Thread For Thrash Metal

[Thelemech]

Recently rereleased with some impressive versions of this classic Heavy Metal album, I 'm looking at the awesome set that Jack The Stripper bought.

I myself was only able to track down a single disk version of arguably the greatest mainstream Metal album of all time. The remaster sounds brilliant.

Around this time I was listening to a lot of Death Metal but I always had my hear open to bands like Metallica or Megadeth. I would always get their albums on first day of release. For some this was the last great Metallica album but I would argue that Death Magnetic and Hardwire To Self Destruct are steps in the right direction. On this album though they slowed things down and in some places upped the heaviness. I can remember seeing an Ozzy interview around the time of the Black Albums release saying how much he thought it sounded like what he would have wanted a modern Black Sabbath record to sound like.

I can remember being torn between this great Metal album and  the Megadeth album Countdown To Extinction. At the time I would have probably said that Countdown was superior, but with older years I have come to greatly appreciate the Black Album. It is a work of art, to put it simply. In all honesty I love both albums, but the Metallica slab is simply epic!

[Jack the Stripper]

Nice to see you enjoying this album again Thel. It is a monster and the remaster is amazing. There’s a little more space between the instruments and I’m hearing detail I didn’t originally hear. The clarity is incredible.

I absolutely loved this album and played the hell out of it when it came out, I just hated how popular they became. Never hardly listen to it anymore but this new boxset has me invested again. I really dig hearing the songs striped back in early progress and demo stage. Also the Moscow show is one of the best live shows I’ve ever heard. Band was firing on all cylinders at that point.

Favourite song Thel? For me it was Roam when it first came out before it was all over the radio but it soon became “Of Wolf and Man” and still is to this day. Also love Through The Never, The God That Failed, My Friend of Misery and The Struggle Within. They're all great songs but 5 of the singles became way overplayed. This boxset is selling out everywhere. There’s 50,000 made.
Sold out in less than a week on Metallica.com which the other boxsets took months to.

 

[Charger]

As far as the S/T album goes it has some great tracks...but it also has some real commercial sounding garbage on it too...very mixed bag.

My favourite track has always been Of Wolf And Man...that is probably the most classic sounding track there. Love the power of it and the lyrics are among Hetfield's finest.

Struggle Within, Holier Than Thou and Don't Tread On Me are also among my favourites.

The real stinker section consists of the commercial radio ballads The Unforgiven and Nothing Else Matters. Sad But True falls into the stinker section too but part of it is because of it being so goddamn overplayed.

Enter Sandman is the best of the "hits" and the intro riff ofcourse is a classic and I find myself humming that one every now and then just for no reason. It is catchy. But it too is so damn over played that it has ruined the song a bit.

The other songs are okay....none of them really raise any real feeling one way or another. My life won't get any worse even if I never heard any of them again...nor would it improve if I did.


But one thing is clear though, this album is NOT Thrash metal.... Not sure I'd go with classic Heavy Metal either... There are clearly some pop elements in the song structures and delivery but I wouldn't call it pop metal either. Thel's term Mainstrem Metal sounds about right actually. This was very clear change in direction for the band and they clearly did it with mainstream commercialism in mind. And unlike with some bands they made it big. This is the album that made Metallica a household name. I think they lost a lof of old school fans with this album but sure as hell gained a whole lot of younger fans who at that point probably had never even heard of Metallica nor knew that they had already released a whole bunch of better albums...and to them those albums probably never came favourites either.
In fact I know some Metallica fans that absolutely hate the earlier stuff because it's so "extreme"... To them the band started with S/T...and I suppose ended with St. Anger...

I don't think there's another album out there that has made a band this huge this fast...

[Jack the Stripper]

I don’t think there’s anyone out there or has there ever been that thinks  the album is thrash so that kinda sounds weird that you’re reiterating that point charger. I don’t think the band deliberately set out to be commercial and huge in the mainstream either. No one in their wildest dreams thought they would’ve gotten as huge as they did. But they did set out to to make the songs shorter, simpler in structure and slower in their heaviness as they felt they had taken their previous formula of longer more complicated songs with multi-tempo changes as far as they could without repeating themselves. Puppets was always gonna be impossible to top and there’s no question Justice while still great was a drop off from that album. They had taken that style as far as they could. They also brought in a producer to make them sound as good as they could be.

