Thrash Metal was born in California as the antithesis to the increasingly pop-laden sound of the spandex toting Los Angeles Sunset Strip Glam scene of the early to mid 1980s. While bands like Van Halen, Ratt and Motley Crue retained a harder, uncompromising, punkier attitude and a visual image more akin to the earlier, more avant-garde influences of The New York Dolls and Finland’s much-lamented Hanoi Rocks, a lot of what came later was brought in to sell to the wider masses. Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, Nuclear Assault and Anthrax took a different route.

What those bands achieved was the genesis of an entirely new genre of music, the aforementioned Thrash Metal. My mate Riccardo Ball and the band he fronts, Just One Fix, is a bloody good Thrash Metal band.

We’ll start off with the volcanic rhythm section, comprising Ant Ward and Ross Curtain. In these guys the band has an exceptionally tight, technically astute and attuned team. The rhythm and form changes in this song are perfectly placed to add further intensity to an A-10 Thunderbolt of a piece, and the synchronicity by which these gents carry out the changes is impressive.

Guitarist Sharne Scarborough is a genuine star on this instrument. Bringing riffs that put me in mind of Messr’s Smith and Murray a la Iron Maiden at their absolute finest and most creative, Sharne displays nouse for how to utilise that type of “classic” Brit-style stadium riff over the top of that white hot bottom end. Adding phrases that are angry and imaginative, layering a furious rhythm guitar, distorted ’til it’s a moshers wet dream. The atmosphere is dictated well here.

Moving on to the vocal. It’s primeval. If you want term of reference it’s more Mustaine than Hetfield, and still 100% Riccardo. What’s so good about this song – and this songwriter – is that a tale is told, a message is conveyed, with the intention of inviting you to think. There’s a point of view imparted, but it’s not dictating. It’s enticing you to have a viewpoint. While Thrash can be misconstrued – I repeat, MISCONSTRUED – as difficult to understand and hurling hatred at conformity and whatever we perceive as “normality” in this severely tainted world, every word here is clear, almost plaintively served with the guttural roar of someone wrestling internally with something. And the subject is quite compelling: immortality. From the EPK, Riccardo says: “Human beings weren’t meant to go around for more than a hundred years, the thought of centuries of existence to me is mortifying and that’s what we are talking about here.” Indeed – Immortal? You’re Your Own God Now. Listen to the words.

I don’t normally do this but here’s the pre-save link if you’d like to make sure you get a shot at listening to it on release: https://found.ee/YourOwnGodNow

Being this genre, it’s always going to work live. Small gigs, arenas, festivals; this works at them all. It’s also one to listen to sitting around with like minded friends, imbibing whatever you imbibe to seek whatever state of consciousness you’re aiming to reach. Who am I to judge? I did that myself when I was your age. It’ll work at a metal show in a club too: the easily discerned lyrics making it very much viable for that. It has to be a shoo-in for metal radio.

I think my buddy Will at the Distorted Transmission has had a chat with Riccardo recently, so pop on the FaceAche and look for that too. It’ll be on Flash-Trax‘s Spotty Fly once it’s released to the great unwashed. Just One Fix is rightly considered New Zealand heavy metal royalty. When they release this sort of stuff one can understand why. Put it on twice and they’ll be treating you for whiplash.

Avada Kedavra, just for the hell of saying it!