Atomic - Slashing Victory (1994)

   Atomic was formed in the early '80s and in various ways they count pretty extraordinary. They are one of the earliest Hungarian metal bands at one hand, and also one of the first ones who played metal that matched the quality of the international scene, and were able to keep up with it's actual tendencies. But the meantime they are also one of the most underrated Hungarian bands, and even since now their name remained barely known.
   If it's about the '80s, it's understandable why that happened, since Communism didn't sympathize with similar tendencies, and did it's best to oppress and erase such formations. After the system has changed, with the the fall of the iron curtain these restrictions also have fallen. But the audience simply didn't seem ready for something that was different from cheesy heavy metal bands who wrote only Hungarian lyrics and just kept copying Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, or could have been described as teen metal bands by their oversimplified music. This tendency stayed as a determining factor until the late '00s, so the underground scene barely had any considerable support from it's local audience. 

In their earliest period Atomic played strongly heavy metal influenced speed metal, and from the '90s they wrote their lyrics in English, and switched to thrash metal. Their full-lenght debut "Slashing Victory" was released in 1994, and it sounded like it intended to summerize their previous works to show diversity. The debut wasn't so aggressive like their previous thrash metal demo tapes, and if it's about possible influences, it reminded to Bay Area thrash and to the bands of so called "Teutonic Thrash Trinity". By selecting less rough sound, the previous speed and heavy metal influences are also there to find, but the album is enough well composed and unified to not show too strong similarities to any bands of the mentioned scenes. That also wasn't usual to hear that time, since copying big names was more than obvious in the Hungarian music scene for decades. And also if it's about thrash metal, it's pretty difficult to not sound too similar to any of the classic bands, since the style have quite narrow borders and doesn't offer too many possibilites. "Slashing Victory" was unparalleled by it's mix of intensity and more traditional approach, that made the music compatible with the taste of speed and heavy metal fans too. Even though the band was underrated, their updated style and early presence made their importance in thrash metal comparable to Tormentor's in black metal.