Considering the Thrash movement's inception during the 1980's, it seems that there's no shortage of newer bands willing to throw down speedy tempos and tasty riffs in this genre. Germany's DEVILUSION in their brief 2 years as a band seem to have whipped together a very musically tight, semi-technical brand of Power/Thrash on their debut, self-titled 6 song EP. Looking at the music on surface level, expect a Melodic vocal delivery from Manos Fatsis that has a lot of James Hetfield and John Bush oriented qualities while the guitarists lay down a thick swath of meat and potatoes riffs, tight on the down picking while being very rhythmic at their style.

"Intruder" for a 2:53 song hits firmly in the mid-tempo anthem manner, Uwe Rudolph switching comfortably between straight ahead speed and groove parts while Patrick Lessmann and Sascha Kuss offer up a number of hook elements and a solid, exciting lead break full of shredding and bluesy finesse moments. There are a number of stop/ start movements in "Crown of Gold" that certainly epitomize the Bay Area early days, Manos giving a strong note holding performance during most of the verses- while "Tribes of Slaves" probably gives the listeners the most hair whipping moments, the main riff and building harmonies incessantly addictive. Production values are crystal clear, although I wish that the bass would gain a little edge in the mix.

Should it be really surprising that METALLICA becomes one of the major influences on DEVILUSION- given that the band close this EP with their rendition of "The Four Horsemen"? It's an acceptable cover, but I certainly would hope for an outside the box song the next time around. In the end, this quintet have a firm grasp on the mid-tempo Power/Thrash platform, it's only a matter of more seasoning and live performances for them to develop their own take on this well-revered genre.<