It’s +28 Celsius outside at 19 o’clock – and here I am tightly sitting next to my laptop, checking through a pile of discs that some people have mercifully sent out for me for reviews. Hmm, perhaps I could spend my Sunday night even a worse way although the weather is really tempting me to go outside, to do something else but listening to some music through my cheap DANTAX player. Oh well, life’s full of certain decisions, and I have just decided to spend my bloody Sunday evening this way: checking out some new stuff that I have gotten. ARATIC is a young Finnish Thrash Metal outfit that is mercilessly storming forth all guns blazing. Yep, Thrash Metal this certainly is – and even having a nice old school tinged sound wrapped a bit around it, and I even have to admit that I quite like what I am hearing. The band has clearly been baptized by both the European as well as American school of crispy and heavy Thrash, having certainly been influenced by such names as DESTRUCTION and SLAYER but there’s even more in them than your mandatory SLAYERS and DESTRUCTIONs for sure. The band can absolutely thrash – there’s even no question about that but I am afraid to say that for the most part ARATIC’s Thrash Metal turns out to be teeny-weeny faceless and monotone for my picky taste, lacking the final punch in order to really stand out for its own good, I think. I am not saying it’s all bad and THAT boring at all – and while sounding ‘just’ average Thrash (which is still pretty good in my books) when it especially comes down to old school Thrash, a lot of good can still happen to them in the future when given some certain amount of time for them. Hopefully ARATIC will be like an old wine on their next releases: it can only get better from here. Still, feel free to check them out at: www.facebook.com/araticthrash, label: www.violentjourneyrecords.com