Best Reformed/Still Together OG Thrash Bands (Take 3)
 

Most new-age thrash bands are ****, but some of the old school eighties bands are surprisingly great today. They generally don't feel the need to sound exactly like they did back in the day, or they at least update their production and brutality to keep themselves competitive with modern metal bands. Some of the best metal made in the last decade and a half has been made by such bands (and some not so great metal unfortunately).

So, I'm doing a poll to see who the best are. It's multiple choice, so you can vote for as many bands as you want. Only rule for voting is that only modern albums count. If you love Bonded By Blood, but can't stand any of Exodus' newer albums, then don't vote for them. This is about modern ****.

The cutoff for a band to be considered old school is they have to have formed roughly before 91-92, around the time that grunge "killed" thrash. The album date cutoff is 1999, since that is the earliest year I see for reformed bands releasing albums (Artillery's B.A.C.K., and Agent Steel's Omega Conspiracy). They also have to have released at least one legitimate thrash album since 1999 (so, Blind Illusion and Jag Panzer don't count). So, if they had not released Death Magnetic, Metallica would not count. Post-thrash counts, so long as it's "close enough".

Some other basic rules on a band's inclusion. Reformed bands, like Exodus and Death Angel, are acceptable, as are bands that never broke up and are still going strong, like Kreator and Overkill, and likewise bands who may have gone on temporary hiatus but never actively broke up, like Testament. And bands that had a reunion/stayed together but broke up again or have been inactive for long enough that it is assumed that they are done, are acceptable, so long as they released at least one studio album of new material (live albums, compilations, and splits don't count, nor do reunions strictly for touring, like Vio-Lence).

:clap: third time's the charm.

I'm voting for Testament. Their old stuff is stellar and I think that their newest stuff from Formation of Damnation on is just as great. I would go with Slayer since they're my all time favourite thrash group, but their latest release put them out of the picture. I thought that World Painted Blood was decent.

I only voted for Testament and Slayer because The Gathering and Christ Illusion were so awesome. Other than that they're hit or miss as all hell.

Looking at the polls it almost looks like 3 people voted for Metallica. We were about to have some problems.

No Napalm Death? I thought they were thrash.

Overkill, Testament, and Slayer.

I actually liked Ironbound a lot when it came out. Overkill have some overwhelmingly cheesy moments here and there but they can be easily forgiven. A lot of these old thrash band's modern albums are technically great and play out like decent thrash records but they're missing the raw energy that I think Overkill still taps into quite well, even if it's pretty goofy sometimes. I haven't heard anything off of Electric Age and only a bit off White Devil Armory so I might be missing some pretty harsh tunes but still, Ironbound has some mean tracks on it and I've heard Overkill still puts on wicked performances. Testament's Formation of Damnation was a ****ing blast but very formulaic, I also saw that tour and they put on a hype show (although the sound guy had a really bad night). I've seen Slayer twice since the mid 2000's and both times was fantastic, even their newer material hit pretty hard. Haven't heard their most recent tunes.

Early: crust punk/grindcore. Later: death metal. Never were they thrash.

*kicks dirt*

Stupid genres. I hate genres.

Pretty much what I was going to say.

No love for Exodus? I realize they've always been kind of inconsistent, but when they hit, oh man do they hit. I don't know if any modern thrash band can compete with them when they're at their best. Especially the first half of Tempo of the Damned.





And even though Rob Dukes is no Zetro, they still put out some mean **** with him.

That's it.

Not to say the rest of these bands are consistently great, but I can't remember the last time I eagerly revisited a modern Exodus album after the initial buzz wore off of me, it's always a couple killer tracks and a bunch of filler. Ironbound is the only recent album by any of these bands that I revisit at least annually, there's still a very strong focus on songwriting.

I don't even really like the good Exodus, tbh.

That's cause you're ****ing stupid.

The **** is this ****.

What about bands like Angel Dust that started out as thrash, went on hiatus and reformed playing power metal?

Honestly if you haven't heard To Dust You Will Decay and Into the Dark Past you are missing out on pure gems of thrash!

