Thrash Metal

Downpicked mutes, double kick and punk speed came out of California and New York in the early 1980s.

Related

ContemporaryTempoElectric guitarDrum Kit

Thrash metal joined the riffs of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal to punk speed, forming in California and New York between 1981 and 1986.

Origins and era

Metallica formed in Los Angeles in 1981, moved to the San Francisco Bay Area in 1983 and released Kill 'Em All. That same year Slayer formed in Huntington Park, Megadeth began after Dave Mustaine left Metallica, and Anthrax was already complete in New York. Sodom and Kreator appeared in Germany's Ruhr region around the same time, forming another line. These bands spread at first through tape trading and underground shows, reaching larger rooms only in the second half of the 1980s.

What you hear

Tempos often run from 160 to 220 BPM. Guitar plays continuous sixteenth-note riffs with downpicking and palm muting, and sections switch through sudden stops and accelerations. The singer shouts or half-sings, solos are technical, and harmonic minor and chromatic runs are common. The tone is thicker than hardcore and closer to metal production, with rhythm and solo guitars recorded in layers and the low end compressed. The drummer adds double kick on the riff's strong beats and fills with fast tom rolls, while guitar repeats one motif on the low strings before the solo jumps to a higher position. The singer leaves gaps between phrases so the riff can speak. Rhythm guitar is usually tracked twice, one take per side.

Key figures

James Hetfield of Metallica made the downpicked riff a signature, Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman of Slayer used chromatic lines and fast alternate picking, and Dave Mustaine of Megadeth favoured complex arrangements and tempo changes. Anthrax brought New York hardcore rhythm, while Kreator and Sodom in Germany pushed the attack further.

Lineage

The New Wave of British Heavy Metal, hardcore punk and 1970s metal feed in; death metal, metalcore and 1990s extreme metal come out. It was the first real merger of punk and metal, and it made speed something that could be discussed as a technique on its own. By the late 1980s its technical standards had entered guitar and drum instruction and become a shared language for extreme metal. Its live culture also set the touring pattern for metal bands.

Common misunderstandings

The common claim is that thrash belongs to Britain, when the main scenes were in California, New York and Germany. Another is that it is only about speed; mid-tempo passages and melody matter just as much, and many well-known songs turn on a slow heavy riff rather than a sprint.

Sources

• Joel McIver, Justice for All, The Truth About Metallica（Omnibus Press, 2004），用于核对湾区场景与年代
• The New Grove Dictionary of Music and Musicians, 2nd ed., entry Thrash Metal，用于交叉核对风格特征

Used for fact-checking only; all prose is original.