TBA album opened a lot of doors for metal bands and influenced many and brought metal to the forefront as well as turned literally millions of people onto metal, and that can only be a good thing.

[Charger]

I was simply thinking out loud there trying to categorize the album genre. I don't think any one of us here thought of it as Thrash metal for sure...which is why I dismissed that quickly.

But why I felt the need to start with that was because Metallica was (and still is ofcourse) considered among the bands that started the whole Thrash metal genre. Although one might argue that they started to steer away from that genre already with Master Of Puppets.

I do also think that they'd been around the block often enough at that point to see what were the things that made hit songs and what style was getting the most commercial recognition...and they steered their boat towards that with the album. Doing shorter radio play length songs with a clearer verse / chorus sturctures and catchy sing along parts all make it pretty obvious that they wanted a piece of the ever growing MTV crowd.

Did they ever in their wildest dreams expect it to hit that big? I seriously doubt that too!

I would also say that this album started a genre called Nu-Metal....or at the very least was a huuuge influence to that whole genre.
I do think that the music scene of the 90s would be bit different if this album never happened.

[Thelemech]

My favorite song is Sad But True. It was the fav song of a dear friend who has passed on. It of course reminds me of him but it is also a song with some great guitar work IMHO.

[Charger]

Pausing the Metallica talk for this one:

Pretty crazy riffing in the intro. This is bit less Slayer-like than the first one, bit more Exodus-like...I'm getting a strong Tempo Of The Damned vibe on this one which is a good thing.

[Zzzptm]

I think because of the changes it introduced to Metallica's sound and style, it's a tipping point in their career. There really are a lot of fans of this album and later work that can't get into the earlier releases just as there are crusty oldsters who just can't get into what came after this album.

[Jack the Stripper]

Anthrax’s 40th Anniversary live show/prerecorded live stream from earlier in the year has been put up on YouTube, I’d say without the bands permission, so if you wanna watch it I’d suggest you do ASAP before it gets taken down. It’s pretty good for the most part besides the poor overdubbing job on Joey’s vocals, glaringly obvious on Lone Justice & Indians. The newer songs sound great. Jay Ruston did a great job with the sound & mix.

[Charger]

^^
Video's not working. Not surprising though. I'm assuming the band wants to release that as a dvd at some point...I hope.



These are some bold words from Steve here:
https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/steve-zetro-souza-persona-non-grata-is-exoduss-best-album-so-far/


I honestly hate it when bands say this kind of stuff...It usually never ever is the case and they're just building the hype up and it leads to disappointments.
Sure you can be proud of the album and say that it's great and what not, but call it the best ever is always bit steep.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

^^^
The video works for me, strange it works in Aus and UK but not Finland?!

[Charger]

That is...but it does seem to be region blocked indeed....SME has blocked what ever SME is....

[Thelemech]

It is blocked here in Canada as well.

[Ted Sallis]

^^
Video's not working. Not surprising though. I'm assuming the band wants to release that as a dvd at some point...I hope.



These are some bold words from Steve here:
https://www.blabbermouth.net/news/steve-zetro-souza-persona-non-grata-is-exoduss-best-album-so-far/


I honestly hate it when bands say this kind of stuff...It usually never ever is the case and they're just building the hype up and it leads to disappointments.
Sure you can be proud of the album and say that it's great and what not, but call it the best ever is always bit steep.

Long time guitarist and main Exodus songwriter Gary Holt has always considered Bonded By Blood to be their best album; in the article, Steve states that everyone in the Group considers PNG to be by far their best album yet.  I've always agreed with Gary's ranking of BBB so I can't help but wonder if Sousa is largely getting carried away with the hype.

Ted

[Thelemech]

This band and this album in particular are classics of second tier Thrash Metal. If you are looking for something new to explore this member of the Teutonic Big Four will deliver.