If you expect music to develop and evolve over time, INFRARED aren't the band for you. This is a band rooted firmly in the past, creating brash and blisteringly quick Thrash Metal as if it were still the 1980s. With their 4 original tracks, and a great cover of IRON MAIDEN's "Wrathchild", INFRARED have birthed an incredibly enjoyable EP.  However, their sheer reverence of the past does mean that this album unfortunately refuses to stick in the mind. They are so reminiscent of better bands, that the listener is left wanting to spin classic records, rather than indulging in this EP again.

Starting with a literal fart, INFRARED make it instantly clear that this EP is all about having fun, rather than making artistic leaps. In come pounding bass guitar riffs, reinforced by drums with an almost militaristic march, replacing riff with riff with riff. Opening track "Meet My Standards" and, personal favorite, "One Mouth Two Faces" are abound with great riffs, that could get even the most cynical metalhead head banging in ecstasy. However these songs, the latter particularly, are victims of this EP's main crux: songwriting. This an EP of amazing riffs, but mediocre songs. Individually riffs groove, rock, pound and thrill as much as any other Thrash band, but often these riffs just feel underdeveloped or stitched together. The chorus of "One Mouth Two Faces" for example has an incredibly uncomfortable switch in pace. The puncture wounds caused by sutures can still be seen as two separate, great ideas, have been bound forcefully together.

"Hate Today Despise Tomorrow" is another example of this, with a spectacular opening riff that proceeds for a minute only to be completely forgotten for an entirely separate idea to take its place. This EP genuinely has enough ideas in it for an entire album, but songs are seemingly rushed and chained together, when they truly need more space and time to develop on their own. In possibly INFRARED's most foolish decision, the EP ends with a great, if only functional, cover of IRON MAIDEN's "Wrathchild". I say foolishly, because the spectacular songwriting of IRON MAIDEN only makes these stitched together, fetal ideas all the more apparent. The juxtaposition of MAIDEN vs INFRARED is only going to end poorly for the Canadian Thrashers.

If you are a Thrash fan through and through, you are bound to get a hell of a lot of enjoyment from this solid release. Those looking for perfection of the next evolutionary stage of Thrash however, will be left disappointed. There is some great talent on display here (guitarist KIRK GIDLEY in particular should be praised), but some songwriting finesse is needed. In this 26 minutes of mix-matched frantic riffing, there is the possibility for a well thought out, fantastic album. This record however is a rough, yet very enjoyable display of potential.

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