If you can’t tell what Horseman are all about after the first few seconds of their debut E.P. Kill You One More Time let me spell it out for you. Straight-ahead old-school thrash. The kind that makes you want to dust off the old high tops, squeeze into those ancient cut-offs, sew the patches back on your denim jacket, grab a six pack, and give the neighbors a full-metal ear injection. There’s no obtuse technicality or self-aggrandizing showmanship to be found here. They are a throwback to a time when a band’s worthiness was gauged not by how many beats per minute they could cram into a song, but by something that has enjoyed a comeback with the recent thrash resurgence, something that was, for a time, lost in a sea of endless blast beats and “look what I can do” technicality: catchiness. Do you remember that? When you could actually hum a riff back after hearing it on a CD? If not, Kill You One More Time will serve as a welcome refresher course.

The mere mention of the term “concept album” is enough to draw skepticism, ire and even audible guffaws from hardened metal purists. However, Anthelion could not have chosen a more metal storyline for their debut full length release, Bloodshed Rebefallen. The songs follow the story of the Snake Corpse, a creature condemned to suffer for thousands of years for trying to tempt mankind.  After millennia spent in agony and enslavement, the beast then reawakens and joins forces with the Snake Tribe, focusing its unlimited wrath on waging war on all creation, and the annihilation of all living things.

Rampancy is a one-man goregrind project helmed by multi-instrumentalist and vocalist Spike, who also plays drums in thrash crossover outfit Bazooka, and plays bass and performs vocal duties in the crust punk band Total Disruption. Behind The Mask…The Massacre, released in 2006, was Rampancy’s first, and thus far only, full-length album, after releasing a demo entitled I Don’t Want to Eat and a three-way split with Bowel Stew and Granulocytic Blastoma in 2005. The sound is pure gore in the vein of bands such as Rompeprop, Dead Infection and porngrinders Cock and Ball Torture. Simplistic guitar riffs are played over programmed bass lines and drum beats that go back and forth between blast beat insanity and mid-tempo groove.

Spit of Hate has a strange promotional strategy. They don't play shows. They don't show their faces. In fact, they are rarely visible within the Taiwanese metal scene. Luckily they have recently resurfaced with more of the stuff their fans have been thirsting for.

Since their initial self-titled album "Spit of Hate," the band has changed their musical direction from industrial/death metal to thrash/death metal. They have also picked up a new lead vocalist. As a fan and concertgoer, I really appreciate their recent artistic innovations. Without a doubt, the band has achieved a whole new level of brutality and sickness.