Hostage of Terror

MSW are a thrash band in the vein of Slayer. The vocals are gruff and abrasive and the drumming is done with one bass drum/pedal. Their earlier stuff was a bit slower and leaned towards classic heavy metal at times. "Hostage Of Terror" was their last demo before the band merged with Lunattick Fringe around 1991.

The three songs are pretty much continuously fast-paced and thrashy without much change in dynamics. The vocalist reminds me of Chuck Billy of Testament and Tom Araya of Slayer, his vocals are hardly melodic, but his phrasing and how he drags out syllables is a lot like Billy. The guitar work features some solid riffs, which see a fair amount of repetition in pretty standard song structures. There are a few really strong guitar riffs that hook me into the songs, like the one in the beginning of "Ultimate Demise", and the guitar trades off the lead of the song with the vocals quite effectively.

All three tracks on this demo are strong, it's a well-focused effort. None of them quite stand out as exceptional songs, but it's a good heavy thrash demo. It's more concise than their earlier two, but I prefer a few of the tracks off the first one over these. These three plus three older ones could have been a solid foundation of a full-length album.