Well, quality does not really matter for this point, and to each their own, but 'Dimensions' can suck it as far as I'm concerned. It's a pretty good album in and of itself, but one does not simply release a monster of an album like 'Sanity Obscure' and then expect me to lap up its cold, dried out then rehydrated leftovers 3 years after the fact (helloooo, Savatage!). I'll forever worship your divine offerings, once-godly bands, but don't expect me to be your bitch because of it (nice try, though, fooled some hehe). Anyhow, Believer was a very particular band with its very particular style, which didn't really fit in any single genre, thrash or otherwise. I'd be very reluctant to call even Sanity Obscure thrash, and it's much closer to thrash than Dimensions is. The debut, yeah, okay; it's very personal thrash with some death, some hardcore and some folk influences if you will, I'm okay with calling it that. "Progressive/technical thrash", for the next two, I dunno... it doesn't really fit. To me, it's a bit like calling Tiamat's 'The Astral Sleep' (masterpiece, by the way) death metal, or even doom/death; I can see how it makes sense to give it that tag, since it's arguably the closer it gets, but these are albums that transcend genres, cliché though it may seem. Anyways, a solid half of 'Dimensions' is folk metal and/or experimental music (the bulk of "Dimentia" + the whole "Trilogy of Knowledge" thing); stuff like "Gone" or "No Apology" is groove metal if it's anything (despite being Believer's version of groove metal, so still rather personal), and this clearly extends to the bulk of "Future Mind" and "What is Cannot be"... which leaves one sort of thrash song, the aptly-named "Singularity" (and even that one has a few groovy and experimental parts). So yeah, it'd really be a stretch to consider this album a proper thrash album in my book.


Yeah, what about it? Indeed, are you fucking joking, man? Are you high as a kite? Retarded? New to metal? Other? All of the above? If you're not very familiar with thrash, that's absolutely fine; but don't expect to pick any metal album from 1993 at random and magically stumble upon the one long-lost thrash album released that year, despite 5 of us dedicated thrash fans having tried real hard to find one, and coming up empty. No offense, bro. Also, please note that quality isn't a criterion, never mind that 'Indepence' sucks ass (how could it not? it's only Sacred Reich's black album, after all); it's because it is not thrash that I'm saying it cannot be a 1993 thrash album. If it were shitty thrash, that'd be fine.


Sure. And what better application of the absolultely ultimate evil masterplan to take over the world without anyone ever being the wiser than... using it to make thrash metal, of all things, fall to its knees, only to let it return a short decade later? Come on, gimme some of that jumbo doobie too, you adorably crazy person!

Yup, it sounded like aggressive fun instead of angst, the lyrics were not angsty, but essentially, the genre died a temporary death because the young people ran out of angst? Makes sense. I'd sure love to see your version of Metal Evolution.

Dude, you sound like you weren't around at the time... durrr.... When thrash died, everything turned angsty. There was grunge, nu metal, whiny alt movies, angsty Batman, a widespread Goth plague, everything. The end of thrash was the beginning of angst, and unless you have a damn credible reasoning behind what you wrote, I suggest giving up at this point. The early-to-mid 80s was a ridiculously positive era, and the thing with the biggest dose of Weltschmerz was fucking Wall Street.

Yeah, everyone was super happy about everything, especially bands complaining about politicians. It does make sense, actually, for people who stop caring and move on to write about something else, (ironically songs like what '90s Metallica wrote).

There's a bigger meaning behind "angst" than "sound like a nu-metal band" and just because it turned into a very central theme for music in the '90s, doesn't mean it as an emotion didn't exist before 1993, nor that it didn't take various forms for people trying to express themselves - such as political lyrics. I'm sure the end of the '80s was a just delightful era, and there were no genuine worries for anyone whatsoever, anywhere...not even for thrash metal bands with the means to make and record music. Maybe, just maybe, they felt the need to complain, and chose music as their medium, and since it was such a great time, maybe their worries were unfounded and yet they insisted on complaining, bitching about some political issue in between songs about thrashing about to great music? Wow, that sounds an awful lot like angst...and then, as they mature, they decide to go with the times and(/or?) write about something else they feel the need to express, like maybe how much the '90s suck or whatever.

Why would it be so hard to believe that angry people do angry things? Like write angry music about things that anger them? Just because the times were great (especially if you were a thrash metal band in the late '80s), that doesn't mean people didn't find reasons to be angry? Now, there's a reason I've "switched" from angsty to angry here, the era being so fantastic if anything would reinforce my point...they'd be angry if their lives really did suck, they'd be angsty if, as it turns out, they were spewing vitriol at politicians for no real reason because things were pretty great.

But yeah, sure, you're right and I'm wrong, because I had no idea people made shitty music in the '90s or that everyone everywhere, especially youth inclined to play political, aggressive thrash walked around with huge dumb grins on their faces all the time.

