thrash metal

The tradition & historical record

Thrash metal (or simply thrash) is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by its overall aggression and fast tempo. The songs usually use fast percussive beats and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead guitar work. The genesis of the genre dates back to the 1970s when early heavy metal, hard rock and punk rock bands released songs that featured traits of what would eventually become thrash metal, speed metal, or both. The thrash metal genre was established from the early-to-mid-1980s, during which musicians began to fuse the double bass drumming and complex guitar stylings of the new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM) with the speed and aggression of skate punk, hardcore punk, and speed metal, and the technicality of progressive rock. Philosophically, thrash metal developed as a backlash against both the conservatism of the Reagan era and the much more moderate, pop-influenced, and widely accessible heavy metal subgenre of glam metal which also developed concurrently in the 1980s. Derived genres include crossover thrash, a fusion of thrash metal and hardcore punk. The early thrash metal movement revolved around independent record labels, including Megaforce, Metal Blade, Combat, Roadrunner, and Noise, and the underground tape trading industry in both Europe and North America. ¹

Thrash metal generally features fast tempos, low-register, complex guitar riffs, high-register guitar solos, and double bass drumming. The rhythm guitar parts are played with heavy distortion, power chords and often palm muted to create a tighter and more precise sound. Vocally, thrash metal can employ anything from melodic singing to shouted or screamed vocals. Most guitar solos are played at high speed and technically demanding, as they are usually characterized by shredding, and use advanced techniques such as sweep picking, legato phrasing, alternate picking, tremolo picking, string skipping, and two-hand tapping. David Ellefson, the original bassist of Megadeth, described thrash metal as "a combination of the attitude from punk rock but the riffs and complexities of traditional metal." On the origins of thrash metal, Dan Lilker (bassist and co-founding member of Anthrax, S.O.D. and Nuclear Assault) recalls: "Thrash was just what they called 'faster hardcore,' because you literally thrashed around when you were either playing it or reacting to it. And thrash metal was born because it was influenced by thrash hardcore, and they just thought it was more metal, so they said, 'Okay, this is thrash metal.'" ¹

The guitar riffs often use chromatic scales and emphasize the tritone and diminished intervals, instead of using conventional single-scale-based riffing. For example, the intro riff of Metallica's "Master of Puppets" (the title track of the namesake album) is a chromatic descent, followed by an ascent based on the tritone. 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 bassists use a plectrum (pick). ¹

The term "thrash" originated as a way of referring to hardcore punk, as shown on the 1982 hardcore compilation album New York Thrash. By 1983, the term "thrash metal" had entered colloquial use as a way to denote the fusion of hardcore and metal. The 1983 debut issue of Metal Forces used the term to describe the bands on the first Metal Massacre and Mike Varney's first three U.S. Metal compilation albums. Later the same year, the thirteenth issue of Metal Mania used the term in an article, saying it was used synonymously with "heavy thrash" and "punk metal", going on to say acts in the genre included Tank, Metallica, MDC, GBH, Discharge and Crucifix. The term is sometimes incorrectly credited to a 1984 Kerrang! magazine article by journalist Malcolm Dome, who used the term in reference to the song "Metal Thrashing Mad" by Anthrax. Around 1984, the most dominant name for what is now defined as thrash metal was "power metal", a name which eventually evolved to refer to the separate power metal genre. Similarly, for much of the 1980s, the names "thrash metal" and "speed metal" were generally used synonymously. The separate speed metal genre was defined retrospectively in the 1990s, to refer to 1980s bands who bridged the gap between thrash metal and power metal. ¹

The term "proto-thrash" has been used to describe bands as having elements of speed metal or thrash metal before those genres came to prominence in the early-to-mid-1980s. Deep Purple's 1970 album Deep Purple in Rock is perhaps the earliest proto-thrash/speed metal album, as music journalist Martin Popoff noted, "It's really about the discipline and classical haughtiness of this record, as well as 'Hard Lovin' Man' which is a great contender for first proto-thrash song ever." Blue Öyster Cult's second album Tyranny and Mutation (1973) has also been proclaimed as one of the earliest examples of proto-speed/thrash metal, with Scott Morrow of RIP Magazine writing, "Along with albums by such pioneers as Led Zeppelin, Mountain, Deep Purple, Blue Cheer, and Black Sabbath, some of the earliest speed metal sounds can be heard on Blue Öyster Cult's masterpiece Tyranny and Mutation. With its screamin' stun guitars, growling vocals, maniacal tempos and overall bad-dude attitude, B.Ö.C. set a precedent in the still-young metal arena. This, however, was only a glimpse of future mayhem." Other works described as proto-thrash/speed metal include Queen's 1974 song "Stone Cold Crazy", Kiss' 1974 song "Parasite", Black Sabbath's 1975 song "Symptom of the Universe", Diamond Head's 1980 song "Am I Evil?", and at least two tracks from the Ronnie James Dio-era of Rainbow: "A Light in the Black" from their 1976 album Rising and "Kill the King" from the 1978 follow-up Long Live Rock 'n' Roll. The new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM) bands emerging from Britain in the late 1970s further influenced the development of early thrash. ¹

Critics argue over who can be thought of as the first thrash metal band to exist. Most credit either British band Venom or the genre's so-called "Big Four": Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax, and Megadeth, with commentators crediting Venom as the first thrash metal band and others tending to favor the "Big Four", though many give equal credit to all those five bands. The origins of thrash metal have also been traced to San Francisco Bay Area band Exodus, who formed in 1979 and is the fifth band in what is sometimes considered the "Big Five". The band released its first demo in 1982, simply titled Demo 1982, which was widely circulated in the tape trading community and is credited for paving the way for the 1980s Bay Area thrash metal scene. A few commentators argue for other bands, including Overkill and Metal Church (both of whom formed in 1980), as the earliest bands to play thrash metal before releasing albums. In 1981, Los Angeles band Leather Charm wrote a song entitled "Hit the Lights". ¹

The po… ¹

The text above is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Thrash metal”, available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 licence. ¹

thrash metal is subgenre of heavy metal, according to the structured record cited below. This entry was generated automatically from that record and has not yet been reviewed by a person familiar with the tradition. ²

The source record links this tradition to 22 external registers, which can be verified through the citation. ²