It really wasn’t that long ago when you could walk into pretty much any venue and there would be a metal band playing, so you could let go of any pretense and give your neck a thorough working over for an hour and a half. Even the college competition scene in the late 2000s and early 2010s was full of bands that had strong guitarists, powerful drummers and some serious compositional chops in the heavier genres. Of course, sounds change and times are forgotten, but it’s fair to say that when the metal wave initially swept through the country, there was a lot of good music floating around. KASCK, a thrash metal band from Pune (that seems to be starting a couple of revivalist scenes, slowly but steadily), brings back that flavour on their new single ‘Death To The Crooked’. And it’s fun. Good fun.

The riffs have to be good for an old-school thrash song to work (for the most part, at least), and KASCK gets that right. There’s strong chug, tight drumming, and vocals that are a tad bit too soft in places but still impactful. What’s most important is that the grooving is very precise and the slow hook is space for some awesome chords. Of course, there’s a bridge with fills galore that goes into a very simple section that subverts most of what a listener unfamiliar with thrash would expect. There’s no low tuning-smeared low-tempo breakdowns to be had here, no. The band focuses on maintaining momentum, and for that reason, one does not really notice just how high-energy and furious ‘Death To The Crooked’ is until playing it again. And you will play it again.