I’ve been meaning to reply to this thread with ages, but I don’t really have anything too interesting to add!
Back when I was teen and in my early 20’s I used to spend a lot of time tracking stuff down on the internet! I used know most of what was going on in Norway/Sweden, while my buddy knew pretty much everything about the Finnish scene. Which nearly always resulted in a pretty good exchange of bands.
I kind of dropped out of listening to newer metal bands around my late 20’s, where before I had no money but time, now I’ve got money, but no time, so I just buy stuff without doing too much searching!
Anyway I’ll just share some stuff that I reckon most people will know!
Sabbat - Dreamwaver. I saw their reunion tour back in 2006 (I think)! They weren’t the headline band, Entombed were. I off handled told someone I was only here for Sabbat because I thought they were one of the best UK trash bands ever. (I only really like left hand path by entombed, the rest is alright!). Anyway! Turns out the person I told was the organiser, and said if I wanted to meet the band I could. So I was like alright! Got to chat with the band, mostly Martin Walkyier and Andy Sneap! Martin hung around for like 3 hours, and gave me a signed copy of a Clan Destined record (which I eventually gave away to a friend of mine).
this is probably my favorite ‘heavy’ song… gerogerigegege is probably more famous for their performance art, and their music generally is more along the lines of dark ambient, harsh noise, or field recordings, but this is a very very heavy shoegaze/noise rock track on their first album after a seventeen year long break.
Well, I was asked to put some olde tyme thrash music on here and got a bit carried away with the project. if anyone ever gets through this entire list I’ll be real surprised.
In some cases I privileged obscurity, in some cases age, in some cases I just felt like putting it on there. The intention was to make an oldschool thrash list as requested but I just went through all my CDs and tapes and found some interesting stuff, so there’s various genres represented. Maybe some day when my time is vast (lol) I’ll get into my records and you can hear all my obscure 80s Polish stuff.
The things I actually vouch for personally and would listen to the full album of right now are marked with an asterisk. I already mentioned some of my favorites earlier, like Disincarnate and Unholy, but yeah, here’s some more stuff. Oh and I have not researched whether any/all of these bands are regressive and/or otherwise shitty so… good luck.
DEATH
admortem - nightmare
accidental suicide - morbid indulgence
Bestial Summoning - unholy prison. raw and sloppy but compelling is how I’d describe it.
Cadaver - bypassed. probably blocked if you’re in the US, but you can VPN it. it’s all about that active bass and the jazzy time signatures.
Cancer - electro-convulsive therapy. speedy! gothenbergy despite not being from there. I think the internet doesn’t like this album but: too bad.
Defecation - Vestige of Earthly Remains. Decent grindy deathmetal, though I wish I liked the next song more so I could’ve linked it because it’s called “life on earth is fuckin dangerous” which rules. Anyway the story with this band is it’s for some reason one of the tapes I brought with me to college even though it wasn’t my absolute favorite, and I was blasting it in my dorm room and this dude walks by and says “what’s playing” but he had a real thick accent and I couldn’t understand him so I had to ask him 3 times, and eventually when I figured it out I was embarrassed to say the name of them band. Turned out he liked metal too and that’s how I met my friend Rahul!
Earth - Earth. It’s not the absolute best and the keyboards are always like “here I am lol” in these songs but I’m mostly sharing it because this is not the famous Earth but another Earth and it’s decent.
Massacre - inhuman condition. this band seems to have gained some later acclaim I guess, but I think the vocal doubler works real well here.
Skeleton of God - Urine Garden. Odd stuff from these colorado weirdos. I can’t vouch for the fan video, it might have gross stuff in it, but these folks sure were experimenting. Their next album isn’t on youtube but if you can track down the song tigers & psams & rattlesnakes you’ll see where that experiment went (into the basement with some tapes is where)
Thanatopsis - unjust. Another band from round my house. My buddy was really into Thanatopsis when I was in highschool, but they only released their first full length in 2020 (and I haven’t heard much of it). Honestly they had real decent guitar/bass work and some jazzy biz going on, but the drums and vox held the whole thing allll the way back.
Viogression - maggot synod. I can’t really place why I like these vocals but I do! Real ruff stuff from some milwaukee. this whole album suuuure is death metal.
THRASH
*Abbatoir - screams from the grave. I love the “so rock it’s metal” approach, they also do a great cover of ace of spades on this album.
Anvil bitch - maggot infestation. This band isn’t great but “maggots maggots everywhere (yeah yeah yeah! yeah yeah yeah!) maggots maggots in my hair (yeah yeah yeah! yeah yeah yeah!)” is a lyric that has stuck with me.
Assassin - abstract war. thrashy germans being thrashy germans.
Coldsteel - freakboy. As with everything from new york in this era it’s a bit hardcore influenced, but more melodic in the vocals than much stuff coming out of there.
