Kreator and Exodus were here last night. I feel like a doofus for not going.

I may check one of them out. All I have by Voidod is a "best of" album, maybe if I heard a full album I'd appreciate it more.

Katorz is also a good Voivod album featuring Jason Newstead after he left Metallica....well worth checking out
http://www.blackmetal.com/scans0806/voivod_katorz.gif

Back due to popular demand ;)

Sodom

Sodom were and still are one of Germany's most influential and iconic Thrash bands and having witnessed the furore a couple months back when I caught them live in their homeland my respect increased for this 3 piece. YES a 3 piece band with a sound that seems more influenced by Hardcore Punk than American Thrash. Lyrically dealing with war and it's aftermath, Sodom are still a formidable and cohesive unit, utilising lot's of speed but with a tight intensity and lack of harmonics that appeals to the harder edge of Thrash.


Recommended albums:
Persecution Mania
Agent Orange.

I've never actually got round to listening to any Sodom but that's some really tight shit.

Oh and well done for bringing the thread back!

Very nice, jackhammer! I also was a thrash fan when I was a kid - but pretty much only got around to the "big 4" and other popular bands from the 80s before I moved on. Then, a year or so ago I got re-obsessed with old school thrash and found a bunch of stuff I hadn't heard (still learning new things here though). The sound is so simple and limited that it forces you to pick up on the small details. You can easily tell good guitarists and drummers from bad ones when they're playing this stuff for instance. Also, it's always fun to see whether the band leans towards punk or metal just by listening to the vocal delivery (the more punk the better if you ask me). I know you already did Sacred Reich but here's one of my favorite thrash songs.

Megadeth - just a few more days:)

...check this out...these guys are rocking it...

YouTube - Megadeth - Hangar 18 (complete cover by Sufosia)

Anyway...thanks for Sacred Reich video...good old days...

subbing cuz thrash is my fav genre of music and I need more!!

Decisions...decisions. I think I'll start with Persecution. I checked out Voivod and went with Dimension Hatross, which is absolutely bitchin.

A little thrash history;

The first metal piece ever to contain thrash was Judas Priest's "Exciter".



It can also be heard to a lesser extent on "I Don't Know", by Ozzy Osbourne, where Randy Rhoades unleashes a 16th note riff - but the overall pace and dynamic of the piece is not thrash by any means.

Thrash, as a genre, is based on the alternate picked 16ths, as demonstrated so ably by Priest above, but combined with a faster backbeat than Priest played - hence it doesn't sound exactly the same as thrash. It also tends to use the "darker" chords, with a particular penchant for the tritone.

Diamond Head were (famously) next, but very few seem to have actually heard their very first album (The White Album), which contained the thrashy versions of their material that really shows what DH contributed to the thrash revolution that was to happen over in San Fransisco and spread like wildfire. "The Prince" and "Helpless" are the best examples;



Venom came much closer, with the double bass drums - if only Abbadon could actually play the things! Cronos sure as hell could not play bass. The thing worked because of the attitude, and the album recordings, which are significantly better than Venom could actually manage live.



Often overlooked, Bitch thrashed as much as anyone - and not only Betsy with her trademark whip!




I think that the Progressive and technical approach of Diamond Head combined with the obnoxious and aggressive style of Venom, rooted in Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, Motorhead and Iron Maiden (along with the lesser known NWOBHM bands) was what created the thrash melting pot in the first place. Just a theory.

I think that you have half of the recipe there - but you have to mix those bands you mentioned with hardcore punk before you have Thrash. Simply put: NWOBHM + Hardcore = Thrash

^ Good point, but you can also look at it this way:

NWOBHM + Hardcore = Motorhead. Motorhead being the bridge band to thrash.

Punk was always in the mix - it was the energy that drove the NWOBHM bands like Iron Maiden, Venom etc and made the difference between them and Priest, UFO, Scorps etc - but Engine is right - Hardcore is where the sound and approach - if not the style - of thrash began to crystallise.

Bad Brains, The Misfits and Minor Threat did play some numbers that verged on thrash - in Bad Brains case, I concede, they actually played it. Other bands notable for playing some very fast songs (not as a rule, but one or two numbers) include Black Flag and Husker Du.












Is it me, or does the Minor Threat track sound a bit like The UK Subs?;




Good point on Motorhead - "On Parole" should have been released before "Damned Damned Damned" (IIRC, that was the first punk album, not "Never Mind the Bollocks", which was actually 3rd, behind The Vibrators). If UA had had the guts to release it, maybe Punk would have lost its impact and never taken off the way it did?



It would have been nice if Motorhead could have kept their original band name too - they were going to be called Bastards (in reference to Hawkwind, who kicked Lemmy out when he got caught in possession of amphetamines).

However, Motorhead never actually played thrash, as far as I can tell, and their influence is somewhat indirect, unlike Priest.

