Mid-Tempo Thrash Bangerz
Thrash is generally all about the furious, intense, hardcore riffing, but especially as the 90s approached and came we got to hear thrash bands slowing down and hitting with the savage riffs. It wasn't always non-lame, but when it was good it was great. Let's explore some songs that are heavy as ****.
Sacred Reich were a band that made their bones with faster crossover thrash madness, but on
The American Way calmed down enough to deliver a more accessible kind of thrash album that still slayed. The title track is the perfect kind of slower thrash song that delivers the aggression with some sick riffs that are perfect for a casual thrash comp to give to your metal newb friends. This song inspired this post.
Slayer has enough slower songs from the aforementioned time period to qualify several times over, but this song always stuck with me the most cause it's relentless, repeated riff is just the coolest ****ing thing ever. Slayer's riff majesty was always going to make them brilliant at this kind of song tbh.
Seasons in the Abyss has never clicked with me quite as much as their earlier material due to its more polished approach, but tracks like this still make it a stone cold classic regardless.
Honestly when I thought of this post I didn't for a second think of Anthrax or the tempos on
Among the Living... until I was scrolling down my thrash metal folder and was like, "Yeah, that album has a lot of slower bangers, doesn't it?" Damn me this song is cool as **** and has that nice riff that any song on this list needs. It goes kinda fast around two-thirds of the way through, but for much of its length it's a sick backdrop to Joey Belladonna waxing moronic about just how cool Judge Dredd is. And that's purrty cool. Also one of my absolute fav Anthrax songs so that helps.
Man oh man has this song ruled my ass for a decade and a half. That ****ing riff is just the heaviest, and those goofy political lyrics are just thrash fun at its unintentionally silliest. This is a track that bangs as hard as any four-on-the-floor pop song and is as addictive. It could single-handedly justify the mediocre
Definition album if "The Target" didn't do so as well. If you don't like this then you don't like pussy.
Bro, if I didn't include one of the absolute heaviest thrash bands in existence in this post then I'd turn in my metal card. What I love so much about Demolition Hammer is how they base their sound so much around their drummer rather than one of their guitarists. It gives their music a rhythmic, percussive sound that works perfectly with their often slower riff work that could demolish a perfectly sound building. "Carnivorous Obsession" is more consistently mid-tempo, but "Human Dissection" just edges it out in quality and is generally the song I always start
Epidemic of Violence with, even though it's the second song on the album. Honestly though both songs could be on this list cause they're ****ing savage and you're not.
This is the single entry from a nu wave thrash band since I generally just don't care for post-90s thrash, but Evile's
Enter the Grave was pretty ****ing wizard, with a crunch courtesy of thrash-era Metallica producer Flemming Rasmussen that gave it a heft not found in pretty much any other wannabe thrash band. A lot of the album contains Slayer-ific fast riffing, but this song is mostly sans that, and has some seriously ****ing heavy **** going on that is catchy and savage and awesome and makes me want to kill Trollheart.
To me this song is the sound of malicious aggression with moderate patience. This song will kill you, and kill you real durn ****ing good, with lots of guts and fluids, but it's fine with drawing out the torment and making your wife watch with a dick in her ass that she secretly likes. ****ing goddamn savage and **** Christ.
I could have put a few Metallica songs on here, as they have a knack for mid-paced bangerz, but I chose to use this song as it truly exemplifies the kind of song I'm going for here, but seriously "Seek and Destroy" would make me absolutely as happy as would "Harvester of Sorrow", so if you want to consider them co-winners then feel free to do so, cause they're perfect ("Am I Evil" too, but the only reason I didn't absolutely include it as the winner of the post is that it's a cover of an NWOBHM non-thrash song). "Leper Messiah" is the great, ignored crusher of Metallica's discography. **** religion.
I started this post by specifying the late-80s and early-90s, but Exodus have been doing great mid-tempo **** since they were birthed, and while I could put any number of subsequent tracks here, lets just go with the older classic. Gotta have one older song. God this song is heavy and awesome and evil and gloriously cheesy.