As far as Anthrax, they do in fact slay, and Charlie Benante is definitely in the same league of talent as Lombarado, it's just he, Ian, and particularly Belladonna wanted to make more rock n' roll songs than true thrash, but every member is no less talented than any other thrash band up there. They're one of my favorite thrash bands, and heavy metal bands. They play both genres well. Their debut helped coin thrash metal, their second album was a step forward, and like metallica, it only took three albums for the Anthrax members to meld and produce what is generally considered their best release. It only took two when you consider Belladonna only joined after their debut. Among the Living may be my favorite thrash metal album, but anthrax does not have another album by them that I thoroughly enjoy.

For Megadeth, Mustiane pisses me off at times cause all of his compositions are so avant-garde and filled with unpredictable ****ery. That, and I hate covers, and he seems to like doing them a lot. Once Peace Sells was behind him, he kind of just got back to playing thrash and Rust In Peace is the only album by him that I can actually stand all the way through, though "Poison Was the Cure" is f'd. Lastly, "sh*t remastered version" or not, Mustaine is not a good singer. He's far from terrible, but when I'm comparing all four of these bands, every little thing counts. He's awful compared to Araya. Think about it.

Even with their first four albums, you could just tell that Hetfield (who is [read: was] the true leader of the band IMO) was similar to Mustaine in not wanting to make the same song twice and not confining their material to one genre. Kill Em was great though it's got one or two dull points, RTL has a good deal of non-thrash metal on it, MOP was Kill Em with a much a higher level of technical sophistication, but "Sanitarium" and "Leper Messiah" are more of the prior album (which isn't good), and amid the irritating production and "One," AJFA has some of the best thrash metal songs ever recorded on one album, even if some of the songs are slightly more interesting than a parade of riffs.

Slayer is the only one of the big four that have the most nearly flawless albums. They killed it from 1983-1990, and thoroughly dominated everybody. **** the haters, their debut is glorious. Lo-fi, it's about satan and hell, the cover is awesome, and the guitar tone is extremely underrated. It may not be as brutal as Megadeth's debut, but it's definitely the most testosterone-oriented, beer-party, mischievous debut of any of the big four, by far. Real man's thrash metal. Haunting the Chapel is probably my favorite EP ever, tied with Deathcrush. Hell Awaits is meh, nothing to write home about, but once again, anything with hell rules. Reign In Blood is of course great, and it is the epitome of heavy metal guitar distortion, but the lack of speed on a few tracks bothers me. Everything after RIB gets progressively ****tier till eventually Slayer enters the realm of who-gives-a-****.