THE STORY OF THRASH: PART FOUR
The turn of the millennium saw thrash recover from its 90s slump, as a host of legends reformed and a new wave of bands grabbed the torch
The final part in our series about one of metal’s most-loved genres.
As metal entered the new millennium, it was dominated by downtuned grooves, hip-hop beats and baggy sportswear. Bands such as Korn, Limp Bizkit and Disturbed were dominating the charts and thrash metal, the original underdog genre, was an underdog once more in this nu world order. Yet many who came of age in the 80s were hungering for something more aggressive and technical. Y2K saw debut albums from Lamb Of God and Killswitch Engage suddenly thrust thrash’s influence back to relevance, giving momentum to a millennial ‘New Wave Of American Heavy Metal’.
“There was this new crop of bands, starting with Shadows Fall, Killswitch Engage and Lamb Of God, who really took the torch from the 80s bands,” enthuses Anthrax honcho Scott Ian. “They tweaked it a little, turned it into their own thing, just like we did, and they kept it alive for all of us.”
Simultaneously, thrash’s founding fathers were finding new impetus, experiencing a vigorous second wind. Bay Area veterans Testament relit the fire with 1999’s The Gathering – mixed and mastered by Andy Sneap, ex-guitarist with UK thrash eccentrics Sabbat – and German trailblazers Destruction reunited with charismatic frontman Schmier. They had drifted throughout the 90s, chasing trends in search of a new identity, but 2000’s All Hell Breaks Loose acted as a batteryacid eyewash on the millennium, the uncertainty of the 90s decisively flushed away. Kreator underwent a similar revelation on 2001’s
Violent Revolution, thrilling a
generation of headbangers who thought they’d lost frontman Mille Petrozza to the goths.
“I was looking for a new producer and Andy Sneap came up, because he’d worked on the Testament album,” recalls Mille. “Of course I knew Andy from the Sabbat days, and it was such a great vibe in the studio. We were all so enthusiastic, working day and night. He really pushed me to come up with great stuff. Kreator and Sabbat played the first-ever metal concert in East Berlin after the wall came down, and there we were 10 years later producing Violent Revolution together – it was perfect timing.”
Other architects of thrash had scattered to day jobs, school runs and less-good bands; it would take an event of frightening magnitude to rally them back to the cause. In 2001, Testament’s totemic frontman Chuck Billy was diagnosed with a rare cancer. San Francisco’s Thrash Of The Titans benefit show reunited a slew of originals who’d been away too long: Exodus, Death Angel, Heathen, Vio-lence, Forbidden Evil, Sadus – even Legacy, the pre-Testament band featuring Steve ‘Zetro’ Souza on vocals.
“The illness kinda put us all back together,” Chuck ruminates. “All those bands who had had differences with each other put them aside for a day, and everybody was awesome. It was a special night for the Bay Area; it did spark life back into a lot of those bands. A lot of people around the world supported it, and it kept that movement in people’s minds.”
It was a life-saving enterprise, not just for Chuck and Testament, but for the whole thrash scene.
As a result of the event, Exodus and Death Angel returned with comeback albums, to a euphoric reception. Even so, Exodus guitarist Gary Holt remembers it as a protracted rebirth. “When we put out our 2004 album, Tempo Of The Damned, people would talk to me about the so-called thrash metal renaissance, and I would always tell them, ‘I’ll believe it when I see it.’
One time, we played Colorado Springs for 18 people. But I think Exodus deserve a ton of credit for being the ones who really fought to bring thrash
back, because at that time nobody else was doing shit. And we kept busy!”
From 2004-10, thrash returned to the top of metal’s agenda. Anthrax and Testament reassembled classic line-ups, Slayer released 2006’s Christ Illusion – their first album with Dave Lombardo for 16 years – while Megadeth wowed critics with 2009’s Endgame. Even Metallica were writing thrash riffs again. Band reformations continued spreading like a thrash rash, every fondly remembered 80s name creeping back into the limelight.
This upsurge wasn’t just mobilising veterans, but inspiring a new generation who grew up with thrash as kids. Toxic Holocaust and Municipal Waste both debuted in 2003, with albums directly spawned from the toxic waste dumps of the 80s, and in their wake came a glut of fired-up youngsters desperate to channel some of that old thrash magic: Evile, Gama Bomb, SSS, Havok, Lich King, Skeletonwitch, Bonded By Blood and Fueled By Fire. The lyrics of Gama Bomb’s 2005 song Bullet Belt read: ‘Legions of thrashers, with nothing to thrash to / On the city streets / It’s time to fill the thrash vacuum, it’s time to thrash like it’s ’86’. Meanwhile,
Fueled By Fire had the song
Thrash Is Back on Metal
Hammer’s 2008 Thrash
Invasion! compilation.
Something profound was happening. Also by this time,
Trivium had emerged as a key
‘gateway band’, diverting metalcore kids into 80s Metallica and Annihilator. Overkill frontman Bobby Blitz credits the resurgence for the strength of Overkill’s 2010 career-high, Ironbound.
“There was a feeling of revival,” he says. “Younger thrash bands were using the blueprint, and they were bringing in younger fans. In 1999, we were playing to people mostly between the ages of 30 and 40, and by 2005 we were playing to 18-year-olds. I mean, this should be a young man’s game; it shouldn’t necessarily be old dogs! But it shows the value of the music, and it shows that experience counts for something. We were seeing that youthful exuberance again, that tier of thrash bands really started feeding off of that groove.”
Ironically, many of the new mid-00s thrash bands were signed to Earache records, the Nottingham label that played a part in making thrash seem tame and dated with its early
90s roster of experimental extremity. In 2007, their strenuously promoted ‘THrASH IS BACK!’ message even filtered down to the NME, who ran an article under that title featuring Earache releases by Municipal Waste, Evile and SSS, even quoting one of the Klaxons as confessing, ‘I’ve always loved Slayer.’
The ultimate apotheosis came in 2010, when every thrasher’s teenage wet dream came true: the Big 4, together, on tour. Anthrax, Megadeth, Slayer and Metallica. Fifty or 60 of the best metal songs ever written, in one night. “What a great idea,” beams Scott Ian, recalling his reaction to Metallica’s pitch for the event.
“Let’s show the world what we did, what the four of us created in the 80s, and celebrate it.