It has long been thought that time travel is a feat that mankind will never possess the technology to accomplish. I am here to tell you, everyone is intensely wrong. It turns out the secret for time travel has been waiting in Madrid Spain, with HOLYCIDE, and their debut EP release, "Toxic Mutation". The band was originally just a side project meant to go no further than the garage. A means of fun for some good friends. Thanks to some pretty lucky twists of fate, almost a decade after the bands genesis, HOLYCIDE is helping us get back to what was possibly the best time to be a metalhead. A time when denim ruled and vests were adorned with what was then "hot off the press" patches from TESTAMENT, EXODUS, and SLAYER. For those of you younger, or less educated readers out there, I'm talking of course about the 80's.

Musically, 80's Thrash was known for and made its name on speed and high intensity. HOLYCIDE, stay completely true to this benchmark. I can think of no better example of this than on their smash hit, "Life Turned To Dust". From the beginning to the bitter end, your hair will be blown back, (provided of course you still have hair), by the white knuckle head-rush that is the guitar playing of Miguel Barez and Salva Esteban. The pair make a killer team at the core of each individual song. The soloing however, seems to borrow a little too heavily from Kirk Hammett's tones and structuring. But when you mix that with some Dave Mustaine level technicality like these boys do, its a sin that is easily forgiven. At one point during the solo in "Life After Dust", there is a progressive tremolo scale that I swear had me checking to see if my eyebrows had in fact, been melted away.

The album also features some thunderous bass which is a rare thing with modern Thrash bands. That's not to say that other Thrash bass players are terrible, I just rather enjoyed being able to actually hear what is being played. When you pair this with the mad axe playing, and true to form Thrash drumming, It's hard to deny this album the respect it deserves. In all honesty, the only criticism I have is on the vocal end. At points the vocals seem to be flatter than my ear would like them to be and a tad more power wouldn't hurt.

So, if you're ready for a trip back to the dawn of some of the best music to ever be played, I highly recommend picking up HOLYCIDE's debut, "Toxic Mutations". And don't worry, your eyebrow's will grow back.