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Thrash metal is a subgenre of heavy metal that is characterized by its fast tempo and aggression. Thrash metal songs typically use fast, percussive and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead work. Thrash metal lyrics often deal with social issues using direct and denunciatory language, an approach which partially overlaps with the hardcore genre. The "Big Four" bands of thrash metal are Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica, and Slayer, who simultaneously created and popularized the genre in the early 1980s.
The origins of thrash metal are generally traced to the late 1970s and early 1980s, when a number of bands began incorporating the sound of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, creating a new genre and developing into a separate movement from punk rock and hardcore. This genre is more aggressive compared to its relative, speed metal, and can be seen in part to be a reaction to the lighter, more widely acceptable sounds and themes of glam metal.
Thrash metal generally features fast tempos, low-register, complex guitar riffs, high-register guitar solos, double bass drumming, and aggressive vocals. Most thrash guitar solos are played at high speed, as they are usually characterized by shredding, and use techniques such as sweep picking, legato phrasing, alternate picking, string skipping, and two-hand tapping. Thrash lead guitarists are often influenced by the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement. Thrash guitar riffs often use chromatic scales and emphasize the tritone and diminished intervals, instead of using conventional single scale based riffing. For example, the main riff of Metallica's "Master of Puppets" is a chromatic descent, followed by a chromatic ascent based on the tritone. Rhythm guitar playing is characterized by extensive palm muting and down picking to give the riffs a chugging sound, along with extensive use of the pedal point technique (creating what can be considered a distinctive, 'thrashy' sound). Speed, pacing, and time-changes also define thrash metal. Thrash tends to have an accelerating feel which may be due in large part to its aggressive drumming style. For example, thrash drummers often use two bass drums, or a double-bass pedal, in order to create a relentless, driving beat. Cymbal stops/chokes are often used to transition from one riff to another or to precede an acceleration in tempo. To keep up with the other instruments, many thrash bassists use a pick. However, some prominent thrash metal bassists have used their fingers, such as Frank Bello, Greg Christian, Jack Gibson, Steve DiGiorgio, Robert Trujillo and the late Cliff Burton. Several bassists use a distorted bass tone, an approach popularized by Burton and Motörhead's Lemmy.
Lyrical themes in thrash metal include isolation, alienation, corruption, injustice, addiction, suicide, murder, warfare, and other maladies that afflict the individual and society. Humor and irony can occasionally be found, but they are limited, and are the exception rather than the rule.
Inclusive thrash metal music subgenres:
- Crossover thrash, often abbreviated to crossover, is a form of thrash metal that contains more hardcore punk elements than standard thrash. It is sometimes referred to as punk metal, though this is generally incorrect due to the existence of other music genres that combine forms of punk rock and heavy metal, such as grunge, crust punk, and more recently metalcore and its subgenres. While thrash metal is heavily influenced by hardcore punk, the overall sound of crossover thrash is more punk-influenced yet more metal-sounding and aggressive than traditional hardcore punk and thrashcore. The term was coined by the band D.R.I. with their album Crossover, released in 1987. The term 'crossover' is based on the metaphor of crossing over from one genre into the other, thus capturing artists the operate within the transition zone between thrash metal and hardcore punk. With the metaphor comes the conception of directionality, such that the genre is applied to hardcore and crust punk artists who have crossed over into thrash metal territory, such as D.R.I., Discharge, The Exploited, The Accüsed, Agnostic Front and Suicidal Tendencies (who eventually ventured into alternative metal), and thrash metal artists who crossed over into hardcore punk territory, such as Nuclear Assault and S.O.D. A number of death metal bands (especially those of the first wave of Swedish death metal) draw on hardcore punk, mainly because their members listen to crossover thrash - these bands are included under the death metal subgenre here at the MMA.