Contempt - heart black. These guys aren’t that good but it’s from 1992 and I guarantee you’ve never heard it. They were very straight thrash from Richmond, CA where I went to elementary school. The afterschool care lady who I had a crush on gave me this EP and told me her boyfriend was in it and I got disappointed. Anyway the vocals are far and away the worst part of the experience (and that was her boyfriend, of course!!!) so get ready to be bored.
*Crimson Glory - Cydonia. I love this iteration of the band, if you just ignore that the Midnight version existed. Everyone legit hates this album but: too bad again lol.
Cronos - Vampyr. Venom side project which is actually quite good and more nwohbm-ish.
Evildead - Sloe Death. Boring vocals but decent guitars were this band’s whole thing.
Exodus - verbal razors. Exodus is not obscure and frankly they’re not that good in the cold light of 2020 but they are my namesake as of highschool primarily because I wanted to like the MORE OBSCURE of the popular thrash bands which sort of has been my thing my whole life lol. Anyhoo here’s a sampling of that.
*Flotsam and Jetsam - no place for disgrace. Y’all probably know this now, but back in the day it felt like nobody knew these folks. This album also has one of my metal ballad bangers, escape from within.
Guillotine - set them free. kind of a thrash/hardcore crossover? occupies a weird space and basically nobody knows this album.
Guillotine - leprosy. This is a different Guillotine! More black thrash, you’ve heard it all before, but it’s appealing.
Hallow’s Eve - Speed Freak. a classic in the speedmetal genre, but not a lot of people know it I think.
*Heathen - Fear of the Unknown. I listend to this album A LOT in highschool and I really liked these weirdly hollow throaty sounding guitars. all the songs on this album are about 2x the length they should be. I saw the singer david white at the post office getting his passport renewed and was like dude… I recognize you from the liner notes, and we had a good chat about stuff.
*Helstar - baptized in blood. Well, this is a legit good thrash band so I don’t have that much to say about it!?
Invocator - desert sands. maybe this is popular now because it was on black mark? once again the vocals hold it back, but that’s thrash for you.
Last Crack - Blood Brothers of the Big Black Bear. Interesting early “groove metal” thrash crossover that never got very popular, but that riff is solid. Ultimately this is what flotsam and jetsam wound up sounding like. I bought this for 50 cents on vacation in florida and had to hide it from my grandfather because there was a naked man on it.
Mordred - falling away. speaking of groove metal, move over linkin park, we invented that biz right here in the bay area (owned). I hated this at the time but I kind of appreciate it now!? They played LITERALLY two blocks from my house in 2017 and I didn’t walk over to the venue and I 10000% regret it.
Nasty Savage - Asmodeus. vox are over the top but I love the cymbal work!?
Not Fragile - with all my might. under the radar german speed/thrashers.
Paranoia - death sentence. I guess they call this crossover now but to me it was speedy thrashy stuff, heck if I know. doesn’t seem that pink or hardcore to meeeeeee
*Razor - Tortured Skull. A dude looking for a fight after a canceled metal show was asking me and my friend about all our favorite bands and he liked a lot of my choices, so asked if I’d heard of razor and he said “don’t lie to me, that pisses me off” and I said no and he said “well based on the other stuff you like you’re going to love them.” and bought us drinks. On the way out I heard him talking to some other poor saps about how he’s an environmentalist and the only real way to save the environment is to get rid of humans so he joined the army because that’s the only way you can legally kill people. Anyway he was right about Razor, they rule.
Realm - Rise/Cain Rose up (the first two songs here). Proggy thrash. I listened to this tape so many times on the way to highschool. I used the pencil method to rewind/fastforward because I didn’t want to waste battery. You could probably listen to this whole album if you wanted. In some ways the 3rd song has better riffs than the 2nd.
Reverend - play god. I just like that bit where he goes PLAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAY GAAAAAAWAAAAAAAAAAAAAD. If you wanna know where that is in the song it’s around 3:35 which is uhhhhhhhhh the end of the song. honk
Sacrament - testimony of sin. One of those christian thrash bands, but these dudes had some real darkness in there. shame about the barky vocals but there’s some neat riffs.
Seventh Angel - forbidden desires. more christian stuff, I haven’t listened to the lyrics in years, I hope they’re not abhorrent. This song is really smashy which I appreciate.
Squadron - Wings of Dreams. Power-leaning heavy metal. I can’t say it’s great or I super recommend it, but I am 90% sure you won’t have heard it.
Stone - Get Stoned. I love when a band tries some interesting chords and stuff. typical boring thrash gang vocals and stuff, but I like it anyway.
Tankard - acid death. I loved the lyrics on this stupid song as a kid, and the way they couldn’t pronounce the “th” sound in death. satan gives him the power to kill! I guess Tankard is quite popular in Europe these days.
Tension - reach for your sword. just some nerds making some nerd music. pretty cool. this is their only album.
Tortoise Corpse - Loony Toon. Sloppy as heck band from Wales that I think would be real fun live if watching them live were possible. They have a song called I fell in love (with my sister) so it’s that kind of band.
