You know, this being a Thrash forum and everything! I know a lot of the stuff this site is used for is correspondence and stuff for people quite involved in the scene but, one time, we were all brought here because of a love of all things Thrash. So, I'm going to start some Thrash threads, encourage people to do the same and expect most people to find something worthwhile to post in response to these Thrash threads...

So, first post/question: Most of use have been into Thrash specifically for quite a few years now (me, properly, 7 years). Has anyone found that there are certain bands that don't really cut it anymore that were great when they first started listening? Also, who still really stands up in your opinion?

Most obscurely, Abitrater from the UK still have some wicked tracks. Was given their Balance of Power album by Jamie years back and listened to it with great appreciation. Far less obscurely, I still think Sabbat's first two albums are phenomenal. Two of the best Thrash albums ever, definitely.

Had a relisten to Sadus' Swallowed in Black today and it still impresses me as one of the most intense, crazy and ferocious Thrash albums. A real gem. And now for the first time in aaaaaaaaages, I am listening to Victims of Science. Fucking Thrash!

As for bands that don't cut it anymore... I don't know, hard to say. Generally, if I didn't really feel it to start with I didn't really pursue it. I guess, oddly enough, it's more the newer bands that fall into this area for me. Warbringer and Skeletonwitch are pretty underwhelming now, really, as are Bonded by Blood - an opinion we pretty much all seemed to share when their latest was released. I suppose Sacred Reich are only worth a couple of tracks now, wouldn't be too bothered with a whole album now. And I only really like Death Angel's debut. The rest I can mostly take or leave.


So, other people: what Thrash still proper rules and what has pretty much fallen to the wayside?

I only want to say

those NEW Destruction releases disappointed me very much

I think from Inventor Of Evil, Mike start to fall,
he just got no more fuel in tank, sold out

Devolution is so painful to listen, I almost lost sleep the night I listened to that

the Lastest one however sounds better than Devolution
but still NO fucking way near old Destruction, or near any other bands
they are fucking boring and dull now

I rather listen to Death Trap again, for the maybe 134th time

This is the main thing impeding my love for thrash is that I go back and listen to some thing and just think, well this is crap.

That being said I still LOVE Carnivore, Sadus, Sabbat, Kreator, Vektor Aspid and a lot of other bands.

I still listen to thrash quite a often, I just seem to go in musical cycles, for instance since an evening at James's I'm fully in heavy metal mode. I'm sure I'll be crywanking over jazz again fairly soon but there we go.

I still love the Thrash, its a great thing indeed. Like bill my musical tastes come in waves, not to say i dont like something, i just get an urge to be listening (and discovering) bands of similar musical genre. This has mainly rotated between 70s British prog/psyche, and early 80s obscure british heavy metal and later 80s Speed Metal. But i do vary it up a lot, and now and then i happily have a dip into the back catalogue, and seeing as there is a large extensive collection of thrash it's still something that gets listened to. Infact listening to Ride the Lightening the other day was a real treat, forgot how totally smashing that album is.

Really liked the new Anti-christ demo i got a while back, and of course the Vektor album still blows my mind.

Antichrist are my current favourite thrash band, seriously so good.

sometimes I will go to heavy metal, epic metal, even old 80 pop jazz or rap
but I always back to thrash metal
my most loved music genre!

at this moment I listen to LOTS of thrash stuffs

old Anthrax
Testament's LOW
Accuser
Negligence
Nocturnal
Master [Rus]
Sarcofago
Riverge





http://www.myspace.com/riverge

I find my taste also goes in waves. I have been getting into a lot of anarcho-punk and crust recently and, if not listening to that, some pretty classic rock-y or less wild prog stuff. But for all that, there shoukld be some thrash chat on a thrash forum.

By the way, I was thinking Toxik's World Circus was not mentioned by me but bloody should have been. Still pretty special.

I find the rawer more evil stuff generally has more staying power for me, there are certain releases such as Schizophrenia, Show No Mercy, Darkness Descends etc. that I can put on after a long hiatus and be instantly into. Also, Bonded By Blood (album) will always be killer. It's all about the classics really, I'd like to say contemporary releases have as much to offer.... but they usually don't.

I agree with Sir James. Nowadays, I listen to very few thrash releases. When I do, it will either be a classic thrash album (Slayer, Metallica [even though I consider them a heavy metal band] etc) or some heavier style stuff.

Thrash is a very high energy genre and there is only so much wild, exuberant, aggressive sound you can take before you start wanting to stick on some Nick Drake! It's for this reason I think that thrash first died and that nowadays we don't listen to it as much as when this forum first started.

When thrash first came about, releases like BBB, Eternal Devastation, Eternal Nightmare etc really were true thrash albums and to this day remain classics in the genre. Towards the tail end of the thrash movement, bands started adding technical and progressive elements, ultimately taking away what made thrash great in the first place.

A thing that for me really was the downfall of the new thrash movement (which is alive and well really) is that all the new bands have really been influenced by the old bands.

Thrash influenced by thrash!

The original thrashers had their roots in NWOBHM and punk, no wonder so many of the new bands have SUCH a highly generic sound.

Anyway, enough of my yakkin' I didn't expect to write as much as I did and I don't really know what my point is!

Anyway, thrash is awesome (in smaller doses now!)

