Unholy Majesty

Margate is a sleepy town on England's East coast. If it sounds remotely familiar, it isn't because you've been there, but because T.S. Eliot included it in his tour de force poem, "The Waste Land." Eliot wrote part of his poem there while in the midst of a nervous breakdown and in the poem, Margate is a lonely place where an evanescent speaker can find no meaning in the world, connecting "Nothing with nothing." Once you'd heard Unholy Majesty, you'll have an equally bleak view of Margate, the band's hometown, but another reason to remember it. With their new self-titled seven-inch, Unholy Majesty break free of contemporary thrash and look to the genre's roots; with three short songs, the EP would be perfectly at home with the heavy bands you were listening to in 1987, and that's a big compliment in my book. "Age of Affliction" starts slow and slovenly, only to turn into classic thrash; dripping with Reign in Blood-era solos and palm muting that could sever a hand, this track is the EP's standout. This isn't to downplay "Hyperborean" or "The Owl and the Serpent," both of which show a great group in the making, but you'll have trouble turning off, or recovering from, "Age of Affliction." With metal this good, maybe things are starting to look up in Margate.