By Monk
I first came across Dublin thrashers right on the cusp of the Covidications which threw the Überverse into chaos back in March 2020, when they were the last band to play a Belfast stage before the world went into the enforced lockdown that dominated, and ruined, our lives for the next 18 months or so… Now, more than three years later, they have finally gotten around to releasing their debut album – and it is definitely a case of them setting the ‘Switch To Reset’ with this declarative eight song collection.
Way back on that infamous night in our favourite local venue, I was well impressed by the way in which the quartet delivered their brand of old school thrash: it was as taut as you could want, tight and aggressive without being boldly so, their massive crescendos of sound coupled with fierce some riffs played faster than Jonny Rea with the finishing line in sight. It was manic, fast and unrelenting in its pace. And those same adjectives and descriptives can definitely, and defiantly, be applied to this highly confident debut, which has been more than worth the long wait for it to be unleashed on the unsuspecting metal population.
Right from the opening bar of the title track to the dying embers of ‘Who Goes There?’ this is a non-stop thrash party guaranteed to get your hair flailing and neck snapping as the band brazenly and boldly set about the business in hand, and doing so with aplomb, verve and vigour. They’ve very obviously closely studied their generic predecessors, and spent plenty of time honing their craft to virtual perfection, with an attention to detail, especially in terms of building atmospherics and combining light and shade, that many of their contemporaries overlook. Hell, they even throw in an epic, Metallica-challenging grandiose instrumental right in the middle of the damn thing \m/
Crossfire play classic thrash. It’s as pure and simple as that. I do not need to elaborate any further than that. And while the aptly titled ‘Switch To Reset’ may not be a classic album (although it will be a few years before it can even think about looking sideways at such an epithet) it is a bold, confident and strident exemplar of the genre and truly worthy of a place in any self-respecting thrashheads’ collection.
- ‘Switch To Reset’ is released tomorrow (Friday 15 December).
- Crossfire play Fibber Magee’s in Dublin on Saturday (16 December), with support from Psykosis, Acid Age and Snowblind.
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