Counting down the greatest thrash records of all time.
Warning: heads will be banged.
Dominated by the old school (because we’re sentimental
bastards) but undeniably diverse, our top 20 albums are essential listening for
any dedicated thrasher. Disagree with our list? Too bad. We can’t hear you
moaning because we’re listening to thrash! Cheers!
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Band / Album /
Label / Year
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Description
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Full Album URL
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Annihilator – Alice In Hell (Roadrunner, 1989)
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One of the finest metal guitarists of all time, Jeff
Waters was always destined for greatness, but this precocious debut album
was, if we’re honest, taking the piss. Incredible musicianship, wonderful
songs and with energy levels permanently in the red, Alice... raised thrash’s
IQ and put its Canadian contingent firmly on the map once and for all.
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Sabbat – History Of A Time To Come (Noise, 1988)
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While many of their UK peers simply emulated their cousins
from across the Atlantic, Sabbat created their own world of paganised poetry
and eccentric riffing, resulting in a debut album that eschewed the rule book
in favour of a fiercely individual take on the thrash formula. An underground
phenomenon, perhaps, but an album that sent ripples of inspiration through
the metal world.
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Overkill – The Years Of Decay (Atlantic, 1989)
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Already veterans of the east coast metal scene by the time
they made it, Overkill flexed their muscles on The Years Of Decay and the
results were remarkable. Both unashamedly committed to thrash ethics and
admirably adventurous within those parameters, this was a formidable show of
strength from a band that have never strayed from the righteous thrash path.
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Nuclear Assault – Handle With Care (In-Effect, 1989)
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The opening impact of Nuclear Assault’s third album still
wrenches breath from lungs. Handle With Care was turbocharged thrash imbued
with the spirit of hardcore: remorseless aggression and speed married to
astutely crafted metallic anthems (and the occasional joke). Nuclear Assault
seldom get the props they deserve, but no thrash collection is complete
without them.
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Kreator – Extreme Aggression (Noise, 1989)
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By the time Kreator reached their fourth album, their
youthful belligerence had mutated into something far more controlled and
precise, but the ferocity that drove their early records remained in evidence
on this gleaming monument to cutting edge thrash. As the incredible title
track and the epic Some Pain Will Last prove, Kreator were on fire and making
sure everyone else got burned too.
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Metallica – Kill 'Em All (Megaforce, 1983)
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It is faintly terrifying to see how young they look on the
back cover of the debut album, but Metallica were already much more than
naive dreamers when they pieced this raw masterwork together. The bullish
clatter of Hit The Lights, the visceral sprint of Whiplash, the ageless might
of Seek & Destroy... yeah, Metallica were pretty fucking amazing from the
very start.
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Voivod – Dimension Hatröss (Noise, 1988)
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The most distinctive and daring of all the 80s thrash
bands, Voivod strode along their singular path making albums that sounded
like nothing else on earth. Dimension Hatröss
is the best of them: a turbulent sci-fi nightmare, brimming with grotesque
hooks, exquisite lyrical weirdness and the late, great Piggy’s idiosyncratic
and deeply peculiar riffs. It’s thrash, Lars, but not as we know it.
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Metallica – ...And Justice For All (Elektra, 1988)
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Progressive thrash masterpiece or bass-free self-indulgence?
Oh fuck off, it's obviously the former. From the pummelling of Blackened
onwards, AJFA repositioned Metallica as metal's premier sonic explorers, with
songs that defied convention while never forgetting to be seriously fucking
heavy. Harvester Of Sorrow, One, Dyer's Eve, The Frayed Ends Of Sanity...
classics, each and every one.
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Sepultura – Beneath The Remains (Roadrunner, 1989)
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Restless souls from the mean streets of Belo Horizonte,
Sepultura had already outgrown their primitive death metal roots when they
made this, their third album. They would continue to evolve on later albums,
but BTR was the Brazilians' incisive love letter to thrash and its inherent
energy and strength. 25 years later, it will still kick your face off.
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Testament – The Legacy (Altantic, 1987)
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Although a year or two too late to qualify for thrash’s
Big Four, Testament are many metalheads’ choice for an imagined fifth
position. The Legacy bulges with skull- shattering heaviness and bewildering
displays of technical prowess, but it is the sheer quality of the Bay Area
band’s songwriting that made their debut album such an unequivocal triumph.