Dude, there's a profound difference between "angsty" and "angry". Anger is a part of the 80s thrash scene, as well as of the hardcore of the same decade; anger can be a positive thing in many contexts, while angst is something that makes a loser in a dirty sweater whine for years before blowing his brains on the wall. The moment hardcore went from "anger" to "angst", it turned to whiny shit. The moment the anger of thrash was exchanged for the angst of grunge marked the beginning of an era when I failed to find any new good bands for almost a decade. You seem to be sorting it out yourself just fine, though, so carry on, please. A hint, though: it's quite difficult to incorporate angst into political lyrics and still make sense.

No, everything was not super happy in the 80s. On the contrary. But the mood was optimistic, and the tiny little things that tried to spoil it (Chernobyl, the Challenger disaster, a little hole in the ozone layer, a bit of AIDS, Olof Palme...) were easily countered by a bunch of plastic idiots singing "Do They Know It's Christmas Time", and everything seemed to be racing for a new dawn of infinite possibilities. It was a decade of hope and collective denial, and unfortunately it wasn't replaced by a decade of actually doing something about things, but by a decade of general whining about everything essentially meaningless. This is all retrospective, of course, but I do believe that when people look at the 20th century a few hundred years down the road, the 80s will be seen as the decade when mankind finally lost its shit.

@LegendMaker, I am not going to argue your point about post 1993 albums, but I found some stuff from that time. Havoc Mass (1993) - Killing The Future is a nice candidate. Mortal Reign (1993) - Return To Battle - the album has some groovy bits, but their amount is minimal. I am not sure if it counts as proper Thrash in your book. The there is Dorsal Atlantica (1993) - Musical Guide From Stellium, but it might be too groovy.

Havoc Mass - All That is Evil
Mortal Reign - Return To Battle

Speaking about the demise of Thrash, first of all, it ran out of ideas by 1993 due to the over-saturation around mid/late 80's, early 90's. Secondly, as it has been mentioned by previous posters, grunge, black metal and death metal became a better source of income, due to the fact that they were new.

@DeathFog: Thanks for those suggestions, I'll look into it tomorrow. It's my turn to be stoned to function properly, it seems (it was bound to happen). I'm familiar with neither band, and from my first listen of the 2 tracks you linked to, I can't be sure about either. My first, stoned impression is: Havoc Mass is one of the most nerve-grating bands I ever heard, and also groove/thrash metal (pending the results from the lab to confirm whether there are indeed trace amounts of thrash in that very 90s sonic pudding); that Mortal Reign song sounds like a fucking great and quite typical late 80s/early 90s thrash song, with a decidedly pre-blackalbumization production job and a positively groove-free everything, but I'm almost certain I'll be able to confirm that it's because it is. This particular recording of that particular song I've just heard simply cannot be from 1993 and not be well-known for it. And what do you know, a quick glance at their discography tells me that they also released a demo of the same name with the same title track on it, in 1990; also, the YT poster also mentions "I believe it was back in 1989 or 1990". Now, how much do you wanna bet that this upload is actually the 1990 version? Not trying to pull a vengefulgoat on me, are you? At any rate, that's at least a nice find, and thank you for that! As I said, I'll check more in-depth tomorrow.

Not new to thrash, but new to the site. I was just taking a wild stab at your challenge, that's all, I generally agree with your point.

Okay man, no worries (that's what it looked like, to be fair). It's just that it turns out to be a pretty tough challenge, as you can see (I'm still failing myself).

@Napero: Man, I really enjoy your writing. Even when what you're saying isn't fascinating (in this case, it's just a no-nonsense look at some trends in recent history), the way you're saying it makes for a very good read. You should write short stories or something (maybe you already do?). Hmmm. I'm too stoned, huh? Right, time to go to sleep.

Since the current discussion is about the extinction of (proper) thrash in 1993, I'm gonna go ahead and link to this proper legit thrash gem (released in '93). The album is beast by the way, check it out if you haven't.

@kingnuuuur: Thanks, I will check it out, because it sounds really good. That said, this song is really on the fence between thrash and death, so if the rest of the album is like that, I'd say it's thrash/death or "deathrash" if you will, more than just thrash. It reminds me of Incubus' legendary album, 'Beyond the Unknown' more than any proper thrash album.

I'll look into the rest of the album, as well as DeathFog's 3 suggestions as soon as I can (too much overtime at work lately snif snif).


By the way, just to clarify, I was totally serious about loving Napero's writing. Reading my previous post again, it occurred to me it might have sounded like I was implying I liked it only because I was too stoned, which would not be nice at all. I actually meant that I was too stoned because it was a bit unusual to praise his writing out of the blue like that. Anyways... I'll stop that now.

For 1994, you've got Sodom's Get What You Deserve, which is their last genuinely killer album. Maybe a bit more punk influenced, but I'd call it real thrash, for sure.

This thread has a lot of interesting facts, but barely any analysis. Here are the basic point made :

* There are no evidence of conspiracy.
* Thrash in its original form became extinct by 1993.
* The niche formerly occupied by Thrash was overtaken by Death Metal, Black Metal, Groove Metal and Grunge.

Rightful questions arise :
* What were the benefits of these new genres compared to Thrash ? One should keep in mind, that at some point these genres were developing in the shadow of the almighty Thrash.
* What made Groove Metal so attractive among the veteran and newly formed Thrash bands ? Why is it still an integral part of their sound ?

