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Genre: thrash metal

Brace yourself for an all out superharged destructive thrash attack in the form of the Swedish band Invasion's debut album "...And So It Begins".

From beginning to end, the listener is pounded with thrash aesthetics in the form of fierce riffs and fast drums. Upping the aggression a notch, Invasion are among those thrash metal bands who have started to incorporate blastbeats into their sound, as heard in 'Dystopia Arise', for instance. To complete the picture, some tracks also feature death-thrash elements, such as '50 Megatons Later' while 'Incoming' features some more crossover-like elements. Drawing primarily on old school thrash metal with a considerable influence from the masters in Testament and Dark Angel, Invasion embrace their Swedish inheritance by including some of the harshest elements from melodeath (without this album sounding like melodeath at all).

The production is extremely good and supports the already impeccable performance, which reflects are high level of musicianship. Nodding towards Teutonic thrash, Andreas Tömte's vocals have the same screechy quality as heard on Kreator and Destruction's classics.

"...And So It Begins" is a fine thrash metal album, and fans of the genre should rush out and buy it now!

Kev Rowland Formed in 2006 by Kalle Sundin (guitar – also plays bass in Gehenna) and Andreas Tömte (bass/vocals), they discovered drummer Martin “Metal” Svensson at the studio they were going to use for demoes as he was the sound engineer. They got their first demo out in 2008, but it took another three years for them to record their debut album which has only now seen the light of day some two years after that. When I started listening to this for the first time a huge smile came across my face as this is thrash metal, nothing more or less, and doesn’t pretend to be any different to that. No move to bringing in different elements from other genres, this is all about put your head down and see you at the end. I would have liked to have a better sound from the snare drum, but that’s really the only niggle for me with this. It is all about losing that dandruff and getting hot and bruised in the mosh, with tight guitars and bass combining with some powerful double bass drumming.

There are going to be some who say that this isn’t moving the genre any further on from what it was more than 20 years ago, but that is fine and dandy with me. This is thrash metal, play it loud and proud as they bring in influences such as Kreator, and Sodom and the mighty Slayer to create a metallic monster. www.puresteel-records.com