Five years is an eternity for a band that had only just begun to reap the rewards of long, stubborn hard work. After “Give Us Life”, Berlin’s SPACE CHASER seemed ready to make the decisive leap, but line-up changes and the passing of time threatened to dampen the momentum. With “Razorblade Bay”, their fourth album, the Germans prove instead that the engine never stopped running: it simply took the time it needed to be rebuilt. The most obvious change concerns the vocals. With Siegfried Rudzynski gone, guitarist Leo Schacht has stepped up to the microphone, with no intention whatsoever of imitating his predecessor. His voice is more direct and abrasive and this very choice ends up shifting the band’s center of gravity toward a dirtier, more immediate territory. Behind him, Martin Hochsattel on guitar, Sebastian Kerlikowski on bass and Matthias Scheuerer on drums form a tight unit that never lets up. Overseeing the band in the studio is Andy Brings, a name that needs no introduction among devotees of Teutonic Thrash, given his past with SODOM. His touch is noticeable: the production is dry and gritty, it lets the guitars breathe without polishing them too much, and it captures the sense of urgency a record like this demands. Nothing sounds glossy, but nothing sounds careless either. The starting point is clear: in 2026, SPACE CHASER are carrying forward the tradition of German Thrash, built on razor-sharp riffs and a certain no-frills brutality, but they do it with freshness and personality. The band doesn’t simply trace the classic blueprint; on several occasions they break away from it, nodding to Speed Metal and Crossover. The result is a hybrid in which Punk fury coexists with very personal melodic touches, especially in the choruses and solos, giving the songs a recognizable identity even in their most furious moments. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is the range of influences. On one hand you can sense the great classics, from the giants of the home scene to the American school the band has always openly loved; on the other, there are clear nods to modern-era bands such as GAMA BOMB and MUNICIPAL WASTE. It’s from the latter that SPACE CHASER seem to have picked up their tongue-in-cheek attitude, the fist-in-the-air gang choruses and a lightness that makes the album fun to listen to without taking any weight away from the riffs. The tracklist flies by: ten songs in just over half an hour, with tracks that rarely exceed four minutes. The record opens and closes with the title track, revisited at the end as a reprise, and this framing gives the whole thing the cohesion of a single, extended assault rather than a mere collection of songs. The result is an album you listen to in one go and that immediately makes you want to start it all over again. Lyrically, the band stays true to its science fiction imagery, but approaches it from its most horrific and pulpy side: ravenous space creatures and B-movie scenarios, perfectly in tune with the energy of the music. “Razorblade Bay” is a short, compact record with no filler, one that confirms SPACE CHASER as one of the liveliest acts in today’s European Thrash scene: respectful of their roots, but with no intention whatsoever of being held prisoner by them. Go check them here www.facebook.com/spacechaserband and the label here www.facebook.com/testimonyrecords