A working list of the bands that mattered in the decade the genre was invented, arranged by scene, with one record each and no ranking, because a decade with this much in it does not compress into a top ten without losing the point.
The rule for inclusion is simple: the band released at least one album between 1983 and 1990 that is still worth an hour.
The Bay Area
Metallica, Exodus, Testament, Death Angel, Possessed, Vio-lence, Forbidden, Heathen, Defiance, Mordred, Laaz Rockit, Blind Illusion. Twelve bands in one metropolitan area, and the standard in the second rank is high enough that several of those records would be classics anywhere else.
Los Angeles and the south west
Slayer, Megadeth, Dark Angel, Sacred Reich, Flotsam and Jetsam, Abattoir, Evildead, Hirax, Agent Steel. The southern Californian temperament was extremity as an argument rather than as an effect, and the scene existed in explicit hostility to the industry on the Sunset Strip.
The East Coast
Anthrax, Overkill, Nuclear Assault, Whiplash, Toxik, Demolition Hammer, Carnivore. New York bounce, because the metal and hardcore audiences were the same people in the same rooms.
Germany and Switzerland
Kreator, Sodom, Destruction, Tankard, Deathrow, Assassin, Living Death, Iron Angel, Darkness, plus Coroner and Celtic Frost in Switzerland. Working from Venom and Motorhead rather than Diamond Head, and building the version of the genre death metal came out of.
The rest of the world
Sepultura, Sarcofago and Vulcano in Brazil. Voivod, Exciter, Anvil, Razor, Sacrifice and Annihilator in Canada. Onslaught, Sabbat and Xentrix in Britain. Artillery in Denmark. Kat and Vader in Poland. Mortal Sin in Australia. Sabbat in Japan.
Crossover
D.R.I., Suicidal Tendencies, Corrosion of Conformity, S.O.D., Cro-Mags, Excel, Ludichrist. The trade with hardcore, which supplied the genre's rhythm and its sense of proportion.
| Scene | Band | Record | Year |
|---|---|---|---|
| Bay Area | Exodus | Bonded by Blood | 1985 |
| Bay Area, second wave | Testament | The New Order | 1988 |
| Los Angeles | Dark Angel | Darkness Descends | 1986 |
| South west | Sacred Reich | Ignorance | 1987 |
| East Coast | Overkill | The Years of Decay | 1989 |
| Germany | Kreator | Pleasure to Kill | 1986 |
| Switzerland | Coroner | No More Color | 1989 |
| Brazil | Sepultura | Beneath the Remains | 1989 |
| Canada | Voivod | Nothingface | 1989 |
| Britain | Sabbat | History of a Time to Come | 1988 |
| Crossover | Nuclear Assault | Game Over | 1986 |
How many bands were there
Several hundred with a released album and several thousand who never got that far, which is worth stating because the standard histories deal with about a dozen.
The compilation records are the best evidence. Each volume of a series like Metal Massacre carried ten bands, most of whom never released anything else, and there were dozens of comparable compilations across Europe and the Americas. Behind those sat the demo tape network, where a band with four songs and a cassette could reach a few hundred people on three continents without ever getting near a label.
What the decade actually produced
Two things worth separating.
A body of records, most of them made in under a week for the price of a small car, which have held up for forty years and are currently being reissued for a generation that was not born when they came out.
And a working method: press your own record, book your own tour, sell your own shirts, distribute through the post, and assume nobody is coming to help. Every independent heavy music scene since has used it, and it was assembled by teenagers who did not know they were building anything.
The year at the centre of all of it is covered in 1986: The Year Thrash Peaked, and the full account of the run is in The Golden Years.
What the decade sounded like, scene by scene
The four American accents and the German one are audible in the first bar of any record, and knowing what to listen for makes the list above considerably more useful.
The Bay Area is precise: harmonised twin leads that resolve, a half time drop written into every song so the room has somewhere to go, and production dry enough to take a riff apart while it plays. Los Angeles gave up melody for menace, with atonal leads and a refusal to slow down. New York bounces, because the metal and hardcore audiences were the same people. And the Ruhr is a wall rather than a diagram: guitars fused into a single mass, everything bleeding into everything.
Test it with four records: The Legacy, Darkness Descends, Among the Living and Pleasure to Kill. Same genre, same year or thereabouts, four different musics.
What happened to all of them
Roughly the same thing, on roughly the same schedule. The founders signed to majors between 1984 and 1987. The second rank stayed on independents. Between 1991 and 1994 the audience moved to death metal and to grunge, the club circuit collapsed, and the labels dropped everybody below the top tier.
Of the forty odd bands named above, perhaps eight were still functioning in 1996. Most of the rest reformed between 2001 and 2010, when the revival rebuilt the circuit, and a surprising number of them are touring now to audiences larger than they ever had at the time.
Where to start if you are starting now
Four records, one per accent, and about three hours. Bonded by Blood for the Bay Area, Darkness Descends for Los Angeles, Among the Living for New York, Pleasure to Kill for the Ruhr.
Then pick whichever of the four you liked most and work outwards from it through the names listed under that scene. That is a considerably better method than starting at the top of a fame ranking, because it lets you find out what you actually respond to before anybody tells you what is supposed to be important.
And keep the dates in view. A record from 1983 and a record from 1989 are separated by the entire technical development of the genre, and judging one against the other on production or musicianship is judging a first draft against a fourth.
Sources and notes
Years refer to original pressings. Bands are grouped by where they formed. The list is representative rather than exhaustive.