Toxik - Greed. Hot guitars! Hot drums! Once again the vocals are like… how’d you get in here buddy. I’ve heard worse though. thrash sucks lol
*Vio-Lence - serial killer. This band was super under the radar back in the day but everyone pretends to know them now lol. Early speed metal titans with ridiculous vocals. I unfortunately missed their reunion/tribute show because tickets sold out in 5 minutes AND then I had to go out of town. Dave White from Heathen said he might be able to get me in but I never made it anyway. Oops.
Viking - Burning from within. another one of these early “almost death metal” bands with crap hardcore vocals but interesting historically.
Virulence - blank stare. See to me this sounds more like crossover? I dunno what I’m talking about though. I guess this band was pre fu-manchu? or something.
Whiplash - insult to injury. this song would suck if you knew how the band used to sound, but luckily I didn’t, so I’m gonna let you listen to this one first.
*Whiplash - walk the plank. Now this is vintage Whiplash. Honestly it’s way better than the other song I shared, and also 90% of other thrash, but whatever.
Wehrmacht - jabberjaw. They swear they’re not nazis they just thought it was a cool word. Anyway this is one of the first pure speedmetal albums I owned, I got it for a quarter at the thrift store.
BLACK
Dawn - soil of dead earth. Maybe dawn is popular now I dunno. but this was the first real melodic death metal I heard.
Eikenskaden - laments waltz. stretch for those chord modulations gents!! bonus points for the album being named 665.999
Vilefuck - thrash and destroy. I guess this isn’t online anywhere!? Uhhhh well it’s pretty good black thrash and I was pretty sure these guys were gonna be famous but they sure are not. I found them on Myspace (lol) and bought their self-release CD. Here’s a different and not-quite-as-good song from that EP that IS on youtube.
Willow Wisp - attempting to communicate with the spirits. just some hollywood nonsense more or less, but I’m pretty sure you won’t have heard it.
OTHER
Diabolical Masquerade - all onboard the perdition hearze! goofy melodic stuff from blakkheim and dan swano.
Eniac Requiem - wyrm. a guitar having a wank.
*Hurricane - spark in my heart. my favorite hair metal ballad of ALL TIME as heard on the leatherface soundtrack.
Nightstick - united snakes. I guess this is closer to stoner rock, but it’s thrashier than most. Note: they’re so named because they hate the cops nt because they like them. The cover of this album has them all wearing pig snouts. Oh I guess that’s in the preview.
*Repulsion - Horrified. Criminally overlooked band, though I guess they got a resurgence some years back when they hit the california dates of At The Gates’ reunion tour. My buddy and I went to different shows (I saw one in San Diego I think, he saw the one in the bay area, I was out of town) and he was like… that dude on stage looks familiar… and it was his brother in law filling in on guitar last minute. That ruled.
*The Secret - Double Slaughter. This isn’t old but I felt like sharing it. Probably the best italian metal I’ve heard?
I feel like I’m walking into a minefield any time I try listen to metal or “neo folk.” Will be enjoying something and then oh shit, here come the nordic runes goddamnit
I’m sure most of you in this thread know about metal-archives, but just in case you haven’t seen it I’d like to point out empath. It has a section which can be somewhat useful for discovery by looking at the similarity index, and also collects “best releases by year” lists (based on reviews on metal-archives) to see if there are any notable releases one has overlooked
I don’t know if hardcore or heavy psych is ok for the thread bc I still am not a metal person despite trying to clockwork orange it a few times, but sharing in case any of these are decent
I kept thinking about this thread and how I needed to double check a name from a friend but for all those looking for alternatives to racist or vaguely racist black metal, I present to you explicitlyEDIT: Apparently they released a split on a NS label so fuck them. Not important who they are
Also funny story about this I think long defunct band that put out a really really fuckin heavy EP that I really admired when they I think were going to come through my shitty little hometown and then couldn't, but I heard their music online anyway and loved it:
I always figured that based on the sound of the name that someone in [BIIPIIGWAN](https://biipiigwan.bandcamp.com/album/nibaak-ep) must have been anishnaabe, because that name looks like a word in anishinaabemowin. Turns out not only was I correct about that but I had a mutual Facebook friend with the guy who probably named the band, who later went on to create an [educational series on youtube](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xCxvmE_4n2g) that was about immersion instruction of anishinaabemowin. So I was right sort of!
@rejj it’s honestly kind of a tricky thing, most of the most egregious dirtbags are easy to spot. usually just checkin’ their metal-archives page and seeing what labels they’ve released stuff with and what other bands they’ve been in is how i figure it out. eventually you just spot certain labels/imagery and know right away. certain countries have bigger sketch scenes than others, russia/ukraine/finland are sort of NS hotspots, i don’t know if it’s just like, the same 15-20 dirtbags just being really prolific or if it’s something bigger than that however.
@yeso very ok for this thread in my view. really nasty guitar sounds. i enjoyed weed and suburbanite in particular. would enjoy seeing many of these bands in a small basement room
some reminded me of this band, which happens to have very good artwork
