The Beginning of Thrash Metal

Thrash metal is another genre of the metal music community. Metal with fast drum beats, guitar riffs and aggressive vocals is known as thrash metal. Having fast guitars, lots of distortion and loud singing is included in this genre. This genre was created by 4 different bands know as "The Big Four." The four bands that fit into this group are Anthrax, Megadeth, Metallica and Slayer. All of these bands are spin offs of British heavy metal which began the revolution of the genre thrash metal.

In the late 70's and early 80's there was series of popularity of British heavy metal music. Giving a hardcore metal or punk rock a more extreme vocal and a faster beat gives you the foundation of thrash metal music. This music introduced more distortion and bass, complex riffs and solos and more double kick bass drum and loud vocals.

Most songs played long introductions, high speed complex solos and long endings. The technique of high speed solos was called shredding. Shredding is a way to play notes quickly during your solos. Using techniques like hammer-ons and pull-offs. For the metal community and having these new styles being played was a great movement for the typical styles.

It broke wide open in 1984 when Metallica, Anthrax, Overkill and Slayer all released top selling albums. All of these different bands brought something new to trash metal, usually competing in making the heaviest and fastest music. This began a new world in the metal community and opened the doors as a recognizable metal genre.

Through a couple of decades and into the 90's there was a small change in the music and in the bands. With bands changing their style of music and new age bands coming in, there was a change in thrash metal. Band slowing down and changing their styles brought Metallica's release of "Load" and "Reload." These two albums were more of a hard rock than a thrash metal. Not only did Metallica take a different route with their music, so did Megadeth. Megadeth's album "Countdown to Extinction" was a different style than their earlier releases.

To the year 2000 thrash metal isn't as popular as it was in the early 80's. There are still bands that make their mark in metal, Municipal Waste, Gama Bomb and Evile are to name a few. With a few handfuls of bands, "The Big Four" still lead the way for sales and tours for the thrash metal community. With popularity falling, it still isn't going anywhere anytime soon with "The Big Four" still rocking.