TRAST- Fist Held High 1984 Roadrunner Rec MInt  Doskonaly Speed Metal

…as the sky fell and the ground cracked, we rose up to begin our attack…”

Chicago’s Thrust were one of those bands that stood tall with chins firm as they hung the metal banner across their slender style that’s emblematic of those lost early days. Sure, ’84 isn’t archaically crusty or anything, but it was a cusp year for metal, and a larger aural beast had already stirred to life, but with Fist Held High the five-piece wavered not in what they trusted as a style. Unfortunately, with really no status whatsoever in the underground today, the group never ascended beyond their early and now rarefied split with (The) Lazer (Band) called Rock for Poland/Solidarnosc Rock from two years prior.

Fist Held High thumps its chest and fogs up this disc with the breath of early power metal. Unambiguous in its charge and in direct control of what it wants, the lp rolls along not quite like the spiked ball on the cover, but with enough attitude to keep massive traditionalists somewhat at bay. For a little diversity, shallow rivers of light speed trickle into a few tracks for a sound that’s perhaps a year after prime; by all means charming in an after-the-fact reverie, but these aren’t the ingredients of Thrust I spray with homage. Remindful of Exciter with a medium-sized power supply running on a cleaner, lower octane fuel, the five-piece heat intensity to a point that’s a few degrees from bursting, and then happily maintain that just-below-the-surface level for about the whole album. While uncommon, the style isn’t scarce.

What Thrust does most delectably is capture the unmuzzled essence of metal, striding unperturbed through high anthemic waters, kinda like the way AC/DC’s “For Those About To Rock, We Salute You” lit cannons and fired upon everyone lifting jazz-clogged noses in the air toward its style of ultimate choice. With one stud-gloved hand Fist Held High crushes every apology metal has ever made while the other slugs you dead in the noggin with genre-spanning pride and commitment. C’mon, with die-for-the-cause titles like “Metallic Attack”, “Heavier Than Hell”, “Thrasher”, and “Posers will Die!”, you know their refrigerators were chock full with this stuff ‘cause they made meals out of it.

Screeched, strangled and scathed, but seldom cleanly sung, John Bonata doesn’t stray too far from another Exciter relationship, but as Beehler stampedes more wild-eyed in his screamy grandeur, Bonata’s notes take on something suffocated and squelched, tying Cirith Ungol/King of the Dead-era/Tim Baker and strained Trouble/E. Wagner together with a spearheaded fragment of Blitz Ellsworth.

Since the lp’s route is outwardly undemanding, aesthetics based on freeform or the halfway dexterous steer pretty clear of the road leading to most of these tracks, tracks that are nonetheless confident in their unproblematic adrenalized Motorhead-meets-Crossfire-meets-underpowered Exciter gaze. Motorized most in this department is the chorus-anchored “Overdrive”, meanwhile the vitalized “Thrasher”, title cut, and burly album ender “Posers Must Die!” hoist the unapologetically tedious “Freedom Fighters” away from the speedier path roamed by the urgently impending “Metallic Attack” and rumbling core of “Heavier than Hell”. Of all the tracks featured, these last two are the main keepers to the speedier metal gate.