While the likes of Metallica were out there promoting "Kill 'Em All" and Megadeth "Killing Is My Business", Agent Steel likewise were out there cutting their teeth, peddling their debut album. All new names on what was then the emerging Thrash / Speed Metal market. History tells us that while the two aforementioned acts went on to bigger and better things, one more so than the other, while the name Agent Steel got lost somewhere in the noise.

Five albums in twenty or so years is by no means prolific by anyone's standards, but like so many of the acts from the 1980's / early 1990's Agent Steel have made a welcome return to action in the shape of their new album "Alienigma". While never actually officially broken up the four year leave of absence since 2004's "Order Of The Illuminati" left many fans fearing the worst as the silence from the Agent Steel camp was deafening. It almost meant the Los Angeles quintet had some serious ground to make up; and so came "Alienigma".

"Alienigma" follows the same musical path taken by the band since their 1985 debut, "Skeptics Apocalypse". The blend of old school Thrash and NWOBHM has been the bands back bone that through countless line-up changes has kept the band instantly recognisable, and when all is said and done it is a style that has served them well. Bruce Hall brings a Dickinson-esque / Iron Maiden  vibe to the proceedings, as he has on much of his Agent Steel material. It is not only there that the Iron Maiden comparisons end, as Juan Garcia and Bernie Versailles dual guitar approach to such songs as "Fashioned From Dust" and "Wash The Planet Clean" have a Murray / Smith feel all over them, all bit it with a more aggressive bent.

"Alienigma" will most certainly bring the now aging Agent Steel fans out of the wood work as if it were 1989 all over again. There has been little subtly to Agent Steel's music from the get go, well not unless you count 100 mph full on Speed Metal middle of the road. The band are a product of their time and they know what they do well, and have stuck with it. This is certainly and album for the fans who are yearning for that mid 1980's Thrash experience et al 2007.