Try This, Jimi Hendrix
First things off, what is Thrash Metal? About.com tells us that Thrash Metal is a Sub-Genre of Heavy metal. It is Heavily driven by guitar and is known for it’s guitar solos. The genre also sounds very dark, aggressive and heavy, yet still understandable. It is more aggresive compared to its relatives Speed metal and Glam metal, but farther from the demonic growls of Death metal and Black metal.
Metallica, one of the forefathers
The Genre startted around 1970’s-1980’s. It was when bands started to be influenced by NWOBHM (Judas Priest, MotorHead, Iron Maiden) but moved away from Punk Rock, with a mix of the heavy blues of Led Zeppelin and The gloomy, Murky riffs of Black Sabbath (Hurray Ozzy!!). These elements, followed by experimentation from bands like Van Halen (Accessible Metal), Alice Cooper & Kiss, Aerosmith and Def Leppard, led to the Four “deities” of Thrash – Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer and Anthrax.
Of course, all great civilizations have a breeding ground. The Aztecs had Mexico, Egyptians had the deserts of Egypt, and Constantine had Turkey. Thrash Metal had its own sandbox- The San Francisco Bay Area, California.
Where it all began.
The Bay Area has become a kind of Mecca for Metal Heads. It is the Birthplace of three of the Big Four, Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer as well as Exodus and Testament.
The Bay Area circa 1981-
1981 was a landmark year for Thrash Metal. It was in 1981 that Lars Ulrich Posted and announcement in —The Recycler—which read
“Drummer looking for other metal musicians to jam with Tygers of Pan Tang, Diamond Head and Iron Maiden.”
One thing led to another , The ”Four Fathers” had hoined to form Metallica- James Hettfield, Lars Ulrich, Cliff Burton and Dave Mustaine.
It was also around 1981 that Anthrax formed.
Around 1983, Mustaine was kicked out, with Kirk Hammet Taking his place. Dave still claims to have co-written some of Metallica’s songs.
“I miss them a lot. I comes and goes, and sometimes it’s painful and sometimes it’s very vindicating. I know there are two great bands now, but it makes me wonder if I was still in the band how much farther they would or would not have gone.” (Mustaine)
Also around 1983, Mustaine vowed to himself to from a band better than Metallica. In the summer of 1983, Dave Mustaine met David Ellefson to form Megadeth. Kerry king briefly joined the band, but briefly quit to focus on his own band , Slayer.
Slayer's Forecast - It's Gonna Rain Blood Today
Coincidentally, Kerry King met with Jeff Hanneman to form Slayer around 1983. Tom Araya also joined the band.
It is interseting to note that Exodus formed in 1981 with Kirk Hammet on guitar. He left Exodus in 1983 to replace Dave Mustaine in Metallica.
Testament Formed in 1984 (which was then called The Legacy). One of the Founding members, Alex Skolnick, was a student of Joe Satriani. Kirk Hammet was also a student of Joe Satriani.
Circa 1984-
This was another landmark year for Thrash Metal. Three of the ”Big Four” released major albums in this year- Metallica’s ”Ride The Lightning”, Anthrax’s “Fistful Of Metal”, and Slayer’s ”Haunting The Chapel”. These were followed by Exodus’s ” Bonded By Blood” and Slayer’s ”Hell Awaits”. Megadeth Followed in 1985 with “Killing Is My Business…And Business is Good!”
Meanwhile, Thrash metal continued to draw more supporters in the late 1980’s. Canada spawned Annihilator and Sadus (Reowned for Steve DeGiorgo’s use of a fretless bass guitar). Germay spawned Sodom (”Agent Orange”, 1989) and Kreator (”Extreme Aggression”,1989).
1990’s-
Kurt Cobain, The leader of a new movement
The Old Heads made ther music more acceptable and mainstreamed. Metallica and Megadeth became superstars in the 90’s when they hit mainstream appeal. Other metal heads went to experimentation, spawning Death Metal and Black Metal. Death Metal emphasizes more on blastbeats and growls, whereas Black Metal retained it’s thrash sound with synthesizers (from Industrial Metal) thrown into the mix.
However, Thrash Metal wasn’t the biggest thing in the music scene. A new branch of rock had spawned in this generation, the so called ”Seattle Sound” or Grunge. It was led by Nirvana, Pearl Jam, Sound Garden, and Alice In Chains. Still, as Tenacious D proclaimed in their song, ”The Metal” :
”Grunge then tried to dethrone the metal, but metal was in the way”
However, in the late 1990’s, the Grunge scene began to fade. The new kids, Post-Grunge (More radio Friendly Grunge) and Britpop (Led by Oasis) began to over-power the grunge scene. Combine this with the loss of Kurt Cobain in April 8, 1994, the grunge scene consequently fell and never came back.
It was in 1993, at the famous Milton Keynes Bowl that Dave Mustaine said :
“The ten years of bullshit is over between Metallica and Megadeth!”
The Bullshit is over, The music Ain't
Even up to now, the forefathers continue to produce top-level metal. Metallica released ”Death Magnetic” in 2008. Megadeath released ”United Abominations” in 2007′.
Today the torch is carried by the so called ”New Wave of Thrash Metal”: Municipal Waste, Evile, Gama Bomb, Warbringer, Evile, and all their peers. Still, nothing seems to have the same precision smash sound of the big four.
It really does seem that you can’t kill the metal.
Megadeth V.S Metallica-has some cool pics
numbmusique 