29. Xentrix

As a teenage thrashead in the late eighties, Xentrix were very much my band. They were only a couple of years older than I was and they had a youthful exuberance that was infectious. Back in 1990, I lapped up their second album “For Whose Advantage?” and could be regularly found in rock clubs under aged and over drunk eulogising over its greatest. Along with the rest of the budding UK thrash scene, they got swept aside by the tsunami that was grunge, but there is a happy ending here. You see thrash bands don't die, they just lie low until the coast is clear and in 2013 they returned with a vengeance (yes there was a previous reformation in early 2006 but I missed it, so it doesn't count). Anyone who saw them at Bloodstock in 2013 will know they have still got that blazing energy that, for me, made them stand out from the rest. And now on the back of their first album in twenty three years (which is bloody brilliant), they return to Catton Hall's sacred turf with a main stage upgrade. If you need me, I'll be the forty six year at the front on Friday getting rather over excited.

By Stewart Lucas