I still listen to a lot of thrash, and have done since about '84/'85. I find most of the old albums still hold up, especially because they remind me of gigs, people, events etc. from over 25 years ago.
I even find that there are some albums (e.g. State Of Euphoria) that I hated when they came out that now sound much better to me.
I think there's also something to be said for the fact that music is so much easier to access these days - in my day (ey up) the only way you could hear bands (apart from Tommy Vance's show) was to actually buy the album. Because of that fact, I think you'd spend more time listening to the album and give it more of a chance. Nowadays, you can download, listen once and forget.
Bands that didn't fare well (but to be fair, were crap anyway) - Defiance, Faith Or Fear.

The new Onslaught is very good, by the way. I'm enjoying it a lot.

phodg wrote:I think there's also something to be said for the fact that music is so much easier to access these days - in my day (ey up) the only way you could hear bands (apart from Tommy Vance's show) was to actually buy the album. Because of that fact, I think you'd spend more time listening to the album and give it more of a chance. Nowadays, you can download, listen once and forget.

That's a very good point, it's one of the reasons why I try to get solid copies of everything I want to listen to now, and I don't rip new purchases to mp3 either, because it means I have to physically take the CD off the shelf and look at the artwork, read the lyrics and so on. I have enough classic albums on my mp3 player to tide me over, and I mostly listen to stuff at home anyway.

Meh.

Well, just what the bloody hell is thrash metal, eh? Is it one-two-one-two drums with boring riffs that sound the same in every song? If so, it's boring and I hate it. If a band combines thrash with elements of another genre, for example prog madness like Vektor, is it not thrash anymore? This has always confused and I'd like to know once and for all please. For another example, Machine Head on their first album, and Pantera on the Great Southern Trendkill kind of combined thrash with "I'm a big idiot boy" Metal to make a new kind of "I'm such a big dickhead" Metal, so obviously that's not thrash anymore, and I imagine many of you would be sick if you heard anyone call them thrash bands. But Vektor have combined it with "Bloomin' christ alive we're so great and wonderful" Metal to make something amazing, but it's the same concept of mixing thrash with something else, so surely they're not thrash anymore either?

And then there's Heretic, god knows what they are.

jonny_boy34 wrote:Well, just what the bloody hell is thrash metal, eh? Is it one-two-one-two drums with boring riffs that sound the same in every song? If so, it's boring and I hate it. If a band combines thrash with elements of another genre, for example prog madness like Vektor, is it not thrash anymore? This has always confused and I'd like to know once and for all please. For another example, Machine Head on their first album, and Pantera on the Great Southern Trendkill kind of combined thrash with "I'm a big idiot boy" Metal to make a new kind of "I'm such a big dickhead" Metal, so obviously that's not thrash anymore, and I imagine many of you would be sick if you heard anyone call them thrash bands. But Vektor have combined it with "Bloomin' christ alive we're so great and wonderful" Metal to make something amazing, but it's the same concept of mixing thrash with something else, so surely they're not thrash anymore either?

Vektor definitely count as thrash. That being said, I still haven't really checked out Black Future. There will always be more interesting thrash bands (such as the prog thrash of Watchtower or the mental brutal riff-fiends of Sadus and Demolition Hammer) but I guess the problem with thrash, as we're all willing to admit, is that it can very easily become derivative. Also, I don't think GSTK is really remotely thrash. I haven't listened to the album in a while but the first three tracks at least are just proper chunky metal. Cowboys and Vulgar were more thrash-y. Burn My Eyes is considered by some as post-thrash. I think that's kind of fair but again its been a while since I've listened to it. I would consider At the Gates' Slaughter of the Soul and SYL's City interesting examples of what can be done with a Thrash core and bringing in other elements.

jonny_boy34 wrote:And then there's Heretic, god knows what they are.

A bunch of cunts.

With GSTK I was thinking along the lines of the title track and Suicide Note Pt. 2, both which have the typical thrash beat going mad everywhere, although I suppose you are right that the rest of the album isn't very thrashy at all. I'm really just asking, when does thrash stop being thrash? Vektor definitely do blur the lines indeed between many sub-genres of metal, although the thrash influence is of course the most obvious one. But you could easily call them a prog-metal band when you listen to such wonderous joys as Forest of Legend and Accelerated Universe (both of which are supreme slices of multiple orgasms).

Anyway that's the problem with me, through this board and being in Damnas and Mutant, I flirted with some thrashy joys, but the only bands that kept my interest for a long time to this day (not including Metallica/Megadeth/Slayer obviously)... well actually I think Vektor are the only ones. What I love about Mutant is the mix up of many things and the heavy metal and sci-fi influence, it's very nice indeed. And what I absolutely loved about playing in Damnas is the pure honest mad aggression mixed with lovely melodic riffs and such - but even then, if I hadn't been in the band, I wonder if I'd have felt the same just listening to it on the album...

...Which brings me to another point. Of course most music is more amazing live, but I wonder if I hadn't seen and played a lot of thrash live, would I care at all for thrash on record? It gets very boring I think when you listen to it on a CD or what-not, and it only truly comes alive at a proper gig. And I think this is much more the case with thrash than other kinds of metal. I can listen to Iron Maiden every day and it's glorious, but thrash only truly makes me feel mad and great when I'm watching it live.

So by christ and have a laugh.