Young New Jersey pups Paralysis look, on the evidence of the promo photo supplied with this release, to have a collective age of slightly less than my own single one. And yet, despite the evidence of my own eyes, they appear to be producing music straight outta 1985…

This is a good thing as much as it is surprising; Paralysis purvey a muscular, incredibly mature brand of thrash metal that is authentic down to the very last bass run and calls to mind many of the Gods of the genre that aren’t actually part of the Big Four.

There’s a lot of chugging and chanting going on here -both key elements in a successful thrash release whatever year it comes out – and whilst there are no real standout cuts as such, the standard of material on show is of such uniformly high quality as to guarantee a fine time indeed wherever you drop the metaphorical needle.

Guitarists Jon Plemenik (who also sings) and Ron Iglesias mesh well together, producing a pleasing wall of sound that is soundly underpinned by bassist Patrick Harte (who, as I mentioned earlier, does supply some nice – and audible – runs) and drummer Matt Pavlik. Production is crisp, if not overly outstanding, though you are able to hear everything that’s going on quite clearly, which certainly added to my enjoyment.

If I had to pick a particular highlight (you do – Ed.) it would be the catchy title track, where everything slots together seamlessly to present a fantastic slice of essentially timeless thrash that could easily have turned up on any album released on the Megaforce or Combat labels in the eighties. All Your Lies is pretty perky, too.

Perhaps the best thing about Life Sentence, however, is the fact that these young blokes have their finger on the pulse of what a ‘proper’ thrash album should sound like without resorting to just concentrating on one band and fleecing them for everything they’re worth. This ain’t original, it’s too late in the day for that, but it’s certainly a very good release indeed. Give it a go!

Life Sentence is Out Now.