Diaries of Doom

Black Country crossover thrashers Big Black Eye are one of my favourite live bands in the Midlands at the moment.  Since concerts returned, they've been working hard, playing at all sorts of events, including supporting the iconic Cockney Rejects. If that wasn't enough, they're sharing a bill with Discharge next year. Not bad, eh?  At the Scruffy Murphy's 20th Anniversary weekend event the other week, I was fortunate enough to get an advance copy of their new EP, recorded at Access Creative College in Birmingham. It'll be out soon, although I'm not sure when, so you'll have to take my word for it - for the time being - that it's a banger from the first minute to the last.  First track 'Hyper Violent' rips through your speakers with a thrashy guitar riff, setting a heavy vibe instantly. Stabs from the bass and drum cymbals before the song's drop give a really nice vintage-sounding feel from the off, before it kicks into an energetic punk beat ...

I wasn't too familiar with Thrashsquatch until earlier this year, when an Instagram account plugging the UK thrash scene brought them up. Wasn't going to forget a name like that, was I?  As you can probably tell, they don't take themselves too seriously, but do play a blistering, unpretentious, fist-pumping take on thrash metal, with elements of hardcore punk and wider heavy metal scattered into their sound.  Thrashsquatch's second EP comes a little over three years since their self-titled debut release.  'Return of the Living Shred' picks up from where the Chesterfield quintet left off last time, with a sound that doesn't reinvent the wheel but certainly comes across as more refined and unified than on their last outing. The groovy 'Human Compost' opens the EP at a relatively medium tempo. It's made for live shows and you can see the sweaty moshpits, masses of windmilling hair and lyrics being shouted back in your minds eye above the dissonant m...