An annual list, updated as the decade goes. What is striking about the 2020s so far is how much of the best material is coming from bands who have been doing this for forty years.
The founders
Testament's Titans of Creation in 2020 is as good as anything they made in the 1980s, which is a sentence that should not be writable about a band that old. Exodus returned with Persona Non Grata in 2021, their first in seven years and completely undiluted.
Kreator's Hate Uber Alles in 2022 continued a run that has now lasted a quarter of a century without a weak record. Overkill's Scorched in 2023 was their twentieth studio album and, as usual, not a bad one.
The younger bands
Enforced's Kill Grid in 2021, which is the most convincing straight crossover record of the decade. Angelus Apatrida's Aftermath in 2023, from Spain, which is as strong as anything from anywhere. Havok, Warbringer and Municipal Waste all releasing and all worth hearing.
And a hardcore scene producing bands whose records would be filed as thrash if anybody bothered, which is where a good deal of the energy currently is.
| Album | Band | Year | Why |
|---|---|---|---|
| Titans of Creation | Testament | 2020 | As good as their eighties work |
| Kill Grid | Enforced | 2021 | Straight crossover, done properly |
| Persona Non Grata | Exodus | 2021 | Seven years off, and undiluted |
| Electrified Brain | Municipal Waste | 2022 | Twenty years in, still under thirty minutes |
| Hate Uber Alles | Kreator | 2022 | A run now in its third decade |
| Aftermath | Angelus Apatrida | 2023 | Europe's best young thrash band |
| Scorched | Overkill | 2023 | Twentieth album, no drop off |
| Para Bellum | Testament | 2025 | Forty years in |
| Goliath | Exodus | 2026 | Forty one years after the debut |
What the pattern says
Two things, and the first is uncomfortable for anybody hoping for a new founding generation.
The best records of the decade are being made by bands formed in the early 1980s. That is partly experience and partly that those bands have nothing to prove and no commercial pressure, which is the same condition that produced their first albums.
The second is more encouraging. The younger bands are no longer making period pieces. Enforced, Angelus Apatrida and the current hardcore adjacent wave are writing about now, in a form they inherited, which is what a healthy tradition looks like.
What is missing
A record that displaces something from 1986, and there has not been one. Terminal Redux in 2016 came closest and it is arguably not a thrash album at all.
Whether that matters is a fair question. Most traditions do not produce a new peak every decade, and a genre where the fortieth album by a founding band is genuinely worth hearing is doing considerably better than most.
How this list works
It is updated as the decade continues, and the entries are judged on the same criteria as everything else on this site: riff economy, legibility at speed, a rhythm section that writes rather than keeps time, and something behind the noise worth saying.
Nothing is included for being new, and nothing is excluded for being made by people in their sixties.
The bands making all of this now are surveyed in The Fall and the Revival, and the wave that made a modern thrash record possible again is in Thrash Reunions.
What is not on the list
Two categories, and both are deliberate.
No re-recordings. Several heritage bands have gone back and re-cut their old albums with modern production, for reasons that are usually contractual, and the results are almost universally worse than the originals. A re-recording is a legal manoeuvre rather than a record.
And nothing is included for effort. A band's fortieth album is judged on the same criteria as a debut, and several well loved groups have released material this decade that does not meet them. Naming those would be gratuitous; leaving them out is the point.
How the decade compares
Favourably against the 1990s and the 2000s, and not against the 1980s, which is the honest position.
The average quality is high. There are more good thrash records released in a year now than in any year between 1993 and 2003. What there is not is a record that changes what anybody thinks the form can do, and the last one of those was probably Terminal Redux in 2016.
A decade in which the founding bands are still capable and the younger ones are competent is a good decade. It is not 1986 and nothing was ever going to be.
What to watch
Three things over the rest of the decade. Whether Vektor follow Terminal Redux, which has now been a long wait. Whether the hardcore adjacent bands produce an album that the metal side has to take seriously on its own terms, as Nightmare Logic did. And how many more records the founding bands have in them, which is a question of health as much as of appetite.
The safest prediction is that the best album of the decade will turn out to have been made by a band who formed before 1990, which says something slightly uncomfortable and entirely accurate about where this genre currently is.
How to use the list
As a starting point rather than a verdict. Nine records is a weekend, and a listener who works through them will have a clear sense of whether modern thrash is worth their time without having to trust anybody's ranking.
Start with Titans of Creation if the founders interest you and Kill Grid if the younger end does. They are the two records that make their respective cases most efficiently.
And a note on the annual format. This list is revisited rather than rewritten, which means an album can move down as the decade fills up and can move up as it survives repeated listening. Nothing here is a settled verdict, and several of these records have already shifted position once.
Sources and notes
Years and labels refer to original releases. This list is updated periodically and reflects the position at the time of writing.
