Review by Felix on February 25, 2025.

Hirax started in 1984 and this alone makes some people believe that they belong to the battalion of influential thrash pioneers. I am not able to share this point of view, although the band has written a few cool titles such as "Blitzkrieg Air Attack" or "Lightning Thunder", but all in all they always wasted their potential or they had none at all. Maybe some of their miniature songs had no sufficient substance, but even those which were promising mostly ended after 75 seconds. Okay, I paint the picture more drastic than it really was, but I hope you know what I mean.

Compared with Hate, Fear And Power, the new "full-length" (hahaha, just a joke) delivers the epic playtime of almost 22 minutes. Hirax still try to bring the majority of their tracks to an end before they have the smallest possibility to develop any kind of individuality and strength. Katon's voice is still a trademark, but his rather unusual style does not fascinate me. Sometimes he intends to deliver something remote similar to a vocal line, sometimes he sounds like a hardcore shouter. But okay, his performance doesn't completely suck and Hirax without him is like Hirax without Hirax. Moreover, I appreciate his stamina and his metal credibility, but that's it. The voice of Mr. de Pena fills the centre of the production, the guitars are sidelined. Thank God that they can show their force during the instrumental sections. But even there we have to face a problem, because the solos are terribly meaningless. The one of "Drill Into The Brain" with a hand-stopped length of 2,5 seconds appears as an idiotic burlesque. By contrast, some sharp, ominous and promising riffs and lines appear as well. But I will come to the positive sides later. Right now, I need to say that I will never understand the value – is there one at all? – of these Hirax songs which are pressed into their less than two minutes corset. Of course, thrash grenades can be short, among other things due to a few punk roots of the genre, but this should never be the entire concept of the musical offering.

Fortunately Hirax show that they can swim in songs like "Armageddon". It has this devilish high-velocity element that has made the band great (well, more or less great), a lot of energy and dynamic. But the guys drown in tracks like "Drowned Bodies" (an intended self-irony can be excluded), where a terrible solo meets rasping mid-paced guitars we have heard a million times before. Anyway, the title track is symptomatic for the tragedy of the band. A good start catches my attention, but after the mid-paced intro the song is almost already over and a worthless solo, a "Reign in Blood" solo in bad and short, ruins the last seconds. By the way, speaking of Slayer's last masterpiece, a break in "Relentless" pays tribute to this milestone, but that's rather charming than something I have to criticize. The same applies for the copying of the intro of "Hell Awaits" in "Revenant". Much worse is the miserable vocal line at the beginning. Perhaps this is a reminiscence to a very bad Helstar track, who knows?

In a nutshell, this is a release I could live very well without. And I don't understand why the band released an EP with four of the songs of the album in advance. Even if the versions should slightly differ from each other, this makes no sense from my conservative point of view. However, the two songs at the end deliver a few reasons why Hirax still have the right of existence. They are consistent and powerful (and I try to ignore Katon's vocals). Nevertheless, I cannot imagine that Hirax appeal to a broad audience in the late autumn of their career.

Rating: 5 out of 10