It’s been a good while since I’ve stumbled across a new interesting Thrash release, though I had my hopes this would be such, as the last track on this album caught my eyes, a cover version of my favorite DARK ANGEL track ‘Merciless Death’, a track so awesome that it is featured on both DARK ANGEL’s debut album "We Have Arrived" and the sophomore "Darkness Descends". As I am writing this review I know who is in the band, though it took me more than 10 listens to get some background info about what I was listening to. Musically we are getting a good dose late 80s early 90s American West Coast Thrash Metal with a good dose of ditto European, think EXODUS, DARK ANGEL, KREATOR, VIO-LENCE and bands in that vein, what’s not to like, if that is done right? And this is, actually so well that I thought it was a new fierce band from the Bay Area showing some teeth and aggression. That wasn’t the case, HOLYCIDE hails from Spain and is lead by some old geezers, even though there are a couple of youngans involved. I wouldn’t in a 1000 years have guessed, that guttural growl monster per excellence Dave Rotten, could scream as he does, on this album, damn. If you like your Thrash in the vein of the bands mentioned so far, HOLYCIDE is a band to check out, nostalgic, intense and sounding just as music as this should. This is not about re-inventing anything, this is about love to the genre, and that can be heard, the 25 minutes on this recording flies by, and so does the imaginary long hair on my head, as I headbang along. And then we have that cover version of DARK ANGEL’s ‘Merciless Death’, does that sound right? Hell yeah, it sounds just as it should, like a DARK ANGEL! HOLYCIDE has arrived! www.facebook.com/holycide, www.xtreemmusic.com