- Death-thrash combines elements from thrash metal and death metal. The most common type of death-thrash is based on thrash metal music (often played a bit faster than standard thrash metal) with growled vocals. Sepultura's "Schizophrenia", "Beneath the Remains", and "Arise" are considered examples of death-thrash. Given that death metal is derived from thrash metal, many early death metal bands played a style that was anchored thrash metal and could be considered death-thrash. Many of those artists are included under the death metal genre here on MMA.
- Technical/progressive (or tech/prog) thrash metal is considered a legitimate genre by some (or even two legitimate genres), while others argue that it is a pseudo-genre. Bands included in this genre take emphasize technicality in their music, in the form of complex riffs and/or complex song structures, while others apply the ethos of progressive music more broadly without straying from their basic thrash metal sound. Examples of artists that are sometimes considered tech/prog thrash metal acts are Dark Angel, Death Angel (especially on "Act III"), Annihilator, Artillery (especially on "By Inheritance", "When Death Comes", and "My Blood"), and Invocator. Releases like "Master of Puppets" and "...And Justice For All" by Metallica are quite progressively oriented with complex song structures and numerous sections per song. Some bands like Voivod, Antithesis and Watchtower took the progressive approach so far that they are primarily considered progressive metal artists rather than thrash metal artists.
- Blackened thrash metal is thrash metal with black metal elements. Its thrash metal basis is more primitive and akin to early German thrash metal. Examples of blackened thrash metal bands are Assaulter, Aura Noir, and The Metaphor. It should be mentioned that much early black metal, such as Venom and Hellhammer/Celtic Frost actually had its roots in thrash metal.
Source:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrash_metalWritten by Time Signature.
Sub-genre collaborators (+ child sub-genres & shared with Speed Metal and Groove Metal): - Vim Fuego (leader)
- Nightfly
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Album · 2024 ·
Crossover Thrash
UMUR
"Merciless" is the eighth full-length studio album by US crossover thrash metal act Body Count. The album was released through Century Media Records in November 2024. It´s the successor to "Carnivore" from 2020. Body Count has had a remarkably consistent lineup with the bulk of the band members having been part of the lineup since "Manslaugther" from 2014. The lineup has actually only changed once since as lead vocalist Ice T´s son Little Ice was added to the lineup on "Bloodlust" (2017) as backing vocalist. "Merciless" features quite a few guest appearences though. Among others from Corpsegrinder (Cannibal Corpse) and Max Cavalera (Sepultura, Soulfly, Cavalera Conspiracy).
So, by now Body Count is a tight nit unit and a well playing band. Stylistically the material on "Merciless" more or less continues the hardcore influenced thrash metal style of the preceding albums with Ice T delivering politically charged lyrics featuring topics like racism, hatred, anger, war, and other merry subjects...in other words it´s just as it should be on a Body Count album. Ice T spits out venom in a nicely aggressive and raw shouting singing style and while the occasional nod towards his rap past is heard here and there, it´s not in any way a dominant part of the vocal style on "Merciless".
The sound production is to my ears a bit on the thin side and it could have prospered from a more bottom heavy sound, but other than that it´s a professional, clear, and powerful sounding production job. Paired with the strong musicianship and the well composed and entertaining material "Merciless" is overall another high quality release from Body Count. It won´t win over music listeners, who didn´t appreciate what came before, but on the other hand it will most certainly please the loyal fanbase and it has the potential to win Body Count new fans. A 3.5 star (70%) rating is deserved.
Album · 1987 ·
Thrash Metal
martindavey87
Released in 1987, ‘Among the Living’ is the third studio album by American thrash metal band Anthrax, and is hailed by fans as one of the genres greatest albums. Much like the other members of thrash metal’s “big four” (look ‘em up if you don’t know), Anthrax were at this time, riding an upward trajectory of both creative and critical success. Their previous outing, ‘Spreading the Disease’, solidified them as one of metal’s most promising bands, and this follows on exactly from where they left off.
