Below Kreator, Sodom and Destruction sat a rank of German bands who released one or two records on small labels and are almost entirely absent from the English language accounts. Several of them are better than that position implies.
Holy Moses
From Aachen, formed 1980, which makes them contemporaries of the founders rather than followers. Sabina Classen was performing a vocal in 1986 more extreme than most of what her male contemporaries were attempting, and it is a direct ancestor of a great deal of death metal.
Finished with the Dogs in 1987 is a genuinely violent record. That the band are not routinely named alongside the German three is difficult to explain on any musical basis.
Exumer
From Frankfurt, and Possessed by Fire in 1986 is one of the strongest German debuts of the period: fast, tight and considerably better written than its obscurity suggests. Mem von Stein's vocal is distinctive enough that the band remain identifiable in one bar.
Assassin
From Dusseldorf, and the most straightforwardly thrash of this rank. The Upcoming Terror in 1986 and Interstellar Experience in 1988 are both good, the second in particular, and the band reformed in the 2000s and have kept working.
Deathrow
Also Dusseldorf, and the most interesting career in this article. They went from crude to genuinely progressive across three records, and Deception Ignored in 1988 is technical, dissonant and years ahead of what anybody expected from them. It confused their audience completely.
Living Death, Darkness, Iron Angel
Living Death from Velbert had a singer with an extraordinary and divisive high register. Darkness from Dortmund made two solid records. Iron Angel from Hamburg made Hellish Crossfire in 1985, which is as fast as anything German from that year.
| Band | City | Record | Year | Note |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Iron Angel | Hamburg | Hellish Crossfire | 1985 | As fast as anything that year |
| Assassin | Dusseldorf | The Upcoming Terror | 1986 | The most straightforwardly thrash |
| Exumer | Frankfurt | Possessed by Fire | 1986 | One of the best German debuts |
| Holy Moses | Aachen | Finished with the Dogs | 1987 | Should be named with the founders |
| Living Death | Velbert | Protected from Reality | 1987 | A vocal that divides everybody |
| Deathrow | Dusseldorf | Deception Ignored | 1988 | Crude to progressive in three albums |
Why they are missing from the histories
Three reasons and none is musical.
The English language press covered German thrash through three bands and stopped. Small German labels had no distribution into Britain or America, so the records were physically hard to obtain even for interested listeners. And several of these bands sang in accented English or split before a second album, which limits how much there is to write about.
The reissue programmes of the last fifteen years have gone some way to correcting it, and Exumer and Holy Moses in particular have both reformed and toured to audiences who found them long after the fact.
Where to start
Possessed by Fire, which is the most immediately enjoyable and the easiest to get hold of. Then Finished with the Dogs, which is the most historically significant. Then Deception Ignored, which requires the most patience and gives the most back.
The scene above them is set out in Teutonic Thrash, and the two bands next door in Switzerland who belonged to neither are in the comparison piece.
What the second tier sounded like
Recognisably German and noticeably more varied than the three famous bands, which is the argument for spending time here.
Exumer are tighter and more American in their riff construction. Holy Moses are more extreme than any of the founders and considerably less polished. Deathrow ended up somewhere close to progressive metal. Living Death had a vocalist who sounds like nobody else in the genre and who divides listeners immediately.
A scene judged only on Kreator, Sodom and Destruction sounds narrower than it was, and the second rank is where the range actually is.
The reunions
Several of these bands are active again and the returns have been better than anybody expected.
Exumer reformed in 2001 and again in 2008 and have released three albums since, all of them decent. Holy Moses continued in various forms with Sabina Classen throughout and announced a final album in the 2020s. Assassin came back and have kept working.
The mechanism is the same as everywhere else in this history: the European festival circuit made a return financially possible, and an audience who had found the records through reissues and streaming turned out to be waiting.
How to find the records
Better than a decade ago. High Roller, Divebomb and several other reissue labels have worked through a substantial part of this catalogue, generally with the original artwork and with demos attached.
Streaming coverage is patchy and improving. The one consistent gap is the material that came out on labels that folded without leaving a clear rights trail, which is a fair proportion of what the smallest bands released and which mostly circulates as digitised vinyl.
Where the rank sits now
Better regarded than at any point since the records came out, and the change is entirely due to access. A listener in 1995 who wanted to hear Exumer needed a specialist shop and luck; a listener now needs thirty seconds.
The consequence is that several of these bands have larger audiences today than they did when they were active, and a couple are touring on the strength of records that sold almost nothing at the time. That is a strange and rather pleasing outcome, and it is the same story as the third layer in every other country in this history.
And a note on scope. This article covers the thrash rank specifically. Germany's speed and power metal bands of the same period, Helloween and Running Wild among them, came out of the same labels and the same studios and belong to a different tradition, which is why they are dealt with separately rather than crowded in here.
Sources and notes
Years and labels refer to original pressings. Several of these records have complicated reissue histories.
