Every band in this genre has at least one, and the interesting thing about the failures is that they nearly all failed the same way and for the same reason.
What follows is the named list, the mechanism that produced it, and an argument for being less cruel about it than the internet usually is.
Megadeth, Risk, 1999
The most complete failure in the genre, and the band do not dispute it. Dance beats, radio rock production, no thrash anywhere on it, and a title that was a joke about taking chances and became a verdict. Marty Friedman left afterwards. Mustaine has spent twenty five years apologising for it and then making very good records instead, which is the correct response.
Kreator, Endorama, 1999
The end point of a five year drift through industrial and gothic influences, with clean vocals and a guest singer from a gothic rock band, made by the group who thirteen years earlier had produced the most violent record in European metal. Mille Petrozza has been unusually honest about the period. Two years later they made Violent Revolution and have not put a foot wrong since.
Slayer, Diabolus in Musica, 1998
The one Slayer album nobody defends. Drop tuning, nu metal rhythms, and a band chasing something they had no reason to chase. It is not incompetent; it is simply not what Slayer were for, and the audience knew it within a fortnight.
Testament, Demonic, 1997
An honourable failure and a failure nonetheless: a thrash band making a death metal record, with growled vocals and no Alex Skolnick. The album before it, Low, is genuinely underrated and this one is where the plot was lost.
Anthrax, Stomp 442 and Volume 8
Not disasters, and worse in some ways: two records of drift, made by a band who had changed singer and could not decide what they now were. The material is competent and the identity is missing.
Sepultura, Roots, 1996
The contentious one. Historically important, genuinely brave, and half of it is a very good record. The other half is a band being pushed towards a market that was about to disappear, and the album has been protected by its reputation for so long that the unevenness rarely gets said out loud.
| Album | Band | Year | What went wrong | Disowned by the band |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Roots | Sepultura | 1996 | Half a great record, half a market | No |
| Demonic | Testament | 1997 | A thrash band playing death metal | Partly |
| Diabolus in Musica | Slayer | 1998 | Drop tuning and nu metal rhythms | Effectively |
| Endorama | Kreator | 1999 | Gothic vocals, clean guitars | Yes |
| Risk | Megadeth | 1999 | Everything | Yes, repeatedly |
| Volume 8 | Anthrax | 1998 | No identity | No |
The mechanism
Look at the years. Every record above comes from a six year window between 1993 and 1999, and that is not a coincidence about inspiration.
In August 1991 the biggest band in the genre released a mid tempo album that sold in excess of thirty million copies. Every label with a thrash band on its books now had proof of what slowing down was worth. From 1992 onwards, those bands were invited, in the polite language of the industry, to consider the direction of their next record, and a budget was frequently attached to the invitation.
Add grunge, which made everything with a guitar solo look ridiculous, and death metal, which had taken the extreme audience, and a band in 1995 was choosing between changing and stopping.
Why to be less cruel about it
These were men in their early thirties with mortgages, children and a professional skill that had abruptly stopped paying. A record company offering a budget on condition that the album sounds more current is not making an artistic suggestion, it is describing the only terms available.
Most of them took the terms. Given the same circumstances most people would, and the ones who did not were largely the ones with nothing left to lose. Overkill released an album every eighteen months to shrinking crowds and changed nothing; Sodom never slowed down; Tankard carried on writing about beer. Those are admirable and they are also the choices of bands who were not being offered anything.
And nearly all of them came back. Kreator's recovery is the most complete in the genre. Megadeth made Endgame. Testament reassembled the classic line up and made the best record of their late career. The failures are real and they turned out to be a chapter rather than an ending.
The corner of the catalogue where nothing was compromised because nobody was watching is in The Best Instrumental Thrash Tracks, and the wider survey is the essential albums list.
The near misses
A few records get named in these arguments and do not belong on the list, and separating them matters.
Testament's Low is downtuned, has no Alex Skolnick and is genuinely good; it has been unfairly bundled with the failures for thirty years. Metallica's Load is a divisive record and not a thrash record at all, which makes it a different conversation. Anthrax's Sound of White Noise is a strong album with a new singer and it is the drift afterwards rather than the record itself that disappointed.
What separates a near miss from a failure is whether the band was pursuing something or fleeing something. Low is a band trying an idea. Risk is a band being pointed at a market.
The recoveries
The most useful thing about this list is what happened next, because in almost every case the band came back and the comeback records are better than their reputations.
Kreator returned in 2001 with Violent Revolution and has not made a weak album in twenty five years, which is the most complete recovery in the genre. Megadeth made Endgame in 2009, fast and furious and entirely unembarrassed. Testament reassembled the classic line up and released The Formation of Damnation in 2008. Exodus came back with Tempo of the Damned. Slayer spent the rest of their career making records nobody argued about and finished with a farewell tour that filled arenas.
Whatever the 1990s did to this genre, it did not turn out to be permanent, and any list of failures that stops in 1999 is telling half the story.
Sources and notes
Years refer to original pressings. Attributions of disowning follow published statements by the musicians concerned; where a band has not commented the table says so.
