From a time before algorithmic playlists, we celebrate the golden era of METAL COMPILATIONS.
In the 80s and 90s, compilations were a vital gateway into heavy music. Here are the stories behind some iconic metal mixes
Among the 40th anniversaries celebrated in metal this year, there’s one you may have missed. It was in 1980 that heavy metal really took shape as a codified genre, and for all the classic albums released in those 12 months, perhaps the key development was the first batch of devotedly metallic compilation records hitting the market.
There was no more hoicking the needle over five inches of pop, new wave and MOR to catch a Rainbow, Purple or Sabbath hit – at last, a new generation of headbangers could get their greasy mitts on a batch of budget-priced samplers piled wallto-wall with long hair and loud guitars. Seminal titles such as EMI’S Metal For Muthas, MCA’S Brute Force and the BBC’S Metal Explosion showcased the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal at its apex, and was followed by a dizzying worldwide glut of ‘Various Artist’ releases, providing crucial exposure for burgeoning scenes and emerging subgenres over the next 20 years.
The USA grew to dominate the market; Metal Blade honcho Brian Slagel concedes that Shrapnel Records’ first US Metal comp emerged a few months before his famous, longrunning Metal Massacre series launched in 1982, but with this key title the artform exploded. Killer regional metal samplers were popping up everywhere, from Sweden’s Scandinavian Metal Attack to Brazil’s Warfare Noise, from Canada’s Moose Molten Metal to South Korea’s estimable Friday Afternoon series.
In an era of itunes, Spotify, Youtube and Soundcloud, the humble compilation might seem like a sweet, musty relic of metal’s analogue past. But while algorithms can shuffle us recommended playlists into infinity, there’s an undeniably warm, human magic about the focus and craft of a great compilation. Here, we salute those cornerstones of the form
– those horizon-broadening thrillrides that often define their era every bit as powerfully as any one band’s studio album.
WHAT WAS THE IMPETUS FOR THE FIRST METAL MASSACRE?
“I was just a kid in LA, just a fan of the NWOBHM basically, working in a record store, doing a fanzine [The New Heavy Metal Revue]. Then somebody came into the store and said ‘Do you know there are good metal bands playing in LA?’ I was like, ‘There are?!’ The first show I went to was Mötley Crüe and Ratt at the Troubadour, on a Wednesday night for a dollar. I realised there was a scene happening in LA, similar to the one in England. Those [British] compilations, especially Metal For Muthas, were a huge influence on me, so I got the idea to put together a compilation of local LA metal bands, because otherwise nobody would know they existed! Mötley Crüe was meant to be on there at first, but by then their record had come out and was doing well, so they didn’t really need to be on there I guess.”
METALLICA DEBUTED ON THE COMP. HOW DID THAT HAPPEN?
“My friend Lars – who I’d known for a few years, we were both huge fans of the NWOBHM – called me up and said, ‘Hey, if I put together a band, can I be on your album?’ Of course that ended up being Metallica. They’d jammed together but there was nothing going on, they couldn’t find anyone to be in the band, it was kind of stagnant, but when the record idea came up Lars went to James and said, ‘If we put together a band and song, we can be on this record!’”
DID YOU HAVE ANY IDEA WHAT TO EXPECT FROM LARS’S BAND?
“I’d never heard anything, I didn’t even know he was jamming! I do remember one time I was at his house listening to records. He had this drum set just on the floor, not even put together yet. I was like, ‘What are you doing with these drums?’ He said, ‘I’m gonna start a band,’ I was like, ‘Sure you are, whatever!’ I have to admit I was a little nervous. He brought [the song] in on the very last day it was due, and I remember wondering if it was gonna be any good or not! It wasn’t the best-sounding thing ever, but it was actually pretty cool, and they kind of went on to have some sort of decent career, so…!”
“LARS TOLD ME HE WAS GOING TO START A BAND...”
More Metallica, plus Slayer, Megadeth, Exodus, Voivod, Celtic Frost, Destruction, Possessed, an exclusive new recording of Venom’s Black Metal… With a tracklist still capable of flooring jaws, this Music For Nations sampler was crucial in getting some of the most visionary, state-of-the-art bands from the burgeoning thrash scene heard by a wider audience, acting as a one-stop shop for awestruck discovery of this vital new metallic force. So new, the ‘thrash’ tag was not yet set in stone; Speed Kills was “the very best in speed metal”, as defined in 1985, but presaging both death and black metal with its focused savagery.
Just a quirky Seattle indie putting out a sampler of local bar bands – among them promising hopefuls like Nirvana, Soundgarden, Mudhoney, Screaming Trees, Green River and Tad. But within three years, the fuzzily raucous sounds on this limited edition triple-lp box set were changing music history. Fifteen of the 20 songs were recorded by Jack Endino in Seattle’s Reciprocal studio, so were charged with that loose, raw, sweaty garage vibe. This was a heavy metallic genre in embryo, all caveman intensity and head-caving chords, with the grime and groove of early Sabbath all over it.