With the same line-up of musicians, having toured and played together for a number of years now, it’s no surprise that everyone is firing on all cylinders here. The twin-guitar assault sounds even tighter than before, with rapid-fire thrash riffs that refuse to slow down. The bands tongue-in-cheek approach is here in spades, in particular with vocalist Joey Belladonna’s performances, sometimes serious, oftentimes humorous, all the time impressive. All the ingredients for a great Anthrax record are here.
The production sounds good for its time, though nothing overly remarkable, it sounds pretty much as you’d expect an 80’s thrash album to sound, and it holds up well to this day. With fist-pumping anthems such as ‘I Am the Law’, ‘Indians’, ‘Caught in a Mosh’, ‘Among the Living’ and ‘Efilnikufesin (N.F.L.)’, there’s an abundance of Anthrax classics here, helping make ‘Among the Living’ an essential album that belongs in every metal fans collection.
Album · 2025 ·
Technical Thrash Metal
Nightfly
Bionic Swarm was one of my favourite albums of 2021. Technical thrash, not unlike Vektor. A dynamic album packed with great riffs, strong hooks and excellent musicianship. Four years later Cryptosis are back with album number two, Celestial Death.
One of my most anticipated albums of recent years, I’ll come out with it straight away and say my initial impression was one of disappointment, though it has grown on me somewhat since. Whilst still in the cyber thrash territory of Bionic Swarm the most obvious change is the greater dominance of keyboards, especially mellotron. Synths and mellotron were present last time around but didn’t overshadow the razor sharp guitar work of Laurens Houvast. He’s not totally obliterated, but his riffs often (not always, especially later in the album) merge into the barrage of keyboards taking the edge off them. Having said that, though still solid, on the whole they lack the memorability of last time and nothing here blows me away like Decypher, Prospect Of Immortality or Transcendence did.
Having got the negatives out the way Celestial Death is still a fine album and if I’d not previously heard Bionic Swarm I’d probably be singing its praises a lot more. There’s still plenty of good songs on offer like the blackened thrash of Ascending and Reign Of Infinite, perhaps my favourite here. More progressive elements, largely down to the keyboards are on display which never a bad thing as far as I’m concerned. The melodies are still there but require a few more plays to reveal themselves and that melancholic vibe I liked about the debut is still there too as is the excellent musicianship.
You’ve probably grasped by now that I’m not as blown away by Celestial Death as much as Bionic Swarm but all respect to Cryptosis for showing some growth. After my initial disappointment and having had time to digest the album better with repeated plays I’m still happy with and enjoying this. Writing this review helped me focus on its strengths and I’m still more than eager to hear where they go next.
Album · 1991 ·
Thrash Metal
UMUR
"As Above, So Below" is the second full-length studio album by US, Seattle based thrash metal act Forced Entry. The album was released through Relativity Records in June 1991. It´s the successor to "Uncertain Future" from 1989. The trio lineup who recorded the debut album is intact on "As Above, So Below". Two promotional videos were shot for the songs "Macrocosm, Microcosm" and "Never A Know, But the No", which shows the financial muscles that Relativity Records had after Sony Music acquired a 50% stake in the company in 1990. Despite the two videos receiving rotation on MTV's Headbangers Ball (which was the place to be heard/seen in those days, if you wanted to succeed), Forced Entry never achieved much commercial success, and after releasing the 1995 "The Shore" EP (which was actually recorded in 1990-1991 during the same sessions which spawned the material featured on "As Above, So Below"), the band folded.
Stylistically the material on "As Above, So Below" is a more eclectic type of thrash metal than the more straight forward thrash metal style of "Uncertain Future". Heavy groove laden riffs and rhythms have been added to the the band´s sound, and while this can´t be 100% labelled a groove metal release, some parts definitely point in that direction.
The musicianship is strong on all posts and it´s one of the greatest assets of the album. The riffs are sharp and creative, the lead guitar work is clever and melodic, and the rhythm section deliver a heavy and powerful punch. Unfortunately lead vocalist/bassist Tony Benjamins is a pretty unremarkable singer. Not awful by any means, but his voice and singing style is very standard for the genre, and don´t bring much to the music.
