The Thrash Metal Genre

Thrash metal is a fictional heavy metal sub-genre, its real name being speed metal. Basically, 'thrash metal' doesn't exist - what people mean by thrash is either speed metal, ex. Sodom, proto-black metal, ex. Bathory, proto-death metal, ex. Possessed, or even heavy metal, ex. Metallica, and metalcore, ex. modern Slayer.

For the sake of clarity, I will continue using the misnomer 'thrash metal' on this page, but keep in mind that 90% of the time this 'thrash metal' term is a marketing gimmick destined to make speed metal sound more brutal than it is.

What is speed metal? Speed metal is the music genre formed from the fusion of NWOBHM, 'New Wave of British Heavy Metal', and punk music. NWOBHM itself was a fusion of Black Sabbath and the hard rock genres of the time, including some glam metal like Mötley Crüe and Queenrÿche, given an underground and more extreme image. The definitive speed metal album is the first Metallica work, but we could also look to Sodom's Persecution Mania or Slayer's Hell Awaits.

What is thrash metal? A marketing term for speed metal. Some argue that it's a separate genre that merely 'evolved' from speed metal, but the fact of the matter is that musically, there is no difference between the bands and albums people call thrash metal and those they call speed metal.

What is more important than the thrash/speed (false) dichotomy, is perhaps the influence this thrash/speed metal genre had on the rise of black metal and death metal. Surely, you've all heard the interviews where Fenriz speaks positively of Sodom and Bathory, and even the mighty Burzum was somewhat influenced by the latter.

Bathory, for instance, is barely even a thrash/speed metal band - debut album excluded. By the time their sophomore album, The Return, came out, they were already clearly in the black metal camp.

To a lesser extent, the same can be said of Slayer's Hell Awaits, which can be considered proto-death metal, or even downright death metal depending on the way you look at it. The same is true of Possessed's Seven Churches, an album widely recognized for having given birth to the death metal genre.