itself. It's a great blend of thrash with beatdown hardcore. They don't quite do gang vocals, but the singer sounds like a one man army, so the effect is the same. There are, admittedly, a fair amount of cliches, like the laughter at the end Iron Curtain, or the shout of "Dieeeeee!" In Corridor of Rage or the melodramatic spoken word opening (although it gets plus points for celebrating freedom of expression), but by and large the borrowed sounds not just fresh, but thrilling, like they stitched together all their favorite parts of all their favorite albums to assemble a monster of their own. It's an outstanding debut, and I really wish these guys big things in the future.