The story of the Proto-Speed/Thrash Metal - PART V

Hey brutal speedbangers,
finally this is the fifth and last part of this special focused on the history of the proto-speed/thrash metal, whose first episode was published even in August 2017! As you know, this fifth part is very connected with the fourth one because both are about the fastest metal albums released in 1983. But, when the 4th part was about the not Anglo-American bands (so to range from the Belgians Acid to the Swiss maniacs Hellhammer), this final part is about acts coming from places like Canada, England and USA. Obviously, within the US bands, you'll find also the thrash metal pioneers Metallica and Slayer.

Well, let's start with some stuff from NWOBHM by talking about "Power Games".
This is the debut album of the mighty Jaguar, that released it through the legendary Neat Records. "Power Games" is surely one of the most violent NWOBHM albums, and this thanks to a band that managed to combine the raging speed and rawness (also due to many punkish vibes) with a lot of imagination and unpredictability, in order to surprise the listeners even with an incredible basswork. This approach gave life to an album in which the speed metal songs (like the opener "Dutch Connection" or "Prisoner") are continuously alternated with slower numbers such as "Rawdeal" or "Ain't No Fantasy". A curious feature comes just from this last kind of songs, that shows a more dynamic structure full of tempo changes while the faster numbers are structurally static but intense, anyway.
After this massacre, it's incredible that Jaguar changed completely their sound with their ultra-melodic sophomore album "This Time" (Roadrunner Records), more fit for the AOR fans and not for the speed metal maniacs!

Back then, this British band named Satan had a moniker so threatening that they changed it many times throughout the '80s! But with that moniker, they released a memorable debut album through (obviously!) the usual Neat Records, and this isn't a case if you think that Satan came from the British speed metal city par excellence: Newcastle!
"Court in the Act" was really innovative since it shows a band able to write 10 songs that, on a side, are really complex, technical and full of tempo changes while, on the other side, are intense, aggressive enough and fast, especially in songs like "Trial by Fire", "Break Free" (that has seriously a breathtaking speed!) and half "The Ritual" (that, instead, is a beautiful instrumental). If all this wasn't enough, all this is enriched not only  by plenty of elaborate heavy metal melodies but also by the versatile performance of Brian Ross, already in the ranks of the muscular NWOBHM band Blitzkrieg (and, meantime, also in the speed metal heroes Avenger). The combination of these features resulted in a fabulous and timeless masterpiece very influential also within the future thrash metal kids.
No surprise if Satan are still able today to spew forth masterpieces created, incredibly, with the same line-up of those ole good days!

Another mentionable Neat Records' release is surely "Now Hear This", the debut album by Hellanbach, 4 raging guys that were located in the South Shields, near Newcastle.
"Now Hear This", even though it isn't so fast like "Power Games", is one of the most enjoyable albums of the NWOBHM movement during its last ears. This thanks to the fast, wild and out of control approach by Hellanbach, that reminds me a lot of Raven also for some totally crazy solutions, as perfectly exemplified by the ultra-funny closing song "Everybody Wants to be a Cat", that's nothing else than the theme of the Disney movie "The Aristocats"! And speaking about the fastest songs, then let bombard you at the maximum of speed with the famous "All Systems Go", "Motivated by Desire" and "Let's Get This Show on the Road".
And you have to think that this band was known ironically as Van Hallenbach because they were very influenced by Van Halen! