Thrash Metal till you drop on the floor, dying from exhaustion; that's what ASSAULTER offers, coming from Australia - a land with great tradition in extreme and crazy bands. They started around 2004 and till now they had two demos out and a 7 single; now they are coming to seed death and destruction with their debut album, Salvation Like Destruction.
The first thing that caught my attention was their sound. The sound reminds me of a lot of releases from the beginning till the middle 80s, with a very natural production. They basically make you feel like you are inside a rehearsal room with the band practicing. The guitars have a thin, yet dirty 'fabric' and maybe they are losing in power or strength but they definitely win in catastrophic mania. This - combined with the leads that are like pillars of black smoke rising from a battlefield together with some  snarling, blacking vocals - provides a special image for this band. In many parts they reminded me a lot of DESTROYER 666 (something quite presumable since the basic composer here is Simon Berserker who was a former member) plus a lot of the works of the Swedish BEWITCHED.
Generally ASSAULTER does not rely upon speed in their songs. From the seven songs included only two are fast: Talon And Teeth and Proselytiser. The first one is a dynamite; during the pre-chorus and chorus you will meet a musical panic attack with very impressive leads, offering an epic atmosphere and - combined with the sound - looks like the picture of a world after a great disaster. Proselytiser is the most 'German'-based song, having a lot of DESTRUCTION and early SODOM influence. Being included in the second demo, Omnipotent is a thrashing bomb.
The great power of the Australians is egregious in the mid-tempo songs. The Axiom Star and Glory Alone are more than impressive and are making the big difference here in Salvation Like Destruction. Their riffing is totally neckbreaking, grabbing you and hitting you without mercy. Again a warlike, total doom-ish aura is present and if you include some CELTIC FROST elements the result is a bulldozer. This is also obvious in the most epic song, Between Gods And Men, that is almost pure Heavy Metal hiding so much power from behind that can melt your brains. This is one of the very first songs they ever wrote, included in the Proselytiser demo (out in 2005) and for one more time these lead phrases are apocalyptic. Some things from primal ROTTING CHRIST or ZEMIAL can be a good description, too.
Last, Awe Of Fire and Vengeance Whips (which was in the Omnipotent demo) are good but a level down in regards to the other songs. Salvation Like Destruction is an album that, from the beginning, caught me inside it but after some constant listening I am feeling like I am becoming more and more addicted to it. Another skull-crushing band is added in the list containing many others in the underground zone of Thrash with a more than respectable debut; an underground scene that seems like a boiling cauldron. And it's a shame that there are bands that reunite releasing completely uninspired and soulless albums with most Media just praising them for their glorious past, the same time that in the depths a plethora of such powerful hordes exists.
Ah, I almost forgot to mention that just a few days ago they also released the 'split' 7 single with the other lunatics, TRENCH HELL, with a brand new song, Beware The Wounded Beast, via the Iron Bonehead label. This track will be only in this 'split' disc.