Black thrash bands tend to be a dime a dozen, and they're often fairly interchangeable. Enter Axe with their Autogeddon demo, a solid slab of blackness that just sounds honest and unpretentious. Not only do they bring their thrash with excellent raw sound, with true black metal spirit (especially in the vocals), the musicianship is excellent. Everything is properly tight and audible. These guys can play as well as look the part. I honestly place this band more in the black metal camp than the thrash camp just due to the seriously dark atmosphere this stuff has. It's less about style and more about ripping your head off. You can't listen to this and say it's not black as fuck. That said, the thrashier riffs do remind me a bit of Razor, and that's a good thing. They have a frenetic approach that most black thrash bands don't, a dark energy that suffuses their work, that certain intangible "something" we all crave in black metal. This is a truly exciting demo and I'll be quite interested to hear what they do next, whether EP or LP. I am sure it will be good. I hope they keep it raw.