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Anthrax – Among The Living (Island, 1987)
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Forget the shorts, the jokes and the detours into rap
territory: Anthrax have always been a kickass metal band, and Among The
Living thoroughly deserves its place in our top 10. With countless infectious
refrains, razor sharp lyrics and some of the beefiest riffs ever written,
songs like I Am The Law, Caught In A Mosh and Indians offer nothing less than
metal perfection.
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Megadeth – Peace Sells... But Who's Buying? (Capitol,
1986)
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An audacious second effort by Dave Mustaine and his
prodigiously gifted band, Peace Sells... still startles to this day. Complex
and unsettling, its finest moments – Wake Up Dead, The Conjuring, Devils
Island and that title track – contributed hugely to thrash’s expanding
vocabulary, not least due to Mustaine and Chris Poland’s extraordinary
six-string chops.
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Possessed – Seven Churches (Relativity, 1985)
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Our top 20 purposefully avoids bands that blurred the
boundaries between thrash, death and (early) black metal, but Possessed are
the one exception we had to make. Seven Churches is a thrash album through and
through – it’s just darker, heavier and more brilliantly blasphemous than
anything else that existed at the time. And yes, death metal began in earnest
here too.
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Exodus – Bonded By Blood (Combat, 1985)
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Talismanic standard bearers for the Bay Area thrash scene,
Exodus defined the entire genre with their debut album. Led by the
none-more-diehard Paul Baloff, they tore through nine flawless lessons in
hard-riffing violence and deftly nailed the thrash blueprint for all time.
'Metal takes hold, death starts to unfold... it's loud like the world's at
and end!' sums it up.
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Dark Angel – Darkness Descends (Combat, 1986)
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Released mere months after Reign In Blood and Pleasure To
Kill, Dark Angel’s second album managed to outstrip both in terms of speed
and fury. With the mighty Gene Hoglan on the drums, this was always going to
slay, but the LA crew also had the songs to back up their ferocity. It’s
impossible to listen to The Burning Of Sodom without smashing something.
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Kreator – Pleasure To Kill (Noise, 1986)
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The States may have dominated the thrash scene, but
Germany's contribution was huge. Kreator's second album remains one of the
few to challenge Slayer in the violence and mayhem stakes, its blistering
tempos and Mille Petrozza's deranged screeching conspiring to wrench open the
gates of hell and let its nastiest demons run rampage. Rage has never sounded
more exciting.
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Metallica – Ride The Lightning (Megaforce, 1984)
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The album that sealed Metallica's reputation as the new
metal band of the early 80s, Ride The Lightning was a staggering achievement
from such young musicians. The depth, ambition and musicality evident in
Creeping Death, For Whom The Bell Tolls and Fade To Black still take the
breath away over 30 years later. If you love thrash, you must love this.
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Megadeth – Rust In Peace (Capitol, 1990)
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Thrash may have faded badly during the 90s, but it
certainly entered the decade in supreme form. Megadeth’s greatest album upped
the ante for the entire metal genre with songwriting, technicality and production
all hitting unprecedented levels of efficacy. Holy Wars... The Punishment
Due, Hangar 18 and Tornado Of Souls have become revered classics. Say what
you like about Dave Mustaine, but he’s a genius.
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Metallica – Master Of Puppets (Elektra, 1986)
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Younger Metallica fans may wonder why so many people
bemoan the band’s meandering creativity over the last 20 years: Master Of
Puppets explains why. Epic, ingenious, overwhelmingly muscular and precise,
every one of its eight songs is a timeless classic. It was both Cliff
Burton’s swansong and the album that propelled Metallica towards stardom. If
you don’t own it, you suck at metal.
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Slayer – Reign In Blood (Def Jam, 1986)
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Is there such a thing as a perfect album? Yes. It’s called
Reign In Blood. Not quite 30 minutes of the most brutal, explosive and
unrelenting extreme metal ever conceived, Slayer’s third album still sounds
staggeringly powerful nearly three decades on. From the cudgelling attack of
the opening Angel Of Death to the bleak horror of Raining Blood, Reign In
Blood towers above every other thrash album for several reasons, but the most
important of them is its swivel-eyed intensity: something that no other metal
band have ever quite equalled. The evil riffs of Hanneman and King, Tom Araya’s
menacing proclamations, Dave Lombardo’s octopus-like mastery of the kit...
this is thrash metal at its purest and most destructive. It may never be
surpassed.
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