With every man and his dog digging out their old Reebok hightops and rekindling those old memories of moshing it up to ‘Toxic Waltz’, it isn’t all that surprising to see a whole raft of Thrash acts remerging from their self imposed exile to dust off their flying V’s for one last hurrah. If I were to list all the bands to reform in recent years from way back in the day the whole review would read like a who’s who of Thrash metal, so taking the opportunity to skip doing this I’ll focus solely on Heathen. A forgotten name by many, who never truly broke into the big time first time around but are regarded by those in the know as being fundamental to the first wave of Bay Area bands.

Heathen were always the thinking mans Thrash Metal band and here we are 20 years on and we’ve come full circle; never ones to bludgeon their way through a song, choosing rather to craft with precision and care and ‘The Evolution of Chaos’ continues that fine tradition. Album opener ‘Dying Season’ kick-starts a truly majestic Thrash master class in barbarically savage fashion and from there on in you realise there is a lot of pent up creativity being exorcised here.

For the Thrash new comers who are experiencing the genre for the first time will know Lee Altus more from his work with Exodus than perhaps Heathen, and that is truly a shame. While his guitar work on ‘Shovel Headed Kill Machine’ and ‘The Atrocity Exhibition’ is flawless it does lack the subtlety and variation of his earlier Heathen days. In the likes of ‘No Stone Unturned’ you really have the sense that the creative shackles came off and Altus was free to explore places not visited in a long time.

I have to confess to having serious reservations ahead of hearing ‘The Evolution of Chaos’ as 2004’s ‘Recovered’ realise left me more than a little underwhelmed. I need not have worried however, the album reeks of integrity. In David White Heathen have one of the genres real standout vocalists, and in Lee Altus a pure Thrash riff master. It’s not 1991 any longer and we’re all a little older and a damn sight greyer but something’s never age. Thank Christ Thrash is one of them and Thrash this good is indeed timeless.