Thrash Metal
Created | Updated Jan 28, 2002
The thrash metal scene arrived during the early eighties, having evolved from the fast-paced, NWOBHM music of the end of the seventies. It was effectively the first of many combinations of metal with punk. In the early days, the entire point of thrash metal (also called speed metal, among other names) was to play your guitars (there were usually two guitars in a band - lead and rhythm) as fast as possible, while someone sang (or screeched) over the top. This was, of course, very effective at filling people with energy as they bounced around to the high-speed sound, as it were. To paraphrase the bible, in the beginning there was Venom, often credited as being the godfather of thrash metal, although they did have a more death metal outlook. Then, thrash itself emerged. In the early days, the thrash scene consisted mainly of bands from the coast of California, particularly the Bay Area of San Francisco/Los Angeles (I forget which). They played all the local clubs. Among these fledgling bands was Metallica, who would later become the biggest survivor of the thrash scene.
After a few years, four band emerged as the big four in thrash, otherwise known as The Four Horsemen of the Thrash Apocalypse, or Slayer, Anthrax, Megadeth and Metallica. As the decade drew on, these four became the best known names in the thrash scene. Megadeth was Metallica's only offspring, since it was formed when former Metallica guitarist Dave Mustaine was fired by the rest of the band, so went on to form his own band with the intent of becoming more successful than his former band. He failed in this, but has still made a significant impact on the thrash metal world.
As the decade drew on, thrash metal became somewhat of a cliche'd genre. As had the metal scene previously, when big-hair bands emerged, such as Bon Jovi and Whitesnake. Metallica attempted to move away from their thrash roots, and develop a style of their own, still heavy but perhaps with more intelligence than many other thrash bands. The first step they took away from thrash was in 1984, when it was still a young genre. Their second album, Ride the Lightning, included a ballad, Fade to Black. The rest of the album, however, was still just as heavy.
While the big four thrived, other thrash bands fell by the wayside. Bands such as Nuclear Assault, Flotsam and Jetsam and the like either split up or continued to release albums without much of an announcement.
By the nineties, the thrash metal scene was all but dead. The new 'big thing' in metal was grunge. Metallica's best-selling eponymous fifth album was released in the same year as Nirvana's second, Nevermind. By this stage, many puritan fans felt Metallica had softened too much, and abandoned them. Megadeth and Slayer had remained fairly thrashy, and remain so today Much more than Metallica, who have perhaps softened too much. Their Load and Reload albums, despite selling in vast quantities, were lambasted byprevious fans as being a sign of a band that had now forgotten their roots. The thrash scene, born out of youthful energy, had grown old and no longer seemed to impress the teenage metallers. Now there were bands like Korn and Limp Bizkit emerging from the US, with a new genre called nu-metal. Thrash metal had, in fact, faded to black.
