If there’s one thing the Eighties Thrash scene taught us, it’s that if mankind were to ever be wiped out by a nuclear holocaust, then at least there would be a kick-ass soundtrack to help melt us into sticky, green radioactive goo. You simply couldn’t get out of bed during that decade for tripping over another relentlessly aggressive four-minute paranoia-filled song about nuclear explosions, toxic fallout, global chaos, and the total and utter destruction of the planet. God, the ’80s were fantastic!

So fantastic in fact that some bands still want to live there. Bands like Denver, Colorado’s Weapönizer for example, who as well as listing “Metal. Crime. Booze. Fire” as their main interests, basically appear to believe that anything post 1989 has just been a horrible, horrible nightmare and should be forgotten about immediately, preferably by consuming as much alcohol as possible.

With an abundance of facial hair, sunglasses, pointy metal studs, exposed beer guts, denim, leather, and suitably hefty firearms, names like Ale Wülf, Barbarian, Shag, and Deströyer, and an album cover reminiscent of those old “Spaghetti Apocalypse” videos like Bronx Warriors, After The Fall of New York, and Endgame, the band, with their own particular brand of “Post-Apocalyptic Metal”, sound like they literally never stopped listening to old UK Punk/Metal acts like Venom, English Dogs, Sacrilege, (Power From Hell era) Onslaught, and Warfare. Throw some Sodom and Bathory in there too and you get the idea.

A vast improvement in all departments on their independently released 2012 self-titled debut, Lawless Age (20 Buck Spin) is every bit as fast and frantic as that first effort, but possesses a much better production, and songs which feature actual structures rather than a barrage of generic, if enthusiastically played, Thrash riffs exploding at a zillion miles an hour.

Opener ‘Malefactor’ heads the charge, and is quickly followed by the likes of ‘Hellbound’, ‘Vulture’, ‘Rattenkrieg’, ‘Iron Clad Exiles’, ‘Gangrene’, and ‘Temple of the Iron Skull’. All prime examples of subtlety-free, skull-bashing metal, all rounded off with a rasping cover of ‘World War 2’ by English Dogs.

So, grab a beer and a pump action shotgun, stick on a sleeveless denim patch jacket, a bullet belt and a pair of shades, and party like it’s a 1984 low budget Mad Max knock-off movie.

8.0/10

GARY ALCOCK