This is a crude and jagged ride through the blackest pits of the late 80s. Those who wished to divert Thrash Metal from its untamed route and into a darkened capitulation had their way and succeeded on their morbid doing and created a Black/Thrash monsters. Before the corpse paints, the extremity began with POSSESSED, that began in the mid 80s to blacken the Thrash scene, SODOM were already there with their twisted grimy speed so as SEPULTURA were from hellish South America.

The rough German dozer of HELLISH CROSSFIRE, a drop from a large collection of band that chiseled their pennants the mark of old school Metal, return to damnation four years after their debut album "Slaves Of The Burning Pentagram" with a new message from the hot down under, "Bloodrust Scythe". As most of those newcomer bands, the song remains the same. The undeniable speedy rhythms, horrendous & deathly vocals, a bit sloppy solos, some kill shots of Heavy Metal unified by a rudimentary production. Basically, HELLISH CROSSFIRE re-created their favourite era. Don't expect any kind of a genius work out of these guys. Most of their stuff is rather fast and simple with only a few signatures of inventiveness, moreover, and to the negative side, HELLISH CROSSFIRE had their way of being repetitive from time to time as they enchained the same patterns over and over.

Nevertheless, like several bands of the sub-genre, don't count out those guys yet. "Bloodrust Scythe" has its own mix of Black/Thrash meets Heavy Metal. In addition, there are quite good attractive moments of headbanging both in mid and fast tempos. HELLISH CROSSFIRE might have decided to choose a somewhat banal path, yet, they added traditional Metal as a packet of diversion. That is the reason that they have something to work with for the rest of the way. To mesmerize you a bit take a listen to "Black Injection", "...Of Slaying Grounds", "At The Edge Of Total Chaos" & "Too Tough To Die".

For HELLISH CROSSFIRE it is rather sad that this kind of old Black/Thrash didn't take place in the Metal scene as a strong contender. Today its status is no better as it kept underground.