There are legends, public faces of a movement larger, deeper than what they represent, some of those legends are idolize in metal, such are the so called “Big Four" of thrash: Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica and Slayer. These legends, these public names are put forward so that a scene, an ideology can have a face, they don’t represent the best or the only true form in which their movement should be comprehended, but they do provide an easy introduction to the music and the people that made it possible, and the people and bands that made any scene possible are located in the underground; that’s where Assassin reigns and that’s why this album is so important.

The curious thing about “The Upcoming Terror” is not when or how they release the record, is what it meant to many now “established” thrash bands and at the same time just how forgotten its influence is among media and fans alike.

So just how good is the album with one of the coolest album covers in thrash metal history; it’s good, its raw, is fast and it’s catchy. Assassin perhaps single-handedly managed to merge in one record all the best German style thrash qualities that made Destruction, Kreator and Sodom so recognizable; aggression plus speed that the Bay Area traded for groove is used at its best here; the album doesn’t really “invent” a new style, or creates a unique brand of thrash lets be honest, since many of the riffs and melodies here have your standard thrash metal tunes (besides Bullets, one of the fastest thrash songs ever recorded), but their greatness lies on the fact that it made German thrash history much easy to understand by unifying the raw and wild need of Teutonic musicians to play not just loud and fast, but to make it even more aggressive than what Metallica, Venom and the rest shown them just a couple of years earlier.

Bullets like I said before is an incredible well put together song despite just how fast it is played, but is the intro song and the amazingly memorable self title “Assassin” the true metal anthems in “The Upcoming Terror”; this was and is true German thrash at its best!