MUTANT is a band that most of the time has sat on the outskirts of greatness. Never truly capitalizing on opportunities that come their way, MUTANT is often a band that you could easily forget about but once you see them live the feeling is infectious and stays with you for weeks. While they released an EP a few years ago (Wreck Your Neck EP) to a very small batch of people, fans and press alike have been begging for something more substantial; a release that will put all of the live classics onto a CD so we can listen to the future of Thrash Metal in the comfort of our own homes... well this isn't the full release we were hoping for, but its sure as hell worth the wait!

The Laserdrome is four songs of futuristic Speed Metal from the past in the band's own words, and I won't agree more. The opening track Scrap Brain Zone is all you need to hear to get the adrenaline pumping; it's an absolute storming track that is full of clever vocal hooks and simply awesome riffs that put every other band in the Thrash revival to shame. Again the second track Laserdrome is full of speedy, technical riffs that show off the huge amount of skill and passion the four guys have.

The third track on the EP, Turbo, Hyper, Ultra, Mega, Power! (or THUMP in brief) is my personal favorite; it melds fast Speed Metal riffs into Trash Metal structure. The riffs are brilliant, each one leading to another that is screaming at you to start banging your head or jump into the nearest mosh-pit...  THUMP has great lyrics that are both clever and entertaining (as all MUTANT songs tend to be) and the whole thing is engineered for a crowd to sing along. Oh, and as a side note -I won't ruin it for you- but during the solo there is a little something special, it can only be described as a 'joy-riff', listen to it and you will know what I mean.

The closing track is the crowd favorite The Rauncher; this one doesn't take a direct speed approach but instead builds up a huge anticipation through the riffs as they progressively get faster before exploding into pleasingly awesome choruses. Again The Rauncher has an amazing joy-riff through the end passage that upon hearing it will bring a big smile to your face and you will want to do nothing except dance along, but -again- you need to be listening to this to believe me!

Production overall is great, it almost does actually sound like it has come from the future, with everything sounding crisp as well as retaining the raw attitude of the music. Tom's vocals sound devastatingly great, sounding raspy -yet concise- they are just very intense. Tom has managed to keep a British tone throughout his singing which makes a nice change from all the British singer James Hetfield-wannabes out there.  MUTANT sounds like nothing you have heard before; they aren't easily comparable to anything from the 80's and certainly nothing from the current revival. It's taken 4 years but finally we are starting to see some real gems appearing in a genre that the mainstream press had all but left for dead just last year.

How can this improve? Well a re-recording of Psycho Surgery (from the Wreck Your Neck EP) would have been nice, as would the inclusion of live classic Zombie Holocaust... in fact a full length album would be superb, as this is just a 4 track EP/demo I wont give it a rating, but if MUTANT released a full album of this quality it would be receiving 10/10, because quite simply this four track EP is some of the best Thrash I have heard in years!
This is the future of Thrash so keep your eyes and ears firmly placed in their direction.