Out of the snow covered mountains of Austria, where Franz Klammer learnt his trade of going downhill very fast on two pieces of wood, comes something equally as swift in the form of thrashmeisters, Insanity Alert. With a mission statement that consists of "thrash hard, smoke weed, drink beer, watch football and skate once in a while" this foursome certainly do their utmost to ensure that the first element of that creed is successfully addressed on this six-track release.
When you get song titles like "Glorious Thrash," "Blood Beach," "Straight Jacket Mosh," "Braincell Massacre," "Crucified By Zombies" and "Run To The Pit," then you basically get a good idea of what you're going to be faced with when slipping this disc into your player. And yes, that final track is basically a bastardized version of Iron Maiden's "Run To The Hills" with the great chorus "Run to the pit, mosh for your life."
Other outstanding lyrics were found in "Glorious Thrash" and these made me chuckle:
"Spit out by humanity, embraced by the devil,
We're taking this shit to a whole different level"
Musically this is screeching solos, huge guitar riffs and a battery assault of drums, all providing vocalist Heavy Kevy the chance to shriek his brains out in a massively effective way.
It would be easy to write this off as lacking any notable and/or worthy content, but this is thrash and when did that genre ever hold itself up as a paragon of deep thinking and social awareness?! Okay, some bands do (or did) display a conscience, look no further than What Happens Next?, but I'd put this more in the same basket as bands such as In Defence and Municipal Waste for the sheer energy, enthusiasm and at times, sheer ridiculousness, of the lyrics.
Whilst I've never been a metalhead and much of the thrash genre has passed me by, I find that this EP provides a highly entertaining 12 minutes, and I normally find myself hitting repeat once it finishes. The final track is, in itself, worthy of repeated plays and is guaranteed to put a massive grin on my face each timeâthey've done a good job here.
This is worth checking out and is free to download on Bandcamp.