Canadian hard partying, hard living Thrashers FATALITY have released their second album, "Psychonaut", and it's just as fast paced and frantic as their first one. It's an impressive showing from the band, from start to finish.

Overall impressions are that it is a pretty solid album, starting strong with the in your face "Enter Purgatory", and finishing with one of the best instrumentals I've heard in a long time - "Thrashterpiece II". Most of the songs on here are over 5 minutes long, but it doesn't feel like a drag to listen to - they change their approach often enough that it keeps the listener interested. Now I'm not saying that they completely change their music style, but with all the different riffs and hooks, the music switched up enough to not get boring. The solos across this album are great, and the songs are structured really well. It's fast and frantic, but you wouldn't really expect anything else from a Thrash album, especially from this band. The production values are reasonable, considering they're an unsigned band, although it does sound a little bit muddy in parts.

The guitar playing on display here is brilliant, I've already mentioned the solos etc., but the way they play off of each other is great. Even the bass player isn't happy just to sit back on his laurels, he sounds keen to mix up his playing just as much as the rest of the band. Le Von's vocals are strong, and match the tone of the rest of the album, although at times he does go a little off key, but for the most part, his singing complements the rest of the instruments excellently. Even though FATALITY is a young band, and this is only their second album, they quite clearly know what they are doing, and that's a good thing to see in a band.

To sum up then, "Psychonaut" is a very solid, decent album, but it doesn't do anything exceptional. I think FATALITY have got a bright future ahead of them, and I look forward to hearing more from them.