While I'm familiar w/ all these bands I haven't heard some of these groups later albums . Which makes me unqualified to pick said groups.

Exodus' lastest is a killer !!! Bands like Overkill, Testament and Kreator ( other then a hum drum mid period ) just keep on killing. I actually like Agent Steel better with Bruce Hall.

I went with Exodus, Slayer, and Testament - Exodus has been killing it ever since Tempo, all of those albums are solid as **** and the riffs...Holt has really come into his own over the years and I'm really impressed with him. I do wish Dukes had stuck around for Blood In, Blood Out as I've heard some of the tracks with his vocals and actually dig them better than Souza's delivery. Slayer's latest...I'm not real big on that but still need to give it a few more listens, I really dig a lot of the stuff on Christ Illusion and World Painted Blood and still listen to those albums frequently. Testament...Eric Peterson has really grown to be a monster player and not just the rhythm guy and now you've got Hoglan and DiGiorgio who are just sick, sick musicians - like the line-up they had on The Gathering - DiGiorgio, James Murphy, and Lombardo...that was insane.

Yeah, that was pretty much a thrash supergroup.

I saw the above mentioned Testament line-up live @ the Whiskey on the The Gathering tour. What an amazing live performance ! And I too really like Christ Illusion & World Painted Blood and .being a huge Holt fan I was expecting much more from Repentless then I feel it actually delivers.

I also need to give some props to Death Angel here. an absolutely phenomenal act live and other wise.

I agree, Gary is a big inspiration to me as a guitarist and I really wish Kerry would loosen the reins - not sure if this has been brought up here but a recent Guitar World interview shed some light on Slayer in the studio - in some of the books (DX Ferris' Slayer 66 2/3, is one - great book, by the way) it had been brought to light before that in the studio since post-Seasons it has been Kerry laying down all the guitar parts - even Jeff's rhythms. In the GW interview Kerry and Tom speak on it and Kerry did all of the guitar parts save for Gary's solos. To add to that, from say Divine Intervention-on, Kerry has been the one playing and recording the bass tracks on the albums AND giving Tom taped versions of how he thinks Tom should sing the vocals - Tom remarked this was the first album that Tom actually sang the tracks as he saw fit from the start. So from Divine on, Kerry has been playing all guitar tracks save for Jeff and Gary's solos, and the bass tracks... Now that Gary is an actual member, I wish Kerry would let the dude throw some input in, more than just laying a few solos down.

Divine Intervention is right when Slayer records start to take a sharp decline in quality IMO so
I couldn't agree more with the statement above.

Not listened to much newer Sodom, but M-16 is right awesome. Not as memorable as their classic 80s material, but they sound just like I'd hope Sodom would sound in 2001, while still adding enough meat to the riffs and production to not sound hopelessly retro. I see they have plenty of duds in their discography but if this album is any indication then they deserve much more recognition these days.

When Overkill dropped Ironbound I repped as hard as you could rep anything, pretty much destroyed the brand new deluxe CD from listening to it 14 times a day. That was one of the best things to ever happen to thrash IMO. And it just really upped the game. Since then they've still been killer, but that was monumental.

Destructor from Ohio. They never made it big but the band ****ing rules. They never sellout, they never sounded like crappy modern metal bands ( unlike Slayer, Kreator, Megadeth, Overkll, Anthrax and 90% of all old metal acts ).





From their newest stuff

You mean these dudes? Never got past the first album cause it was all the goofy **** I needed. I think I might have had one of the dudes on this cover as an avatar actually.



Does their later **** actually sound good? That was always my one problem with them. They don't sound good.

Don't sound good? From 2.37 - one of the best moments in history of rock and metal. And I have listened to many bands.

I mean, that's all right as far as low-rent Omen goes, or even lower rent Iron Maiden, but I definitely wouldn't call that "one of the best moments in history of rock or metal" by any stretch of the imagination.

I like that quote from one review.
'If you say you are into metal and don't love this, then you are a poser, a new school jerk, a roleplayer or a 'gay' romantic cheesehead...and in fact do NOT understand metal!!!'