Punk Metal

A beat named Discharge

The brawl of mohawk and bullet belt, punk metal, runs on the d-beat, the rhythm that lent a whole bloodline its initial, beaten out in Stoke-on-Trent by a drummer called Terry "Tezz" Roberts, who drew on Motörhead and the Buzzcocks and flattened what he took into one clattering, unrelenting pattern. It pounds under guitars distorted into a grinding roar and a voice that barks orders instead of singing. The lyrics stay short. War fills them. Metal heard it at once.

What separates punk metal from its neighbours is that neither side hands over its passport. Hardcore is punk that got faster and stayed punk, and crossover is the specific American weld of that sprint to the thrash riff in the middle of the 1980s. Punk metal is the older, dirtier crossing, where a punk band takes metal's weight and filth without its manners, or a metal band takes punk's speed and squalor without its scene, two engines bolted into one scrapyard chassis and still fighting for the gearbox. Nobody wins. The noise does.

Punk metal's boots and leather

Crust is where the crossing went darkest. Rising out of the English anarcho-punk scene in the middle of the 1980s, with riffs dragged in from Motörhead and Hellhammer and lyric sheets full of ruined, post-apocalyptic worlds, the filthiest branch of the family, crust punk, was codified by Amebix on Arise! in 1985 and named by Hellbastard on the Ripper Crust demo a year later. Sweden answered with kängpunk, boot punk, through Anti Cimex and later Wolfbrigade, and Extreme Noise Terror from Ipswich shoved crust toward grindcore.

Metal paid the debt back loudly. Metallica, Slayer, Anthrax and Sepultura all recorded Discharge songs, and Motörhead were taken in by punks and headbangers alike. Traffic ran the other way too. Formed in Edinburgh in 1978 and fronted by Wattie Buchan, the street punk band behind Punks Not Dead, The Exploited, turned toward crossover thrash in 1987, and Onslaught in Bristol grew up on Discharge and The Exploited before hardening into thrash.

The crossing never closed. Toxic Holocaust in Portland built its thrash on Venom, Discharge and The Exploited, blackened crust bands such as Iskra welded second wave black metal onto the crust frame, and Kvelertak set punk speed and black metal shrieks on fire in Norway. The boots still fit.

Where to start

Seven punk metal albums, each one a place where the two tribes met and neither backed down.

• Discharge Hear Nothing See Nothing Say Nothing Clay, 1982

  Number 40 on the UK album chart and number two on the indie chart, the record thrash, crust and grindcore all learned to march to.

• Black Flag My War SST, 1984

  Greg Ginn playing bass as Dale Nixon, and a second side of three songs past six minutes each, slowed to a Black Sabbath crawl.

• Onslaught Power from Hell Children of the Revolution, 1985

  The Bristol band's debut, a demon crawling out of a pentagram on the sleeve and the punk rage of Discharge still smouldering under the thrash.

• The Exploited Death Before Dishonour Rough Justice, 1987

  Released in April 1987 with the Grim Reaper and Margaret Thatcher on the cover, the record where the Edinburgh punks turned toward crossover thrash.

• Extreme Noise Terror A Holocaust in Your Head Head Eruption, 1989

  Recorded over three November days in 1988 in Worcester, crust punk and grindcore compressed into one debut by the Ipswich band John Peel championed.

• Toxic Holocaust An Overdose of Death... Relapse, 2008

  Joel Grind with Jack Endino producing, the band's first record for Relapse, thrash with crossover and first wave black metal in its blood.

• Kvelertak Kvelertak Indie Recordings, 2010

  Kurt Ballou producing, a John Dyer Baizley cover, and a gold record handed over by Dave Grohl in Oslo in June 2011.