Mongrel's Cross

Australian trio Mongrel's Cross lay down the blackened thrash goods with authority on their debut long-player. The seven songs threaten to test attention spans, with a total running time of 41 minutes, but the glory lies not in individual tunes. The glory lies in every raging, Sodom-on-Bathory riff, every Iommi-loving sludge/death march and all the cackling, satanic vocals. When "Rabid Inception" drops into a speedy, punk-ish double-time then picks up the pace to a classic Teutonic thrash gallop before dropping back into a mid-tempo stomp, it's hard to not get caught up in the infectiousness of it all. Ditto for "Hunters of the Born Again" and its slow, classic thrash instrumental section, which brings to mind Metallica more than any modern black thrash. But then it's straight into "Indulge the Temple," which brings to mind pure, raging sonic blasphemy.