Even Saxon, who were faster as well as louder than Motorhead didn't thrash (despite their song "Princess of the Night" making a guest appearance in the Metallica song "Seek and Destroy")



(Saxon are always value for money!)

It'd be cool to get a compilation of tracks that led directly, rather than indirectly to thrash. I still reckon "Exciter" is the first, but its the stuff that was floating around in the late 1970s and very early 1980s that's most interesting - unless there are actual examples pre 1978...

Yeah but the purpose of this thread was to introduce Thrash bands that the younger generation may not have heard although I would be interested in a separate thread regarding it's origins.

OK, how about this one;

http://static.metal-archives.com/ima...1/6/6/1166.jpg

It's an absolute cracker - check this out;

I dig it! Man does that artwork suck though.

Heh - I just can't leave the historical aspect alone - I just recalled this excellent track from the awesome "Court in the Act" by Satan, which is a proto-thrash epic with a nice complex structure predating "Ride The Lightning" and with more sophistication than "Kill 'Em All", but released in the same year as that earliest of thrash albums.




And this, which predates "Exciter" by 4 years;



;)

OK - another thread required...

I did trawl back through the pages - but excuse me if I missed the page that this is on - this is an ESSENTIAL thrash album, if only for the track "Ride The Sky";

http://www.karthagorecords.de/cover/909.jpg

I still meet Metallica fans who think "Am I Evil" is a Metallica song!!! Love the original Diamond Head version.

I don't understand why Metallica are held in such high esteem. Maybe it's just because I got into death metal and grindcore before Thrash, but Metallica don't do it for me. Even if we just limit the discussion to Metallica's pre-Black Album era, the constant acoustic intros and their tendency to fall into chugga-chug-chug riffs wear thin.

On the other hand, Slayer's early work just seems to grow more relevant with time. Call me weird, but I'd take "Hell Awaits" over "Ride the Lightning" any day.

I am not a huge Metallica fan but Hell Awaits is a terrible album apart from the brilliant title track. I still prefer many other Thrash bands to Metallica though and agree that they are talked about far too much.

A belated update.

Sepultura really were a special band and not just because they came from Brazil. They came from poverty to really ingratiate themselves into the European scene in the late 80's especially and they did this whilst still sounding relatively unique with an energy that was missing from many of their counterparts at this time because Sepultura REALLY wanted this.

Music really was a way out of their lifestyle and they put everything they could into their music. Although known usually for the albums Roots and Chaos A.D, it is in their 2nd and 3rd albums that they really found their sound, recording both albums in difficult financial circumstances.

From album No. 2 Schizophrenia:

From album No. 3 when they signed to a European label even though the production was marred by mishaps:

Excellent as usual, man. Do you have Schizophrenia handy?

I'm not usually one to get into it over which Thrash band deserves the most glory BUT I do feel that Beneath the Remains is a better album than almost all of the albums made by the big4.

Darn right! Their first six records match up against anyone. The more I listen to Schizophrenia as well the 1st record and EP Morbid Vision/Bestial Devistation, plus the groove metal monster the Roots is, the more I think they are best metal band ever. The musical territory they covered over that span is staggering to say the least.

I without doubt, think they are probably the best heavy metal band that ever existed. I`m talking the Max Cavalera era here and not the Derrick Green era. Their transformation from a thrash metal outfit into a groove metal one, was the stuff of legend and their incorporation of Brazilian tribal beats something so unique. The fact that they are from a third world country, really showed their anger meant something and a lot of their songs were based around the injustices in their own country Brazil.

Their music often combined breakneak thrash to slower gut wrenchingly heavy Sabbath grinds. Max Cavalera`s voice was far more than a growl, and its mind blowing power was almost like an instrument in itself with its rhythmic thrusts.

If I had to name the 20 greatest heavy metal albums ever released. "Roots" would occupy the number one spot. I`ve still yet to hear something that can top this in sheer power & quality and I listen to a loooooot of metal albums, so this is no idle boast.

The seminal line-up was:
Max Cavalera-Guitar/Vocals
Andreas Kisser-Guitar
Paulo Jr-Bass
Igor"Bonecrusher"Cavalera-Drums

All I can say is F**K me...........This is what metal should sound like.

Haha - people really, really like Sepultura. I do too. I shouldn't have limited my comments about Beneath the Remains to only the big4. Should have said it's a better album than most if not all Thrash albums of its time.

I think "Beneath the Remains" is one of the best thrash albums around but not the best. I think the best of Slayer, Megadeth and Metallica may just edge it. My comments about Sepultura, were that they were the best metal band overall based on their discography between 1988-1996. A run of five classic metal albums, that match the classic Black Sabbath run of five classic albums in the 70`s.

Then there is the five classic albums by Pantera, but I won`t go on about how great those were, given how unpopular Pantera are amongst metal fans on this forum.;)