Anthrax: Fistful of Metal - 1984
I've heard Anthrax called "the thinking man's thrash metal band" (I guess it's all relative), but on this album...not so much. At this point they were the kind of speed metal band you could hear all across the USA in the aftermath of the NWOBHM with songs such as "Soldiers of Metal", "Deathrider", and "Metal Thrashing Mad". Post-graduate quality **** in other words. This isn't amazingly original, but for the time period it was perfectly in step with what was going on, so if this is the kinda thing that interests you, and it should be, then this is a great album to get into. As far as I'm concerned "Death from Above" is worth the price of admission all by itself.
Also, they also hadn't gotten Joey Belladona into the band yet and had a gloriously cheesy singer in Neil Turbin, who is one of those guys who could only ever have sung like that in the early eighties. **** the **** yeah.