Progressive / Thrash Metal band REACTION, from Italy, has just recently released their debut album and first official release, entitled "Kill The Parasite", the band is formulating a sound that should see them through to success.

Opening up with an atmospheric "Intro" that crashes into a bass filled Heavy / Thrash groove filled with tension before giving way to the first song proper, "Behind Your Mask", with its powerful opening riff and yet more heavy bass guitar. This is an awesome track to get you into the band, with a raucous and angry lead vocal full of spite; an old school style with a hard modern edge. This, amongst others, is also quite long compared to the typical thrash track; however it's pulled off well, with lots of twisting riffs and variety on show.

As you would expect from a band claiming to have progressive roots, there is a lot going on in this album's 51 minute running time. From the more straight up thrash of "Betray The Time", with its speedy riffing and strong chorus (and awesome tapping bass solo) to the more experimental sounds of "Cage Of Freedom" with its more meandering structure and skilled clean guitar playing. The band has a whole range of sounds and ideas on show, but what makes them stand out from the Prog / Thrash crowd is their ability to do all of this naturally, and keeping their own style throughout, and this probably helped by their 8 years of playing together as a band. A standout track from the album is definitely "Human Race" with its awesome melodic lead line and powerful overall feel.

The production is quite raw but doesn't suffer too much for it, it's plenty heavy and the bass is really nice and loud which is fantastic as the bass playing is really quite good on this album. However the album may not be quite polished enough for everyone's tastes, but as far as debut albums from unsigned bands go I would say it's really quite good, and the songwriting really shines through here.

Overall, this is a really strong release, with plenty to offer fans of either progressive, thrash or both, without potentially boring either audience. Considering this band is unsigned, they really have a lot to offer and should definitely be moving onwards and getting some attention with the release of this album.