The Thrash metal market is pretty damn crowded at the minute. You’ve got a seemingly endless conveyor of new young thrashers coming out of all corners of the globe paying their tributes to a golden era of music and occasionally making it their own. At the same time the originators of the genre are as popular as they’ve ever been. The ‘Big 4’ reunions were massive news and veterans like Testament are still releasing incendiary thrash albums to this day.

Hatchet are from the ‘New Thrash’ category and seemingly have it all to do to stand out from the crowd. One way to do this is to have a wicked album to flog! This coupled with their Bay Area upbringing demands that Hatchet should not be ignored.

‘Dawn of the End’ takes a traditional slant on Thrash. It has a very timeless sound that can’t really be pinned down to an era. It could come from 1983 or 2013, you just can’t tell. The thrash riffs and solos are present and correct; the songs about war, death and general thrash subject matter are there and Julz’s vocals are demented and as eye-popping as thrash gets.

The song structures take a traditional route too with ‘Fall from Grace’ boasting a gang-chanted chorus line followed by miles of twiddly guitars. The title track is a stand out and ‘Vanishing Point’ is an all-out bangover inducer.

Hatchet have put together a mighty fine selection of traditional tracks for ‘Dawn of the End’. They appear to have the ability and the enthusiasm to take their thrash out to the masses this year. You can’t really get away from the fact that there’s not too much originality here but that’s not the idea with thrash really; it hasn’t evolved in 30 years and it doesn’t look likely to anytime soon. Thrash till DEATH!

7/10

Rob W