### Hirax: El rostro de la muerte

#### 10/12/09 || Euthanatos

“I want you to remember that no bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. He won it by making the other poor, dumb bastard die for his country.”

Dude. DUDE. That is how you start a fucking badass record. And this record is fucking badass. Hirax have made me happy. They have made me cum. I lie down on my cum and roll side to side. I am happy.

Katon W. de Pena is the sole remaining member of the original Hirax, and if you’ve seen the man in documentaries like Get Thrashed, you know the guy is the real deal and all about metal. His vocals, on the other hand, have changed dramatically, and dare I say, much for the better. He sounds much more aggressive now, raspy, thrashy, gnarly and all that. It’s a desperate scream of someone who sees the world coming apart and is yelling his way into oblivion. Fuck yes. Katon has surrounded himself with a killer crew, and although I can’t really hear the bass (surprise, surprise), everyone here leaves no stone unturned, no quarter given in the war against FALSE METAL. Alright, I’m just messing with ya, settle down.

But what matters here are the tunes, and what fucking tunes they are, man. I love every single one of them, swear to Satan, and the little intros with badass spoken passages like the one I started the review with, it just fits perfectly. Thrash metal has been seeing an interesting revival, not only the bands of yore (like Hirax) have returned from the depths of hell, a lot of new guys are doing their homework and releasing quality shit. Naturally, there are those bandwagon cunts that will be gone soon enough, but everyone, and I mean EVERYONE in the scene could take a lesson or two from Hirax.

“El Rostro de la Muerte” is a vicious album, thrash metal the way thrash metal is meant to be, aggressive, dirty, fast, furious. This is a lot heavier than Hirax’s “Raging Violence” classic, for instance, but retains the undeniable attitude, all thanks, no doubt, to de la Pena. It’s great to listen to an album like this in the final days of 2009. Thrash metal is on the up-and-up, but fashion is fleeting, and like everything else, it’ll come tumbling down as fast as its going up. Only the betters will remain. Hirax? I welcome them at the very top of the heap. The sad thing is that Slayer’s shitty “World Painted Blood” will get a lot more hype than this album. THAT’S RACIST!

The cover: Done by Ed Repka, who has worked with a myriad of classic thrash bands like Megadeth, Violence, Nuclear Assault and also newcomers Municipal Waste, and he paints some great stuff here once again. As twisted and disturbing as the music.

- Information
- Released: 2009
- Label: Black Devil Rec/Kill Again Rec
- Website: Hirax MySpace
- Band
- Katon W. De Pena: vocals
- Glenn Rogers: guitars
- Lance Harrison: guitars
- Steve Harrison: bass
- Jorge Iacobellis: drums

- Tracklist
- 01. Baptized By Fire
- 02. Flesh and Blood
- 03. Eradicate Mankind
- 04. Chaos and Brutality
- 05. El Rostro de la Muerte (The Face of Death)
- 06. Blind Faith
- 07. Horrified
- 08. Battle of the North
- 09. The Laws of Temptation
- 10. Death Militia
- 11. Broken Neck
- 12. Violent Assault
- 13. Cuando Cae la Oscuridad (When Darkness Falls)
- 14. Satan’s Fall