The Batlord

Those not familiar with my Metal Album Survivor thread can kiss my ass, but if you are then you know about all those top ten lists I've compiled. I don't know if you people realize just how much time and effort I put into those on an ongoing basis: coming up with new lists, refining old ones, and just in general listening to a vast ****load of metal just to make sure my lists are suitably awesome. It's honestly a compulsion at this point -- I'm currently pulling my hair out trying to redo my metalcore list.

But ATM most of them are just sitting around collecting dust, and I put too much blood sweat and tears into this **** to let that happen, so I'm gonna give some short thoughts on each. I imagine this is gonna be a grab bag, as some of these albums were included by reputation rather than because I actually liked them -- I'm trying to be impartial after all -- and some of those I have only given cursory listens to just cause I felt I should. Imma start with the first battle: thrash...




I won't deny the vast nutsack this album possesses. It's a steel-booted kick right to your temple finished off with a curb stomp. That said, I've never been the biggest Kreator fan. I think their riffs are just too dissonant for my taste. They have plenty of moments that seriously kick ass, but I just can't get behind them 100%.




**** you people for voting this off so fast. Kiss my ass. Wpnfire and I almost came to blows that I picked this over their Darkness Descends album, and while I dig that record, Time Does Not Heal is just one of my all-time fav metal albums -- and it's my ****ing thread so I reserve the right to the odd personal pick. The band uses their technical proficiency to create a complex, crushing, misanthropic atmosphere that adds a level of emotional immersion that one almost never feels with a thrash metal album. I really can't think of another thrash album that I can throw on, switch off the lights, lay in bed, stare at the ceiling, and just contemplate everything that is wrong with my life and myself in despair. Time Does Not Heal was just a unique piece of vinyl in a sea of imitators and also-rans.




I go back and forth with Testament. They kick some ass, don't get me wrong, but they're also the perfect example of a second wave thrash band standing on the shoulders of their big brothers without really doing anything to add to anything. They don't up the brutality meter, they don't experiment, all they really do is make catchy, middle-of-the-road thrash tailor-made to appeal to '80s kids who'd just graduated from Judas Priest and thought they were the **** just cause they had a copy of Reign In Blood. On the other hand, this is a fairly kickass album that is catchy as ****. *shrug*




Another band I'm funny about. They're certainly not a bad band by any stretch of the imagination, and they have more song-writing capability than a lot of their brutal thrash peers, but they don't have quite the same "Oomph!" If I wanna listen to that kind of thing then I generally skip Sepultura and go straight for Demolition Hammer and Exhorder -- who may not be as good bands, but man do they rip harder than Sep. Not a bad album by any stretch of the imagination though.




I love how little of a **** this album gives. "Speak English or Die", "**** the Middle East", "Premenstrual Princess Blues", "Kill Yourself", etc. This band had no taste and wanted everyone to know it. I guess since this was a side project of some of the guys from Anthrax that they felt some freedom to **** around. More importantly is just how much ass it kicked. So ****ing heavy, with a crunchy guitar tone that holds up to this day -- and just check that epic blastbeat all over "Milk" by Charlie mother****ing Benante (Wheat Thins and beer, dude). I really can't think of a crossover thrash album that exemplifies the melding of thrash and hardcore quite as perfectly as Speak English or Die.




Oh my god I love this album. It was one of the albums that made me realize that I was a metalhead and a thrash fan way back when I was thirteen/fourteen. I love it both for its sheer awesomeness and its complete and utter lack of anything approaching class. The lyrics, the cover, the myopic music, and the "singing", everything is garbage. Glorious, wonderful, beautiful garbage. "Get in our way and we're going to take your life! Kick in your face and rape and murder your wife!" I think that says it all right there.




Don't get me wrong, I loves me some Anthrax, and this is a kickass album, but I think of Anthrax as a trad/speed metal band that went thrash cause that was just the thing to do. Not that they were jumping on a bandwagon, I just think somewhere inbetween Spreading the Disease and this album would have been the perfect fit for them. I miss those outrageous, Dickinson-esque vocals from the former album, but I also dig the improved songwriting overall with Among the Living. Is it any surprise that one of my two fav songs is one where they really let Joey belt out some melodic metal singing? ("Indians", and even if it's less melodic "I Am the Law" is just a monster.) Pay me no mind though, cause "Indians" has some insane riffs, and a ****ing badass mosh section ("WAR DANCE!!!") -- so this band clearly knew what they were doing, even if I miss some of those more melodic elements.




Would I be overstepping my bounds to say that out of all eighties metal bands that the only one with better covers than Megadeth was Iron Maiden? Whatever, I'm right and you're wrong. Another album I grew up on and is pretty much imprinted on my DNA at this point. Not quite as angry or thrashy as their previous albums, this was a melodic speed metal album that goes for the throat as much as it burrows into your ears. "Hangar 18", "Take No Prisoners", "Polaris", "Tornado of Souls"... holy **** I love album!




I'd actually been kind of "over" this album for a while until recently. Then I listened to it again during the thrash battle and realized just how heavy it ****ing is. James Hetfield's rhythm guitar is just amazing. It doesn't quite have the 5-Star classics as some of their other albums, but what it does have going for it is a perfect track order: "Welcome to the Thrash Fest" song, complex centerpiece setting a new standard in thrash maturity, slow down with a heavy-as-**** mid-paced song to keep things from getting monotonous, and then hit you with a left-field quasi-ballad; turn over to the B-side and the simple formula is repeated: relatively complex thrash that's the closest thing to filler on the whole damn album, mid-paced building leveler, off-beat instrumental, and just to let you know what kind of ****ing album you're listening to they give you a companion thrash fest to the first song to tear your liver asunder.




I may have voted for Metallica in the final round of the thrash battle, but I bear no grudge against Slayer. This right here is the thrash Bible. What Metallica and Exodus primitively layed down with their debuts, Slayer finished with this album. It may not have the complexity of Time Does Not Heal or Master of Puppets, but it is the ultimate crystallization of pure, aggressive thrash. There are very few albums of any metal genre, even in black and death metal, that have the sheer level of bug-eyed testosterone flowing through their veins as this masterpiece of all things metal. Hail Satan!

__________________