I just found new friends in the Ukraine! I mean; how can you not be friends with people how throw such a decent thrash punch? What I like in particular about Hell:On is the accentuated style and their powerful crunch which is mixed with plenty of melody.
The riffing is heard before by the band's peers (Metallica, Slayer, Machine Head, Fear Factory to name but a few), but they're convincinly executed. The same can be said of the performance by drummer Oleg. Excellent job behind the barrels!
I suppose you'd also have to state Annihilator as a source of inspiration for the Ukrainians. For this Annihilator fan it causes extra attention when Jeff Waters has contributed to the rifforama (on My Doll). Respect.
What I'm not so happy about is vocalist Alexander Baev who does the same thing all the way through the album. This works if you happen to be Karl Willet or another one of the really, really cool voices of extreme metal. He sounds like self-confident which is great, but I really miss some variation of the vocal performance.
Favourite track? Probably the heads-down, down-tempo banger Emptiness.
Approved piece of thrash from the East!
