The Metal Thread 4.0

[jyoung]

Originally posted by Skelator
I need some opinions from you guys. I'm into old school metal. Testament, Overkill, Slayer, Sepultura, etc. These guys take forever to release new albums. I'm sure there are other bands out there which I've never heard, that play similar type of music. I don't keep up much with the music scene these days and would like to check out some other bands. Thanks for any input.

First of all, just how much Sepultura do you have? If you don't have "Schizophrenia" and "Beneath The Remains" you're missing out on two of the best thrash records out there. "Arise" is also a good album but it's not quite up to the standards of the other two I mentioned.

If you already have those albums and all the good Slayer records, (Show No Mercy, Hell Awaits, and Reign In Blood are all you really need IMO) I suggest you check out the following albums by Kreator and Exhorder, two bands that were overlooked during the mid/late eighties thrash explosion.

Kreator- Terrible Certainty
Kreator- Pleasure To Kill
Exhorder- The Law
Exhorder- Slaughter In The Vatican

Kreator has a large catalog of albums to choose from, but PTK and TC are their best. Also, they have gradually slowed down their sound over the years,(think Sepultura) so I wouldn't suggest getting any of their other CDs unless you're big into mid-paced thrash. Fortunately, you don't have to worry about Exhorder because they only released two albums. Lastly, if you don't already have Anthrax's "Among The Living" it's a great album that any thrash fan will like.

So that takes care of old thrash bands, but what about the "new" breed of thrash? I would recommend starting out by getting both CDs from The Haunted, and if you like that you might want to try out any CD from The Crown.

That should be enough stuff to get you started, and if you have any questions don't hesitate to ask.

[CynicalSphere]

Never thought I would see Kreator described as "overlooked," since they were one of the kings of the German thrash movement. Anyway, from Kreator get "Endless Pain," and "Pleaure to Kill" and everything else up to and including Coma of Souls and forget the rest...

There are fuckloads of other German thrash bands from the 80s that you might want to check out, most notably Destruction and Artillery.

I don't recommend Exhorder unless you like Pantera. I don't like either one, personally. But if you like Pantera, go nuts.

If you don't have DARK ANGEL - Darkness Descends, rectify the situation NOW. Get all their stuff while you're at it.

A lot of the early REAL death metal albums (Sepultura's first album, early Death, Possessed, among others) were also more thrash than that shit that people call "death metal" nowadays...

But if you're looking for the "new" school of thrash, I'd personally look into King's Evil from Japan rather than The Haunted or Witchery. King's Evil's last album is great thrash that sounds like a more focused early Kreator mixed with some choice Slayer...

[station82o]

Listening to Exhorder nearly confuses me with Pantera sometimes. ...heh...so thats where they got that 'power groove'.

[Skeletor]

Thanks for the input guys. I already have all the old Slayer, Sepultura, and Anthrax albums. I never checked out Kreator though. I think I'll give them and Dark Angel a try.

[CynicalSphere]

Originally posted by station82o
Listening to Exhorder nearly confuses me with Pantera sometimes. ...heh...so thats where they got that 'power groove'.

Heheh, Pantera was a glam band (and one of the fucking UGLIEST glam bands in existence) before they stole Exhorder's sound. No wonder Phil punched out a fan who made reference to that period...

But some more overlooked thrash bands...

SABBAT (UK) - History of a Time to Come, Wildfire
HATEWORK (Check out www.witches-brew.org for more details)
HATEFUL AGONY (See Hatework)
LIVING SACRIFICE - Self-titled (One of the few Christian bands that actually got it RIGHT)
DEATH ANGEL - The Ultraviolence & Frolic in the Park (Act III kinda sucked but I've seen it on sale new for $3)
CELTIC FROST - Morbid Tales/Emperor's Return and To Mega Therion (Into The Pandemonium was avant-garde stuff where your mileage may vary, BUT DO FUCKING NOT GET ANYTHING AFTER THAT, ESPECIALLY COLD LAKE! D O N O T ! ! !)
WHIPLASH
CARNIVORE (What Peter Steele was doing before he got the gay and formed Type O Negative. Who can't love a song called "Angry Neurotic Catholics?")
DESASTER (Technically black metal but still more in line with old-school thrash than most so-called thrash bands)
TERRORSQUAD 2000 (More crazy Japanese making crazy thrash)

More as I remember them...

