New York has produced some legendary bands over the years and there is no need to introduce the likes of MANOWAR, ANTHRAX, NUCLEAR ASSAULT, OVERKILL, and few others. EGOKILL seems to be one of those Thrash Metal band who knows what they are doing. These guys have been around since 2006 and have mysteriously managed to stay underground despite their catchy music.

The album is an out and out riff based hands-up fists-pounding anthemic Thrash attack and gives a feeling of a bunch of fireballs thrown at your face for continuously 26 and half minutes of the album. If you are a fan of riff based thrash metal bands like ARTILLERY, CORONER, RAZOR, DIAMOND PLATE, EVIL INVASION, ONSLAUGHT – EGOKILL will not disappoint you. Unlike many other bands which give a sense of monotony and predictability with the same old repeated riffs, EGOKILL creates its own path while still staying to its roots. The vocals of Brian Schermerhorn here reminds me of Bobby Blitz of OVERKILL and the backing vocals, again done by Brian Schermerhorn himself, too blends well with the music and creates that great anthemic feel to the songs. And add to that the typical Thrash Metal blast beats drumming and the bass jell nicely into the music. The guitars have a Groovy / Thrash feel to it, though 2 of the songs, "Withstand Daybreak" and the "Christ Anxiety" have more Punk elements involved in them. The lyrics deal with inner conflicts and also "Crossfaced" talks about the WWE Canadian wrestler Chris Benoit and his murder-suicide real life drama. It is interesting to note that "845!" is named after the band's town area code! So you know the lyrics are quite diverse and are pleasant refreshment from the regular angry gore and brutal lyrics that are mostly brought out today, not that anything is wrong with them, but it does get monotonous at some stage. "Welcome To The Violence" is my personal favorite as it brings out some of the best catchy riffs I have heard in the recent times. The production of the album as a whole is great and does not have any glitches and stays modern while allowing the vocals to still sound raw.

It's beyond me how a band of such a caliber even after releasing so much material (3 Albums before this) has remained unknown to the large Metal fans and has managed to be underground.

Does EGOKILL bring anything new to the table? Not completely. The axe work sounds quite similar and I am afraid it may not appeal to everybody other than the die-hard Thrash fans as the album is bound to bring in comparisons while listening to it, but the vocals ,though similar to that of Bobby, adds a whole new dimension to the music. So while its nothing ground breaking, I will still dig this album for its sheer catchiness and I think the band needs to do more promotion on the internet, and through shows. Frankly I haven't listened to any of their previous albums and I find it quite difficult to find them on the internet as well, so if the these guys from Garnerville, NY located in Rockland County put more effort in making its presence felt on the internet they will do a lot of good for themselves because I can clearly see lots of "not-so-good" bands get lots of internet presence due to their sheer marketing efforts. It remains to be seen if these boys will bring out consistent new material without sounding monotonous. Hope so!!