There was a ;me in the mid-‘80s when “thrash” was the fastest, heaviest, most extreme form of metal.
That said, a handful of bands thrashed a liKle harder and with more feral abandon than their peers.
Those chosen few inadvertently led the genre towards an even more brutal style of music that gained
underground acceptance a few years later – death metal.
Before that cri;cal point in ;me, however, ultra-thrash band Dark Angel stood on the precipice of
devasta;on and innova;on. Too fast and noisy for some, jawdropping and groundbreaking for others,
Dark Angel led a prickly, poisonous path beyond the evil riffs and whirlwind rhythms pioneered by Slayer.
And Dark Angel drummer and songwriter Gene Hoglan was right there at the center of the storm (even
coaching Slayer’s Dave Lombardo how to play double-bass beats for the breakthrough EP Haun%ng the
Chapel).
Forty years, and mul;ple seismic shakeups later, Dark Angel have returned with the spine-shaKering
Ex%nc%on Level Event, their first album of original material since 1991’s colossal Time Does Not Heal.

“Musically, lyrically, and vocally, I’m so stoked about this album,” says Hoglan, the veteran drummer-of-
all-trades and ;meclock behind almost too many influen;al metal groups to count – Testament,

Dethklok, Strapping Young Lad, Fear Factory, and Death graduate tribute band, Death To All. “I’m really
excited about Dark Angel right now, and everyone who’s heard the new album is losing their minds.
Every ;me I’d finish a song and send it over to the guys, everybody was, ‘Gene, this is my favorite song!’
‘No, this is my favorite song!!’ ‘Dude, this is totally my favorite song!!!” That’s never a bad sign.”