"As Above, So Below" features a dry, sharp, and detailed sound production, which suits the material perfectly, and to my ears it´s a very well sounding release. Maybe just slightly too sterile, but I personally enjoy the clarity of the instruments and how you´re able to hear each note and beat with ease. Upon conclusion "As Above, So Below" is in many ways a high quality thrash metal release with heavy groove metal elements, and had Benjamins been a more interesting and distinct sounding vocalist, my rating would have been higher. As it is a 3.5 star (70%) rating is still deserved though.
Movie · 2012 ·
Thrash Metal
martindavey87
Pretty standard Metallica live DVD here. Great set, fantastic sound and visuals, and the band all on top form as always (even Lars does alright!). The metal legends, touring to promote 2008’s ‘Death Magnetic’ have gone back to their old-school way of having the stage in the middle of the venue, kind of making this feel like ‘Cunning Stunts’ all over again, except, ten years wiser and more mature. And while they may not have the same drive and ambition as they did in the 90’s, it’s clear to see that this is an alcohol and drug-free band, who are just having the time of their lives up on stage.
Featuring all the hits you’d come to expect, such as ‘One’, ‘Enter Sandman’, ‘Sad But True’, ‘Broken, Beat and Scarred’, ‘Battery’ and a whole host of others, including some “bonus track” surprises, such as ‘Turn the Page’, ‘Holier Than Thou’ and ‘Breadfan’, this is a great DVD that may not stand out in the bands discography as much as previous releases ‘Live Shit: Binge & Purge’, ‘Cunning Stunts’ or ‘S&M’, but is still plenty worthwhile owning, and certainly enough to satisfy any Metallica fan.
Movie · 2013 ·
Thrash Metal
martindavey87
Regardless of the results, I’ll always give Metallica credit for not being afraid to try new things. Going from thrash metal to alternative rock, playing with an orchestra, side projects with Lou Reed and now this… a concert movie?
And the results here, as expected, are pretty mixed. The actual movie aspect doesn’t make much sense. With a daft storyline interspersed with the concert footage, and at times tying into the show itself. Sometimes with the band actually even doing little choreographed bits on stage, this all comes across as a bit awkward at times, and is probably more of a detriment than anything.
However, the concert footage itself is absolutely gorgeous! The visuals are fantastic and the high-definition video really gives it a crystal-clear picture, with some very cool camera angles and some awesome close-ups. Along with all the usual Metallica pyrotechnics and on-stage stunts and props, this is like ‘Cunning Stunts’ on steroids.
But sadly, that’s pretty much the only highlight. There’s a whole hoard of extras, including behind-the-scenes documentaries, Q&A sessions, trailers, music videos, and a whole bunch more, but it’s mostly all pretty bland and generic, with the only saving grace being that live footage. I wish they’d just done an entire concert DVD recorded like this, because that part, really is THAT damn good!
Movie · 2009 ·
Thrash Metal
martindavey87
‘Francais...’ is one of three Metallica DVD’s that all seemed to pop up around a close time-frame of each other (the others being similar concerts from Mexico and Quebec). Released in 2009, it features Metallica touring to promote their fairly new release, ‘Death Magnetic’, from the previous year. On this concert DVD, the set list is solid, the playing is fantastic, and the visuals are excellent. The setting is an old amphitheatre that looks absolutely beautiful as a music venue. The only setback was that this lacks a lot of the pyrotechnics and effects that their arena shows afforded them. So unless you’re a huge fan, it might get a bit boring just sitting here and watching them, well, just play for over two hours.
Still, it’s a great DVD, and the band is on top form, with boundless energy and enthusiasm, we even see quite a few songs that hadn’t been played live in a long time! And with a few added extras (interviews, extra footage etc), this makes for a worthy addition to any Metallica fans collection.
