Thrash Metal Revival
 

Since the early to mid-00's, there has been a burst of activity in the thrash metal scene. Bands like Gama Bomb, Evile, and Toxic Holocaust have been bringing the genre back to Earth.

My favorite revival bands are Evile, Municipal Waste, and Warbringer.

I haven't really been able to get into much modern thrash. Theres just something about a cleaner sounding production that doesn't agree with me much.

I did however really get into Warbringers War Without End at one point, but then wen't off that too. I may give it another go sometime.

I haven't been particularly impressed by what Evile I have listened to, I was on the fence with Municipal Waste and I have some Toxic Holocaust but I can't even remember what it sounds like to be honest.

Daysend are another great band to check out... Listen to anything on their "Severance" album before picking up "The Warning". They have a new one out but I am yet to pick it up.

Evile's first was a quality pure thrash album I thought, but it was pure thrash with no compromise which isnt always everyone's cup of tea. Their second album was a bit more mature, they were better in their songwriting and didnt rely on pure speed in every song.

Municipal Waste you need to be in the right headspace for, they are very much a party band to me. Have some friends round for a barbecue and some beers, and throw on MW and it just works.

Toxic Holocaust are probably my favourite of the modern thrash bands mentioned in all honesty. Joel Grind has a great vocal, its alot closer to a death grunt than most thrash bands use and I much prefer that over the more typical higher pitched vocals used in thrash.

I'll listen to new thrash ever now and then. Warbringer, Mantic Ritual, Sanctity, and Bonded By Blood are some bands I listen to once in a while.

I haven't heard a huge amount of new Thrash and the scene burned itself out with endless copy cat bands without a revival. Fueled By Fire are OK though.

Yeah I will admit, alot of new thrash bands do sound alike. Hell, you get more variety in the nu metal scene than the new thrash scene.

Show me something good if your thesis is valid.
I don't believe you.

new thrash isnt as good as old thrash nothing will ever compare to slayer in my opinion

Slayer is boring.

Booooo.

Agreed. I would still take Slayer 100 times over 99% of the Thrash Metal revival bands.

Thrash died on it's ass in the early 90's and nothing since has made me change my mind.

The only bands that use a Thrash asthetic and still retain my interest are Hacride and Gojira but they are more progressive whilst still using traditional Thrash riffs.

Sodom and Kreator still churn out albums that piss all over most new bands from a great height and they have been active since the 80's.

I really would love to hear a new band playing Thrash that can excite me but thus far it hasn't happened.

Thrash needs to stay dead. After awhile it sounds like the same song over and over and over again.

I appreciate thrash metal influences but I am not really a fan of the genre. Metallica and Testament are good but the vocals for most of those other bands kill it for me. I probably would have really liked Megadeth if they had a different lead singer and just left Dave Mustaine on the guitar.

Stop listening to Slayer

Just out of curiosity, what would you recommend instead (other than metallica or testament)? For some reason this genre is less accessible to me than even black metal. I almost feel obligated to like it with all the diehards running around but the genre just seems so limiting to me. Most of the thrash metal fans I've seen just bash every other genre in existence. I can't even get on the Mayhem Festival website or facebook page anymore because all the Megadeth fans just whine about not headlining and how "unmetal" it is.

Sepultura and Megadeth (even though you do not like his vocals.)
Flotsam and Jetsam's first album.
Sacred Reich.

You may just not like Thrash. You may not be used to some of the aesthetics it uses, you may be bringing criteria you used to judge other genres to bear against Thrash. Really, it's quite foolish to dislike a band just because of a singular element of their musicianship.

Really, Slayer are the penultimate Thrash band. Their work has aged minimally. Listen to Seasons in the Abyss & Reign in Blood. Two sides of the same great band, and both are classic, immortal albums.

I hate being presumptive but I think you mean 'quintessential' or maybe just plain 'ultimate'?
If so, I agree.

Sepultura isn't really indicative of thrash in my opinion. The early stuff sure, but Chaos A.D. had a heavy groove approach followed up by Roots which ventured into the realm of world music.

Sepultura were late on the thrash scene and just re-energized the genre. They were without doubt, one of the best metal bands that ever existed. They played a thrash/groove sound that was unique to them, but they certainly wern`t indicative of thrash.

Three bands are really just indicative of the thrash movement:
Slayer for heaviness and agression, Megadeth for their speed and precision and Metallica for their musical ability and evolution of the genre.

Most of the other thrash metal bands Kreator, Exodus and Testament etc more or less fitted in with what the big 3 were doing.

If you wanted thrash with a real difference, then you had bands like Voivod and Anacrusis, who provided a whole progressive element to the genre and produced a highly original sound.

I`ve yet to hear a modern day thrash band, that matches the quality of any of the groups mentioned above.

