If you like thrash metal and you have never worked backwards into the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, there is a body of about two hundred records waiting for you, most of it made by people who never got paid, and a substantial fraction of it is the raw material your favourite band was built from.
This is the shortlist: the bands who matter to a thrash listener specifically, what each supplied, and where to start.
What the New Wave actually was
Not a sound. An economic condition. Between 1979 and 1982 several hundred British bands worked out that five hundred seven inch singles could be pressed for a couple of hundred pounds, that a local plant would take the job, and that a disc jockey in a north London pub and the readers of Sounds would do the rest.
What that produced was riff writing made by people with no studio budget, no producer asking for a chorus and no expectation of radio. The songs are long, they change direction, they are built from parts rather than around hooks, and they were recorded in a hurry. Those constraints are precisely why the material transplanted so well into a faster genre.
Diamond Head
The one that matters most. Lightning to the Nations from 1980 was released in a plain white sleeve on the band's own label because nobody would put it out, and it contains "Am I Evil?", "The Prince", "Helpless" and "Sucking My Love". Brian Tatler wrote in riff blocks with tempo changes as structural events, which is the arrangement grammar of thrash three years early. Start here and nowhere else.
Venom
Newcastle, and the band that abolished the requirement to be any good. Technically they are not playing thrash and it does not matter; every band in the Ruhr, in Brazil and in Scandinavia took their licence from this record. Start with Welcome to Hell and accept it on its own terms.
Angel Witch
One perfect album from 1980 with a title track that has been covered by half the genre, and then a career that never recovered. The writing is darker and more melodic than most of the wave, and the influence runs into the doom and traditional metal revivals as much as into thrash.
Raven
Newcastle again, three pieces, calling what they did athletic rock, and playing at a speed and with a wildness that put them closer to thrash than almost anybody else in Britain. They took an unknown American band called Metallica out on their first American tour in 1983, which is a fair summary of their historical position: important, generous and overtaken.
Tygers of Pan Tang
Wild Cat from 1980 and Spellbound from 1981, with John Sykes on the second, and a body of riff writing that rewards attention. Whitley Bay's contribution to a genre that would be made four thousand miles away.
Tank
Filth Hounds of Hades from 1982, produced by Motorhead's guitarist and sounding exactly as that suggests. A three piece playing at punk tempo with metal equipment, which is the missing link between Motorhead and the German scene.
Holocaust, Blitzkrieg and Sweet Savage
The three bands most likely to be familiar from other people's records. Metallica covered a Blitzkrieg song and a Sweet Savage song and a Holocaust song, and each of those originals is worth hearing on its own account rather than as a curiosity.
| Band | Record | Year | What it supplied |
|---|---|---|---|
| Diamond Head | Lightning to the Nations | 1980 | The riff grammar of the genre |
| Venom | Welcome to Hell | 1981 | Permission and extremity |
| Angel Witch | Angel Witch | 1980 | Melody and menace together |
| Raven | Wiped Out | 1982 | Speed and abandon |
| Tygers of Pan Tang | Wild Cat | 1980 | Riffs, and a lot of them |
| Tank | Filth Hounds of Hades | 1982 | The Motorhead template, refined |
| Holocaust | The Nightcomers | 1981 | Songs other people made famous |
The ones who escaped
Two bands got out of the New Wave with careers intact and both are slightly outside the scope of this list for that reason.
Iron Maiden signed to EMI, became one of the largest bands in the world, and stopped being part of an underground within about eighteen months. Def Leppard went to America and became something else entirely. Their success is why the phrase New Wave of British Heavy Metal is remembered at all, and it is also why the rest of the wave is so badly documented: the story gets told through the two exits rather than through the two hundred bands who did not find one.
How to listen to this stuff
Two practical notes, because the records do not always give up their qualities on first contact.
The production is rough and it is rough for a reason: most of these were cut in a day or two on eight track equipment. Do not expect the separation of a 1986 thrash record. What you get instead is the sound of a band playing in a room, and once the ear adjusts it is a considerable pleasure.
And listen for the arrangements rather than for the speed. These records are slower than what came after them, and the thing worth following is how a song moves: where the riff changes, how a tempo shift is used, when a section is allowed to run. That is the inheritance, and it is far more specific than a general debt to British metal.
The distinction between this material and the faster European strain it turned into is dealt with in Speed Metal vs Thrash Metal, and the full period is covered in the chapter above.
How the records actually reached California
Worth a paragraph, because it explains why this material shaped American bands rather than merely coexisting with them.
Import shops in Los Angeles and San Francisco stocked British singles at a markup, and a small number of obsessives bought everything. Fanzines reviewed the records and printed addresses. And a Danish teenager living in California, who had the advantage of a family that travelled, went to Britain, met the bands, and came home with a suitcase.
From there the tape network did the rest. A single copy of a five hundred press run could reach several hundred American listeners within a year, which is why bands who sold almost nothing in their own country are treated as founding figures four thousand miles away.
The deep end
For anybody who works through the shortlist and wants more, the wave goes a long way down and a surprising amount of it is good.
Jaguar from Bristol played faster than almost anybody in Britain. Savage from Mansfield wrote "Let It Loose", which Metallica played live for years. Satan from Newcastle made Court in the Act in 1983, which is as close to a thrash record as Britain produced that year. Witchfinder General, Quartz, Hell: the last of these recorded almost nothing at the time and were finally released three decades later.
The compilations are the efficient way in. The wave documented itself through various samplers in the same way the American scene did through Metal Massacre, and a good one will put twenty of these bands in front of you in an hour.
Sources and notes
Dates refer to original pressings; many of these records have complicated reissue histories with altered track listings. Cover version attributions refer to official releases.
