Hammond Music

With the Thrash metal revival in full swing, lets take alook at Thrash metals ‘big four’ bands that bought the genre to the forefront just the heyday of 80s thrash.

• Metallica. One of the first wave of thrash bands, Metallica gave us ‘kill ‘em all’ in 1983 and ‘Ride the Lightning’ a year later, then stepped things up with 1986’s Master of puppets -an album people claim is the pinnacle of the genre. After the technicality of ‘And justice for all’, Metallica were catapulted into rock stardom with the ‘black’ album, which cause many to level claims of ’sell out’ at the band. After ‘load’ and ‘re-load’, fighting napster and rehab, Metallica came back out with ‘St Anger’, which the making of was filmed for the movie documentary ‘Some kind of monster’. Last year saw the release of ‘Death Magnetic’, hailed as the ‘best’ Metallica record in years. A step back in the right direction? We’ll see.
• Slayer. From California, Slayer started out sounding very Judas Priest/ Iron maiden-ish with their first two albums ‘Show no mercy’ and ‘Hell awaits’, then came their classic thrash album ‘reign in blood’ in 1986, bringing in more speed, aggression and balls to the wall brutality. While other metal bands disapeared during the 90s, Slayer survived by doing what they did best -playing Brutal music. Seasons in the abyss, ‘Diabilous in musica’ and ‘Divine intervention’ were all released during this time. Original drummer Dave Lombardo returned after ‘God hates us all’ for ‘Christ illusion’. Rumors persist of the next album being the last one- lets hope that isnt the case.
• Megadeth. Fired from Metallica, Dave Mustaine put all his anger and rage into Megadeth in an attempt to ‘one-up’ them. They released debut album ‘killing is my business and business is good’ in 1985, then much loved albums ‘peace sells’, ‘rust in peace’ amd countdown to extinction’. Megadeths one constant has alwasy been Mustaine, with a revolving door policy on the other band members. Mustaine called a close to Megadeth in 2002 after being left with nerve damage in one of his arms. Intensive pyshical therapy repaired my hand and Meagdeth were up and running again in 2004, releasing the system has failed and united abominations.
• Anthrax. Formed in 1981 by guitar players Danny Lilker and Scott Ian, Anthrax’s debut ‘fistful of metal’ is the only album to feature original vocalist Neil Turbin. Then came singer Joey Belladonna to complete the classic anthrax line up for the next 5 albums, including the albums ’spreading the disease’ and ‘among the living’ before being replaced with John Bush of Armored Saint. Anthrax were then pushed to the side on their new label until Nuclear Blast picked them up and gave us ‘we have come for you all’ in 2004. The band later re-united with Joey Belladonna before he to jumped ship- and Anthrax have now drafted in Dan Nelson and are currently writing new materal.

This thrash nostalgia made you want to don some converse trainers and retro bags again? Look no further.

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