My knowledge of the Israeli Metal scene is quite limited, to be perfectly honest with you… and from the top of my head I can only name seven bands that I’m more or less aware of: SALEM, ORPHANED LAND, MELECHESH (nowadays located in the Netherlands), BISHOP OF HEXEN, NAIL WITHIN, DAGOR DAGORATH and ENOCHIAN KEY (and I wouldn’t even say that I really LISTENED to all of them)… Well, thanks to Sergei of Evil’s Best zine / Israhellbanger I can add another name to that list now: HANGMAN! The band got together back in 2002, released two very impressive demo tapes and their debut full length album “Thrash Onslaught” was even supposed to come out on Germany’s Witches Brew… But unfortunately that never turned into reality as the band decided to throw in the towel shortly before it could finally happen. Of course you could easily argue about the choice of their moniker (which to me simply sucked), but musically this five piece definitely delivered a very impressive sounding mixture of various forms of raw old school Thrash Metal. While their earlier stuff musically reminds me a bit of SEPULTURA’s “Morbid Visions” / “Schizophrenia” era (with a vocal delivery that is extremely close to the one of Jeff Becerra on POSSESSED’s “Beyond The Gates” album), they later obviously became more obsessed by old German Thrash as well as the more violent American acts of the early to mid 80s. Great stuff for sure! Diabolical Conquest webzine once summed it up pretty good, when they described HANGMAN’s style as “reckless, savage, ruthless, violent, utterly disdainful of established conventions of speed and volume.” This tape release here is a compilation of all the stuff that HANGMAN ever recorded throughout their rather shortlived career, so it is a good opportunity to check out this great band, if you weren’t aware of them before (like me)! Side “Thrash” features the 5 tracks from their 2003 debut demo “Sinners Of Sodom”, while side “Metal” has the 3 tracks off the 2005 demo “Thrash From The Dead” on offer (both demos originally were released on CD only, so this is actually the first time they get released on tape), enhanced with the band’s contribution to the “Thrash Metal Blitzkrieg Vol.II” split 7″ EP, the VENOM cover ‘Raise The Dead’ (original mix, with better sound quality than on the “Gods Of Goats” VENOM tribute CD by Metalrulez Productions) and a cool cover of DARK ANGEL’s ‘We Have Arrived’ (recorded live in Jerusalem on October 17, 2005 and never released before). Each tape comes on a pro-printed cassette, the front-cover features great artwork and inside you’ll get individual live pics of the members (from 2003 and 2006), as well as all the covers and info to their releases. All copies furthermore include an additional lyric-sheet and a free 1″ HANGMAN logo pin. Value for money for sure, so if you consider yourself a fan of classic Thrash Metal the violent way, you are really advised to invest 4 Euro / 6$ here. Available from www.israhellbanger.com.