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There have been quite a few new bands in the past year or two that have been reviving the old school thrash style, particularly the "Bay Area Thrash" sound. I'm not about to complain about it - not yet anyway; We'll see if a year from now we're drowning into a bunch of crappy bands trying to take a piece of the pie.

Fueled By Fire is the latest contestant (at least as far as my CD player is concerned.) The band was formed in 2001, but this first album was only released in 2006, and is now being re-issued by Metal Blade with two bonus tracks. Their basic style hovers between Kill 'em All and Ride the Lighting-era Metallica, mixing both the raw and clean sound of the two, and throwing in a few hints of others such as Dark Angel. The vocal style borrows a little more from German thrash however, kind of a mix of Kreator and Sodom, but not as harsh-sounding. Interestingly I even found some of the guitar work to be very close to Hanker's at times - one prime example being 51 seconds into the first song - that one hit me on the first listen. So there's some more traditional heavy metal floating in there as well.

It's not particularly original, it's essentially mid-80s thrash/speed worship, but it delivers the goods in an addictive fashion. Straightforward, catchy, in-your-face fist-raising energizing music, and with invigorating solos to boot. I've been listening to this album for a few weeks now, and I just cannot get tired of it, much to the dismay of my growing pile of albums to listen to. One of my favourite albums so far this year.