It’s amazing how much Cathedral did to codify doom metal. An unfashionable, niche micro-scene as the 90s began, it soon mushroomed to glory in myriad directions. Label founder Lee Dorrian zeroed into the essence of true doom with these seven artists, savvily including two demo tracks by his own new band – Cathedral’s first vinyl outing. They stand out as monumentally harsh against more traditionally Sabbathian, working-man downer tunes from Stillborn, Penance, Revelation and Count Raven. Saint Vitus’s classic I Bleed Black is equally visceral and disturbing, while Texan prodigies Solitude Aeturnus arguably trump the lot for sheer epic power skills.
This seminal Nottingham imprint already dropped a ton of uranium-weight death/grind with 1989’s original
Grind Crusher, featuring the same unmissable hits by Morbid Angel, Carcass, Repulsion, Godflesh and Terrorizer. The reissue in 1991 added new Napalm Death and Bolt Thrower’s colossal World Eater plus 11 more bands, including the synth-haunted Floridian progdeath of Nocturnus, Heresy’s frantic UKHC, thrash jesters Lawnmower Deth and the cream of Swedish DM, Entombed and Carnage. Meanwhile, the nightmare jazz-grind of John Zorn’s Naked City, Spazztic Blurr’s absurdist volatility, a techno/house/metal mix by Mighty Force, and whatever Sore Throat were doing, represent the most abstruse of Earache’s mind-bending impulses.
Opening a collection of cutting-edge experimental extremity in 1992 with an impossibly groovy 70s rock song from a forgotten 80s Pentagram record? This much-loved Yorkshire label flew their freak-flag high on this beyond essential smorgasbord of transgressive ingenuity, sequenced like an illicit radio broadcast. Peaceville’s bulging roster of genre pioneers brought highly singular twists to the strands of metal that they were shaping, but alongside legends-in-waiting like Pentagram, Darkthrone, Autopsy, Paradise Lost, My Dying Bride, Anathema, At The Gates, Vital Remains and The Gathering, even spookier frequencies were tapped by the dystopian mechanical terror of G.G.F.H., Kong and Sonic Violence.
Ahh, the 90s - a halcyon window of freedom and optimism between the USSR’S collapse and 9/11, yet the dominant soundtrack was either moody introspection or dystopian aggression. By ’97, unruffled longhairs were finding solace in their dads’ 70s record collections – and marijuana – and these dudes just wanted to rock. Making their first appearance on record, QOTSA contributed a scorching exclusive opener, plus there was Fu Manchu’s definitive liquid groove in Asphalt Risin’, heavy Sleep trip Aquarian, a killer weird Cathedral rarity, Acrimony’s blissed-out Bud Song and a further class raft of retro-riff rock, forming a versatile but cohesive scene summation.
Conceived by Mayhem guitarist Euronymous and Paul ‘Typhon’ of US label Necropolis as a sampler of new elite black metal, its future became uncertain after Euronymous’s murder. However, Paul resolved to complete the LP in tribute, encouraged by the wealth of talent who owed the Norwegian scene figurehead a debt of gratitude (Emperor, Marduk, Enslaved, Arcturus, Dissection). Consequently Nordic Metal encapsulated its time and place like no other comp, its deceased honouree’s highly discerning, eccentric tastes reflected in the harsh alien atmospheres of exclusive, ultra-cult cuts from Abruptum, Mysticum, Thorns and Mortiis, as well as Mayhem’s definitive 1991 song Freezing Moon.
The Necropolis founder/ Nordic Metal co-compiler helped bring a whole cult scene into the light
HOW DID THE NORDIC METAL ALBUM COME ABOUT?
“The early conversations started culminating into an ‘Inner Circle’ type of concept for a compilation. Other names such as ‘The Black Circle’ or ‘Black Metal Mafia’ were thrown around in letters, and Euronymous liked the idea to start. However, during late ’92/early ’93 they were all getting too much ‘heat’ from their activities in Norway, so I think he wanted to stay away from those kind of titles. A lot of the reasons were that some of the bands involved were easily identifiable, so there may have been a bit of apprehension. He had asked me to burn or bury his letters also around this time, after I read them, since he didn’t want anything traced.”
WERE THERE ANY OTHER BANDS THAT YOU WANTED TO INCLUDE BUT COULDN’T?
“If you take a snapshot in time, say 10 to 11 months before, you could see how Burzum or Darkthrone could be included, or you could also see how maybe even Sigh or Monumentum could be on there. It’s just strange how these things play out. I can tell you that none of this was easy. There was a lot going on, a lot of letters back and forth exchanged, and a lot of high emotions and tensions at play, particularly after the death of Euronymous. Ultimately the collection of bands on there says a lot about their personal relationship with Euronymous and the inspiration he was to the thinking, so the spirit is kind of there the way it is.”
HOW MUCH DID THE TRACKLIST FLUCTUATE?
“It was as close as possible to the bands that Euronymous wanted on the original compilation. On tracklist to final, I thought about how the music was flowing in mastering and wanted to mix the order in a way that the listening could be fluid. Starting off with the insane Abruptum track, it set the mood. After this, you can’t really get anything better than Freezing Moon, and from there it just flowed.”
“EURONYMOUS ASKED ME TO BURN HIS LETTERS”