Chaosfear is a Brazilian band playing, of all things, thrash metal. Comparisons to Sepultura are inevitable at this point but in Chaosfear’s case I think they’d proudly welcome them. That they wear their influences on their sleeve is clear from get go, but it’s a distilled, meaner version of that band, culled from the classic Beneath The Remains/Arise era that really made me take an interest in their debut album.

While Chaosfear doesn’t touch the brilliance of two of the greatest thrash albums ever made, they do produce a very compelling simulacrum, full of breakneck paced songs dominated by rhythm guitar driven riffs and tasty solos that will have any fan of that band sporting a shit eating grin the entire album. But as stated above, Chaosfear plays it a bit meaner. The thrash riffs are accompanied by incessant double bass drumming and the breaks downs are kept to a minimum. This gives some of the songs a more death metal feel that, coupled with the occasional blast beat, pushes some of the material beyond the bounds of classic thrash, but I think it would be a stretch to place them in the death thrash category, as so much of their songs adhere to the conventions laid down by their musical guiding light. Let’s just say it’s terminally ill thrash, close to death but not quite.

Speaking of their musical guiding light, you can hear the Sepultura influence most clearly on their solos. To say they are inspired by Arise would be a gross understatement. Many of them sound like alternate takes that could just as easily be substituted for the solos that actually appeared on that album. It makes me wonder if they sell Sepultura branded guitar pedals in Brazil for that “authentic” lead guitar sound. But even this borderline over the top hero worship is refreshing as, more than a decade and a half later, the sound is instantly recognizable and just as uncommon today as it was back then.

Hearing a band tackling this type of material this day and age and pulling it off so well, especially on a debut album, gives me hope that power metal isn’t the only old guy genre getting some new blood. Of course, this band could be a one-off fluke, a very talented Sepultura knock-off that’s fifteen years too late to the party, but given the dominance/overabundance of certain categories of metal these days, just maybe One Step Behind Anger is a bolt out of the blue sent by the metal gods to remind us of the day when a different beast ruled the metal landscape. Me? I’m hoping this is just the first strike of a much bigger storm.