[FirstBlood]

went to the Opeth show at the Trocadero yesterday, and it was fan-fuckin-tastic

... Tapping the Vein and Paradise Lost sucked ass though...

[Astral]

Lucky Bastard =p

[CynicalSphere]

Some stuff I bought recently...

IN FLAMES - The Jester Race/Black Ash Inheritance: The best In Flames album by far and the only one I would say is truly great. Very influential and very good. I finally got a copy for myself since my friend that had it moved awhile ago...

AURORA BOREALIS - Time, Unveiled: Don't let the fruity name of the band or the album fool you, this is thrash that sounds like Dark Angel mixed with Kreator being played at double speed. The drumming is insane (but a bit to blasty for me in places). The closest comparison I can think of is maybe Emperor without keyboards and thrashier riffs...

PRIMORDIAL - Storm Before Calm: I'd say that Primordial is the best Irish metal band still going today (though they don't really have much in the way of competition), and with the exception of Tuatha De Danann (from Brazil of all places) they're probably the best Celtic folk-metal band still going. There's not much I can say to describe this other than tell you to listen to Sons of the Morrigan...

PRIMORDIAL - Imrama: First album from the Irish legends. One of the most innovative black metal albums of the early 90s, on par with Sigh's "Scorn Defeat" and Varathron's "His Majesty at the Swamp." It also has good production from a old-school black metal album. With Cradle of Filth, Bal Sagoth, Sigh, and Primordial all on one label, one wonders how Cacophonous managed to avoid NOT becoming a major player in metal. Oh yeah, they screwed over their bands. CoF is now on Sony, BS on Nuclear Blast, Sigh on CM, and Primordial on Hammerheart. That's life, I guess.

PRIMORDIAL - Spirit the Earth Aflame: Fourth album, considered the band's finest hour by many.

In other news, I'm going back into therapy tomorrow. What fucking fun. Hopefully it'll work this time...

******************************** (Damn topic merger)

A topic on another board came up on racism in metal. While this post doesn't have so much to do with that particular thread (which eventually degraded to little more than idiots tossing around the terms "pure" (you have no idea how much I've come to hate that word), "n****r," and "k**e" like candy on Halloween), this is my post on that topic in case anyone is interested.

Originally posted by Esoteric

Yeah, I'd like to see someone go to a death metal show in Brazil or a thrash show in Japan and start preaching about this retarded "metal is white power" bullshit. We can time how long it takes before someone turns him/her into hamburger.

There are great metal bands in all corners of the world inhabited by every race of man; anyone that thinks otherwise is either deaf, retarded, or not looking hard enough. It's easy to say that the sun isn't shining if you spend all day with your head in the sand (or up your ass, as the case may be).

Japanese bands? Grimforce, Gorgon, Sabbat, Narcotic Greed, Fatima Hill, Terrorsquad 2000, Kings-Evil, Metalucifer, Sigh, Cutthroat, the list goes on and on. You could add a lot more to that if you include neighboring countries such as India, Malaysia, Korea, and China.

Black people in metal bands? Stone Vengeance, Black Death, Steel Prophet, Blasphemy, and Suffocation come to mind as being entirely black or having black members.

You can think whatever you like about this segregationist bullshit in metal, but I think it's a load of crap no matter how "intelligently" one tries to put it across. You can make any idea sound good with some pretty rhetoric and examples (regardless of how well or badly they support the point), but then you take a good look and see that they don't work in practice. I think that ideas that don't work in practice are worthless, regardless of how well-intentioned they are.

And it's my personal opinion that anyone that thinks that highly of their own race (regardless of what it is) hasn't been paying much attention to the sorts of people it has produced. Shit comes in all colors.

As a side note, does anyone other than me think it utterly laughable when skinheads hail Slayer, when Tom Araya isn't white and he sure as HELL ain't Aryan? You'd think that anyone that knows what Resistance Records (a record label dedicated to WP bands, most of which were shitty Deicide clones last I heard) is would know that much...

[Morrigan]

Yeah, you totally owned that racist idiot.
I remember refusing some of his reviews because his writing was such crap. I felt kind of bad because he was European and so English wasn't his first language, I usually give them a chance, but this time it was just too crappy.
After seeing what kind of fuckwit he was, I suddenly didn't feel so bad anymore.

[Tracer]

That was cool, I've only encountered a dew WP guys in the world before, but when I did I was quite literally shocked. I wanted to smash the guys skull in with a bottle.

ºTracer