I think that you have half of the recipe there - but you have to mix those bands you mentioned with hardcore punk before you have Thrash. Simply put: NWOBHM + Hardcore = Thrash

^ Good point, but you can also look at it this way:

NWOBHM + Hardcore = Motorhead. Motorhead being the bridge band to thrash.

Punk was always in the mix - it was the energy that drove the NWOBHM bands like Iron Maiden, Venom etc and made the difference between them and Priest, UFO, Scorps etc - but Engine is right - Hardcore is where the sound and approach - if not the style - of thrash began to crystallise.

Bad Brains, The Misfits and Minor Threat did play some numbers that verged on thrash - in Bad Brains case, I concede, they actually played it. Other bands notable for playing some very fast songs (not as a rule, but one or two numbers) include Black Flag and Husker Du.












Is it me, or does the Minor Threat track sound a bit like The UK Subs?;




Good point on Motorhead - "On Parole" should have been released before "Damned Damned Damned" (IIRC, that was the first punk album, not "Never Mind the Bollocks", which was actually 3rd, behind The Vibrators). If UA had had the guts to release it, maybe Punk would have lost its impact and never taken off the way it did?



It would have been nice if Motorhead could have kept their original band name too - they were going to be called Bastards (in reference to Hawkwind, who kicked Lemmy out when he got caught in possession of amphetamines).

However, Motorhead never actually played thrash, as far as I can tell, and their influence is somewhat indirect, unlike Priest.

Even Saxon, who were faster as well as louder than Motorhead didn't thrash (despite their song "Princess of the Night" making a guest appearance in the Metallica song "Seek and Destroy")



(Saxon are always value for money!)

It'd be cool to get a compilation of tracks that led directly, rather than indirectly to thrash. I still reckon "Exciter" is the first, but its the stuff that was floating around in the late 1970s and very early 1980s that's most interesting - unless there are actual examples pre 1978...

Yeah but the purpose of this thread was to introduce Thrash bands that the younger generation may not have heard although I would be interested in a separate thread regarding it's origins.

OK, how about this one;

http://static.metal-archives.com/ima...1/6/6/1166.jpg

It's an absolute cracker - check this out;

I dig it! Man does that artwork suck though.

Heh - I just can't leave the historical aspect alone - I just recalled this excellent track from the awesome "Court in the Act" by Satan, which is a proto-thrash epic with a nice complex structure predating "Ride The Lightning" and with more sophistication than "Kill 'Em All", but released in the same year as that earliest of thrash albums.




And this, which predates "Exciter" by 4 years;



;)

OK - another thread required...

I did trawl back through the pages - but excuse me if I missed the page that this is on - this is an ESSENTIAL thrash album, if only for the track "Ride The Sky";

http://www.karthagorecords.de/cover/909.jpg

I still meet Metallica fans who think "Am I Evil" is a Metallica song!!! Love the original Diamond Head version.

I don't understand why Metallica are held in such high esteem. Maybe it's just because I got into death metal and grindcore before Thrash, but Metallica don't do it for me. Even if we just limit the discussion to Metallica's pre-Black Album era, the constant acoustic intros and their tendency to fall into chugga-chug-chug riffs wear thin.

On the other hand, Slayer's early work just seems to grow more relevant with time. Call me weird, but I'd take "Hell Awaits" over "Ride the Lightning" any day.