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Hatchet - Awaiting Evil
Review by Mike Meyer
Metal Blade Records
Release date: May 27, 2008
Apparently, the old adage is true – all that’s old is new again. How else to explain a band like Hatchet? If you covered up the copyright date on their debut album, Awaiting Evil, you could easily pass it off as a lost classic from thrash metal’s heyday of the late ‘80s. Unlike the slightly more tongue-in-cheek approach taken by labelmates Fueled by Fire, Hatchet plays retro thrash metal completely devoid of irony. From the ominous acoustic intro “Darkening Skies” through songs like “Frozen Hell” and “The Dead Will March,” Hatchet captures the tone of a bygone era to near-perfection. The band’s authentic sound is due in large part to the spot-on thrash vocal styling of Federico Carminitana, who manages to seamlessly recreate the growls and shrieks of classic thrash singers. With the exception of thrash’s “Big Four” (Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer), the genre was never very lucrative to begin with, so it’s probably safe to assume that Hatchet aren’t trying to cash in on yet another retro fad here. Fans of current metal bands like Killswitch Engage and In Flames might be thrown by Hatchet’s relatively simple song structures, but for those of us who grew up on this kind of music, Hatchet brings back fond memories.
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