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Hehehe. I'm happy. Over the past year or so, a few young bands have started to appear and rather than jump into the power/death/black metal bandwagon, decided to play traditional heavy metal and thrash, of course heavily influenced by the 80s sound. Dark Shift is such a band. This 4-song demo contains a mix of thrash and heavy metal and their music speaks for itself - cool, catchy guitar solos, somewhat chaotic drumming (in a good way), and clean vocals that sometimes remind me of James Hetfield in Black Album-era Metallica. One song, "The Last Door" even reminds me a little of some material on "Ride The Lightning". This one is the most remarkable of the four: part ballad, part heavy/thrashy. Excellent song - and the other three songs are not far behind! Those are pretty fast-paced, no ballad-like stuff on those, but some screechy solos!

I wouldn't say that Dark Shift invent anything (that's not a requirement for good music anyway!), but their music is well played, honest, catchy, and they need no artifices to get the job done. This is bare bones metal like metal should be. Kick ass. As a bonus, the sound is pretty damn good for a demo. Their songs are on mp3.com, so check them out, unless you're suffering of neck pains, because you've got some major headbanging ahead of you. Somebody please sign those guys NOW.