Ireful - The Walls of Madness

IREFUL - The Walls of Madness (DEFENSE Records - CD 2021)

Damn, I listen to so little of newer thrash metal that this style of music is almost inexistent for me. Almost every thrash I have in my collection is the 80's or early 90's shit. Exceptions are very few. I am even glad then that occasionally I get a new thrash metal recording, which I actually do like. Like "The Walls of Madness" by Italian Ireful. it's their debut EP, but I can truly say that I enjoyed it, it was a lot of fun to listen to this CD. 

There are just five songs, a little over twenty minutes of music, so I will keep my review short as well. But you need to know that Ireful plays the old school US thrash metal style. You may quickly make some comparisons to the old stuff from Exodus, Anthrax, Vio-Lence, Dark Angel, there's a lot of Possessed in it... Even some early Metallica similarities. Cool, why not, as long as the songs have some quality. And they do here. Ireful is thrashing like crazy with some brilliant riffs. With no remorse and no time wasted their music is just plain, straight forward thrash metal. "Panzerschreck" is the best example, I absolutely love that opening riffage there. When you listen to it you cannot stop your head from banging. Otherwise don’t call yourself a metalhead. Fantastic. Musically this is a very good effort. I guess the only thing I don't like here are those shouted vocals. The main vocals sound a lot like Becerra or Souza, and they are good. But there are many parts where some phrases are shouted by multiple voices, which is something I always hated about in many old thrash bands, like Anthrax. It's not something what would immediately ruin the listening for me, especially because I love many riffs and the production is also killer... But I just don’t like that kind of vocals, sorry to say. And Ireful uses them a lot. All in all, it’s a very cool debut and I am looking forward to hear more from Ireful. Check them out. 

Standout track: “Panzerschreck” 

Verdict: 70/100