If anyone ever tries to tell me that true Thrash is dead, I'm going to have a copy of the album "Intemperance" by Chilean troupe DEMONIAC ready just so I can prove to them how wrong they are. This album is so good and so innovative when it comes to representing an old style and imbedding it full of excitingly new elements, that it wouldn't surprise me at all if I came to find it on many (if not all) of the Top 10 Metal albums of 2017 lists. I would personally recommend this one to fans of THE CRUCIFIER, SLAYER, KREATOR or SADUS without even the slightest hint of hesitation.

As one hits 'play', they are instantly slapped across the face by the furious power contained within the opening track, "The Unacceptable Truth". With its hammering drums, bass playing that utilizes the entire fretboard from top to bottom, and demonic vocals, this track opens the door to what becomes an utter masterpiece of raging Thrash Metal. Oh, did I forget to mention the guitar work? Well, all I can come up with as far as that's concerned is, "Holy riffing, Batman!"

Track three is an instrumental, and it's quite the achievement in all of its endeavours. The song in question, "Cheating Destiny", opens with a very apparent tip of the hat to classical music, only to smash down the doors of Hell, leaving a gaping hole that belches out a nonstop flurry of fire and hate. The bass line is dark, yet playful, allowing the blurringly fast tremolo picking and screaming harmonics of the lead guitar to soar over it like a harpy whose large shadow engulfs the many headstones in a lonely graveyard during the midnight hours.

The record chugs forward like a bullet train on methamphetamines, piercing your mind with its very essence verse after verse, cymbal after cymbal, solo after solo, absolutely crushing everything in its path. Track six, "Death Comes", is simply a song that I didn't want to end; a gripping and twisted masterwork in which every instrument shines. The vocals are wicked, bordering on more of a Black Metal style than Thrash, yet this only serves to add to the intensity of the tune, rather than detract from it. The virulent ferocity of DEMONIAC's "Intemperance", combined with its fantastic song compositions, and ability take everything good about the sound that spawned it and create a newer, stronger beast out of it, shows us in six compact tracks why they are so important in the Metal scene as a whole. The reason is elementary: DEMONIAC have perfected a genre that was already thought to have reached its apex in 1989. These guys are true masters of Metal!

After a short interlude entitled "Timeless Mind" - which is very reminiscent of "Feathers Fell" by DISSECTION, the album crashes to its nadir with the awe-inspiring opus "Forging Our Sorrow". I could bore you here with yet more adjectives and adverbs describing this epic tome of Thrash Metal, but I think that I've made my point enough with my previous descriptions and illuminations. The bottom line is that this is one that I am not going to put back on the proverbial shelf any time soon. Finding a Thrash record of this calibre is a hard task indeed. I suggest to all of you who haven't yet had a chance to hear "Intemperance" to go out and buy this record; you will not be let down - and if you don't, you might just be missing out on that one masterpiece you've been searching for all these long years...