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I first came across Urgrund in the metal bargain bin at my local 2nd hand store about four years ago. I picked it up as I noticed it was on Killjoy's Baphomet Record label, and figured it was probably worth a shot (well, compared to the horrific amount of 'teased hair band' and nu-garbage albums that it was sitting amongst anyway). As soon as I got the CD into my car stereo, I found out that thankfully the music on offer was far from bargain bin material.

Urgrund play a good and dirty brand of mainly mid-paced blackened Thrash Metal, chock-full of fist punching riffage, molten vocal spews and clattering drum work. A few nods are understandably made towards the likes of fellow Aussies Deströyer 666 which, lets face it, can't be a bad thing. Occasionally the tempo is raised to mix things up, which is when the band end up sounding way more 'Black' than 'Thrash', but they usually end up dropping back into their mid-paced (dis)comfort zone to continue the belligerent war of ear attrition. The best word to describe this album is 'commanding', it really gets your neck snapping and hands contorting into the horns before you can say 'holyfuckingshit'.

Whilst this is one of those albums where multiple spins pays off the most, the songwriting is of good enough standard to have a reasonably immediate quality to it too. Authoritative and impulsive, this is well worth looking into for fans of the genre.