I agree with you in that I probably just don't like thrash, but I don't think it is foolish to dislike a band because I can't stand the vocals. If I don't like them, I can't just ignore them and still enjoy the song. It would be like eating a peanut butter and jelly sandwich with mustard in it--A great sandwich otherwise, but the mustard just can't be ignored. Kind of a silly analogy but I'm just trying to make a point. I don't have a problem with Megadeth (except some of the obnoxious fans), but I don't enjoy their music.

LOLPOCALYPSE, I got into thrash after I had got into grindcore and black and death.... however my appreciation of thrash has seemingly increased as I found myself discovering the NWOBHM bands that preceded & influenced thrash and those bands at the twilight of the thrash era that were experimenting a bit more.

My advice would be to look beyond the big 4 when it comes to thrash. There are many great bands that are somewhat thrash (Cryptic Slaughter, for instance) and others that came along at the tail end (Gammacide) that are a bit easier to handle because they didn't limit themselves to the strict confines of Thrash.

My bad. Grammar **** up on my part.

So how are they not really indicative of thrash especially when you yourself said their early stuff is?

You basically contradticted yourself with that statement.

Chaos A.D is a THRASH/Groove album.

They are one of the best metal bands that has ever existed and put out two of the best thrash metal albums that have ever been recorded.

Max Cavalera and Sepultura:bowdown:

Once he left they went to ****. The only thing that kept them from flat out sucking was Igor and once he left well they band should change their name instead of tarnishing it more.

They could never ever replace Max Cavalera with anybody else really. So they went for something very different in Derrick Green, who is just not in the same league as Max and is more of a hardcore than metal vocalist as well.

I didn`t really like the first two Soulfly albums with their mish mash of world music mixed with NU-Metal, but I love "3" "Prophecy" and "Dark Ages". These 3 albums are probably how Sepultura would`ve sounded had Max stayed with them, due to their mixing of world music and the brutal Sepultura sound.

Yea I agree. The first Soulfly album was good imo but their last 3 are by far their best.

They sure were a great band. I class the early stuff as death metal(Antichrist is actually my fave Seps tune) and by Arise they had become more like a thrash band.
Chaos AD is definitely one of the best metal records ever.:drummer:

I've search and haven't seen these guys get mentioned so I'll just say that Vektor, Mutant, and Fog of War are the best new Thrash Metal bands out there today. Warbringer, Municipal Waste, Fueled By Fire, and Skeletonwitch are great as well.

By indicative I meant that when I think of Sepultura, I definitely don't think of them in the same way as I do early Metallica or Voivod. Sepultura's sound to me is a hodge-podge of heavy groove, world music, and death metal elements.

They were a thrash metal band hate to break it to you. Obviously you do not live up to your name with remarks like the ones you made.

Slayer boring? You actually said that?

Voivod are probably the one of the only bands that I WOULDN'T put into the Thrash genre. Sure they got noticed around the heyday of the best Thrash but their first two albums were ragged, unapologetic and almost Punk/Hardcore in their attitude (still great) and then they they just stuck a big finger up to everyone and started playing what they wanted and being magnificent at it too.

Sure they used angular, crunchy riffs but I can think of very few bands that sound like Voivod and in fact a lot of Thrash purists at the time just couldn't get into them at the time.

Good call on Anacrusis too whoever mentioned them. A decent band ahead of their time.

Yup I did becuse after a while they do get boring as hell because half their **** sounds the same.
I still love em, but there is no denying they are boring as **** after a while.

I never said Sepultura wasn't a thrash band, I merely said that in my opinion they weren't INDICATIVE of the thrash genre. There's no denying Morbid Visions through Arise are thrash records. However, when I am envisioning Sepultura's sound in my mind, the groove elements stick out to me more than the thrash aspect of their sound. That's all i'm saying.

Here is something to ponder: if Sepultura sprung up with all the currently existing classifications, would it have still been considered thrash? Or would the elements mentioned by Metal Connoisseur have stuck out enough to give them a different tag?

It's not unusual to see Sepultura's early work classified as Death Metal, and I for one favor that argument. Morbid Visions, Schizophrenia sound like early extreme metal to these ears. However, I am dismissive of their work from Chaos AD on - that stuff is just boring.


Anyways, regarding Thrash revival, how about Vomitor? They've some definite black metal influence, but I think they're still solidly Thrash. Not intellectual by any means, but fun.

I get what you are saying and it is still clear you are wong.


Thrash/Death/Groove.

I mentioned them, the albums "Manic Impressions" and "Screams and Whispers" are albums where few thrash bands would have gone or were even capable of going to.

They along with Voivod represent the other side of the thrash coin.

They were essentially a thrash metal band that were a huge influence on death metal, especially the vocal style of Max Cavalera. They evolved into a groove metal sound by Chaos AD. So thrash and groove are the two correct definitions for this group imo.

This evolution was very natural, especially given the fact that they came from a cultural background very distinct to that of American, British and other European metal bands. The ethnic feel to their music was always hidden somewhere in their sound and by Roots it had fully evolved.