Fugitives of Paradise

Five fugitives we have here, two of whom, in their running-scared marathon, ended up founding the progressive speed/thrashers Manticora mere months after this collaboration here fell apart. So fear can sometimes be productive, hey… but what were these lads scared of, we wonder?

No idea how terrifying the music on the demos was, but on the EP here we have standard, competently executed retro speed/thrash which subversively pricks its way with the direct fast-paced shredder “Subversion”. “Black” adds some black… oops, slower semi-balladic moments to spice up the vigorous proceedings, those last ornaments taking the upper hand on the monolithic quasi-doomster that is the title-track, a pensive atmospheric march without any fast-paced accumulations. Inertia infused and recaptured immediately with "Infusionism", a concrete ripping headbanger, soaring above the meeker “Rage” which fails to justify its title, adding another portion of laid-back semi-balladic strolls.

Lars Larsen’s vocals are a tad less expressive and lower-tuned than his more vociferous exploits on the Manticora efforts, the guys overall not breaking any set for the genre rules; this is right as rain old school stuff, without any glaring surprises, a pretty decent initiative that was standing defiant to the heaps of groovisms and post-thrashisms ravaging the countryside at the time. And if for nothing else, its smouldering ashes survived long enough to give birth to one of the finest metal acts of the past 25 years, a three-species monster that has long since forgotten what fear is.