It is never too late to be step out of the box in order to come up with something that would intentionally stray away from the path of the righteous. So close to the end of the 80s, with the decline of the western civilization already underway, yet another slightly different outing of Thrash Metal was becoming evident. The Californian Thrash Metal band, VISITOR, was starting to get recognition with two sets of demos between 1992 to 1993. However, their efforts became even more official with the release of their debut, and only, studio album, "Visitor". Never been signed, these guys were able to catch the ears and attention of their local scene, however, similar to a vast number of stories of one timers, VISITOR didn't last that long to tell any more tales. Thanks to Divebomb Records, the self-titled album was remastered and reissued after being sought for years.

Of course that VISITOR were no SADUS or ATHEIST that broke off boundaries, nonetheless, conjuring various of aspects that made ANNIHILATOR / SANCTUARY / early ANTHRAX / HEATHEN tick to demonstrate their wildest of forms, contributed to the fact that the Californians went out of their way with their songwriting. Being adventurous in their nature, at least from what I could comprehend from their material, gave VISITOR a one chunk of advantage over other newcomer bands, and veterans, of their age. With an unknown, yet highly talented, musicians, which could have been regarded as one of the prolific lineups in Metal given the chance, Thrash Metal was challenged. The band's lead guitarist, Rob Skyler, for instance turned out to be a hell of a shredder, erupting with insane solos while his frontman, E.K. Wright, could have easily enrolled as one of ANNIHILATOR's vocalists.

Largely the songwriting was a chip above the usual riff based Thrash Metal outputs. Though the addiction towards hard on the meat riffages is clear-cut, the songs' arrangements that somewhat seeked to turn over tables, did their magic. The commanding presence of Wright at the front, along with the straightforward attitude of the music, presented a kind of whack job numbers that were immensely top notch. "America's Demise", portraying the coming demise of the American entity, surged into a chaotic realm with toughness and a headbanging madness. "Dreams" went level up with its insanity, a simply overlooked ANNIHILATOR oriented tuned that built itself well to burst out of the asylum with a destructive nature of a disturbed mind. "Beast Within", a possession or bipolar, it didn't really matter to me, its arrangement is genius, a tune that pretty much the face of early 90s Thrash Metal, a bit of ANTHRAX's "Persistence of Time" with whatever happened to the US Thrash Metal scene before nearly crumbling. I can also recommend on the melodic "Visitör", chugging "Innocent (Until Proven Guilty)" and another ANTHRAX influenced "Johnny Law".

VISITOR threw away to their Metal scene a kind of diversity and freshness that was well needed, an additional breath of life to one of Metal's primal subgenres. This album is to be celebrated as it was decades ago. Be sure to do that with a copy.