With the gates of Hell having blown open and the flamethrower set upon humanity consistently refueling year over year there’ll be no better suited clarion call than that of Buena Park, California-borne heavy/speed metal quartet (trio on record) HIRAX who’ve returned for a sixth full-length album with a clear-as-day understanding of what the thrash metal hordes hunger for and where to point ’em. Authenticity, bold musical personage and a signpost for where it all began follow their name wherever they go and this time around ‘Faster Than Death‘ takes us to the original impact of their name, the quicker killer stuff that strikes and demolishes with precision impact. They’ve left little for the fan to fuss over here with this latest set of songs, a characteristic work which does well to showcase the fire they’re known for without venturing into self-parody or lesser-than ideas.

There’s no way I could get to every interesting detail relevant to Hirax‘ beginnings even in a longform review but in terms of a general bio and a thorough discography spin we’ll find that from an early stage their music resonated loud and clear beyond the Orange County spheres of the time be it Pushead, Dig at Earache Records (re: ‘Anglican Scrape Attic‘ flexi circa 85) et al. because they stood out in a way that was wild as shit and had broad appeal in the underground. Formed as Kaos circa 1981 and taking heavy influence from the Los Angeles area hard rock and heavy metal scenery of the time the major formative years (see: ‘Born in the Streets‘ compilation) of the initial quartet (under the revised name L.A. Kaos) were defined by the Halford-cum-Guy Speranza exuberance of vocalist Katon de Pena and later additionally characterized by the short and lethal riffcraft of Scott Owen as their first demo under the Hirax name hit in 1984 and their signage to Metal Blade followed soon after. What followed was an original and influential debut (‘Raging Violence‘, 1985) not only for the slap-and-blast of drummer John Tabares and the suddenly crossover thrash codifying guitar work from Owens but the dynamic that’d been shaped from those elements alongside the big personality on offer from de Pena. While that first album is largely remembered as metalpunk legendry today I would say it is essential line-blurring, boundary crashing stuff regardless of sub-genre context.

Today one’d understandably set that first Hirax LP alongside the ‘tude and tradition of ‘Feel the Fire‘ and ‘Evil Invaders‘ for good reason but… I was a hardcore punk and crossover fan for years before I’d ever touch anything of the sort, and the line that a vocalist like de Pena crossed on ‘Hate, Fear and Power‘ (1987) specifically was making ye old speed metal/L.A. heavy metal vocal badass in the context of the Cryptic Slaughter and early C.O.C. I’d been obsessed with nearby. That second album was practically grindcore to my ears when it first hit, with Eric Brecht‘s (D.R.I., Attitude) work being yet another gateway for my own taste as I scraped up anything that’d looked or sounded cool in my trips through Flex! discography and all that. If there is any bias faceted in my skull for these folk’s legacy it is a brain-level tattoo of “Lightning Thunder”, a song which still sums everything that was awesome about Hirax under their original sign from my point of view. Beyond that point they were kaput by 1989 and reformed in ~2000 with some of those original members, reassessing the line-up with the exception of de Pena since 2002 or so.

Thrash was well-and-fully “back” by 2004 and so were Hirax with ‘The New Age of Terror‘, a groovier sort of record featuring folks who’d played with Deliverance and Reverend back at the peak of the late 80’s power-thrash glut. While some purists couldn’t hang with it I’d found that record and its follow-up (‘El Rostro de la Muerte‘, 2009) aggressive but straightforward, overlong but something different from each crew assembled. Reborn Hirax toured their asses off, too, and after basically circling the globe a few times released what I’d consider their most conservative traditional heavy/thrash metal undertaking in ‘Immortal Legacy‘ (2014), and while I hate the grip of wah-pedal flapping leads that crop up throughout it’d felt like the band and their style had evolved within the space of ten years toward something very different than their impetus, moreso a crew that carried a banner for thrash metal (as a zeitgeist) and not necessarily their 80’s era innovative mutation on record.

For the last three years we’ve gotten hints of this new album’s coming arrival… eh, there was nothing subtle about the rehearsal tape (‘Faster than Death‘, 2023) they’d released as it’d contained basically all of the new songs you’ll find here on the album, and the ‘Faster than Death‘ (2024) EP that’d followed compounded the sense that this was going to be a Hirax album written with the brevity and force of the first two records channeled without the elaborations, indulgences of the previous three records. Largely writ by guitarist Neil Metcalf and de Pena with session drums from Dan Walker (D.R.I., ex-Intronaut) ‘Faster Than Death‘ is an album built with a clear enough goal in mind though the credits give the impression it was a record basically put together by fixers, a pro commission at face value aimed at sounding like the Hirax folks know best (via ‘Hate, Feat and Power‘.)

Of future wars, corruption, social engineering and fantastic scenes of morbid chaos resultant ‘Faster Than Death‘ reflects the stranger than fiction reality of today portended since… well, as long as speed/thrash and metalpunk have been around as de Pena‘s lyrics are once again the impact and his presence the directorial instrument channeled. At ~21 minutes in length (including a new version of “Warlord’s Command”) this record is (again) very much in line with what a fan of their 80’s material wants in terms of both shape, style and sound. As we cut right into “Drill Into the Brain” we’ve got about a minute to adjust to the neck-whipping pace of the opener, seconds to appreciate de Pena‘s strike at the helm and the gang-shouted call and response that creates the feeling of a high speed collision, confrontation and collapse which is entirely appropriate for a thrash metal uproar. As a longtime fan I couldn’t be happier with that first minute and it is an impression that lasts as that tirade’s pace holds up throughout the full listen.

“Drowned Bodies” best reveals the mechanical precision of Walker‘s drumming, a militant swat which is either brilliantly performed (or quantized) to that barn-storming level of thrash. This carries a bit more of a hardcorish thwack to its kick as the title track (“Faster Than Death”) and “Psychiatric Ward” give us crushed through anthem and rant respectively, the latter being one of my favorite spikes on the LP despite the simple-as-hell structure of it, the blood pressure cranks with every step they take; “Relentless” has some hard flung leads, signature vibrato from de Pena, and some of the best lyrics on the album to the point that it’d helped define the album and set it as a standout in my mind. You’ll have gotten the idea by then that Hirax aren’t leaving the pocket for this record, that these songs might not be wildly complex and they’re not sticking around for more than three and a half minutes but the band ‘sounding like themselves’ is enough of a crowd pleaser, no need to reinvent the wheel or dump filler over the classic thrash intensity of it all.

Does it have riffs? Of course but we’re not pushing outside of the late 80’s metalpunk and street-level gang shouted thrash and wail spectrum here. In terms of giving the fans what they want ripping speed metal with some extreme kicks and de Pena putting on a show is it and ‘Faster Than Death‘ captures the right essence front to back. I don’t know that I needed a reminder that Hirax rules but it doesn’t hurt that they’ve returned a decade beyond their previous record with an effective display of their own characteristic energy, a quick and crazed nuke of honest thrash music that still carries the same oddball, kinda brutal reality they’d introduced themselves with forty years ago. It still hits for my own taste and I think it’ll be the same for most thrash, speed and crossover-adjacent lifers alike. A high recommendation.

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