I am yet to find answers to these questions.

Limitations within the style of thrash metal inhibits(ed) growth to a great degree. There was only so far you could go before it ceased to be thrash and became something else. That was something quite evident as far back as the mid 1980s. Death metal, black metal, groove metal, doom metal, grunge, postrock, prog metal - they all offered different options that thrash ostensibly closed the door on. Speed, tempo, instrumentation, experimentation, song length, timing schemes, lyrics themes; the whole nine.



Closely related enough that it was easy to make the transition. Didn't require bands that didn't necessarily want to go into making outwardly satantic/brutal music an option to keep them relevant commercially. Creatively there were probably issues too. Guys wanted to try different and new things.

Really, guys?

The OP suggests that when bands stopped playing thrash they also stopped writing sociocritical lyrics. One could indeed argue that lots of death metal had less straight political topics, elevating the whole thing to a more abstract level, but in the case of black metal and satanism/anti-christianity that's a direct continuation of anti-clerical hate which many thrash bands ferociously expressed like Nuclear Assault's "Hang the Pope".

The reason thrash metal "died" after the early 90's is because its components are so ubiquitous throughout other genres that it is treated as if the slightest deviation from the roots makes it something else. Take pure water and add a few grams of X, and now you have a Z mM solution of X. That's why people can listen to Sacrifice's Flesh and hear groove metal, but when they hear the same riffs in For Whom the Bells Toll they hear thrash or heavy metal. That's also why death metal is capable of withstanding a bazillion derivations and extremely disparate musical styles under its giant umbrella, yet a few Pantera-isms in a Shovel Headed Kill Machine or a Bloodletting earn a booting from the thrash pile. I'll continue listening to Hieronymus Bosch to satisfy my Coroner cravings no matter what genre you want to throw them under.

Hey at least someone's fact-checking.

Well said.

i see 4 cases where stoner paranoia can be applied (subversion of movement by COINTELPRO/agencies), thrash being one of them :

- hippy / protest folk from the 60's (limited proof exists) : replaced real activism and poltical action / protest with peace love and drugs

- politically inclined hip hop /rap from the 80's (limited proof exists) : replaced polticially active subversive agenda with goddawful crap filled with thugs, pimps, ho's, club floors and bling

- thrash (no proof seen till date) : replaced understandable vocals set to energetic music criticising poltical and social situations with unitelligible gurgling/growling/screeching and obsession with gore and satan (BM & DM)

- Hardcore / Punk (no proof seen) : replaced understandable vocals set to energetic music criticising political and social situations with unitelligible gurgling/growling/screeching and obsession with violence, breakdowns, emoting and the 'scene'

I don't think "stoner paranoia" could be applied to thrash's being eclipsed by DM and BM because people who founded DM and BM were searching for more extreme modes of expression than thrash and had to essentially build new subgenres of music to do so. While it'd be easy trying to find evidence of a conspiracy to explain why thrash declined in the 1990s, peoples' tastes changed in the 1990s and the majority of thrash bands either had to change to suit the changing tastes of the music-buying-public or play to increasingly select audiences.

hence my comments about "no proof seen till date"

i traveled the same path heavy--> thrash-->death-->black

I really don't think that thrash had momentum. Not any more than glam did. It was just a thing that flared up relatively quickly, but that's not momentum.

NWOBHM brought with it a hunger for heavy metal in the American youth, and the hardcode American club scene seemed like a good place to put it. Stir, and repeat for 10 years. It's the same way that hard rock clubs morphed into the glam scene in Los Angeles, except they invited girls.

The musicians weren't much older than their audience. Some (Death Angel) were younger. It was a young man's game, and young men grow up. It seemed to die off in the early 90s because we were all in our 20s by then and we had things to do.

Of course no music genre ever completely dies, but we probably won't have anything quite like that collision of factors again.

These two posters kind of nailed it. Thrash was born from an adventurous spirit of mixing up different influences but ironically became confined by very strict limitations and a misguided purist attitude. It was a fucking headache being a musician during the height of that scene. People had very strict views on what was acceptable or not as far as production, guitar tone, vocals, acceptable tempos, themes, mood and so on. You had to hit a pretty narrow range as far as aggression level as well. After the pioneers wrote the book on thrash, there was nowhere to go unless you accepted being called something else. How long can you sell the same records over and over again becomes the question.

I don't think there was that much momentum to begin with, honestly. At least in my part of the woods, thrash rarely made it to the big arenas and stadiums and most of them were left to open up for kickass heavy metal bands. The latter offered a much wider range of music, they could build a set list that offered variety, pace themselves and made for a much better and dramatic show experience. Thrash was often going for this down to earth, urban approach that didn't provide as much escapism. They also tend to neglect the frontman role a lot more, which again is detrimental not only to records but can be fatal for live shows.

I think those who wanted a more conventional experience stuck with melodic, traditional metal and a lot of the fans and musicians who wanted to keep on pushing the boundaries finally gave the narrow-minded nature of the genre the finger and moved on to whatever extreme music they felt like doing.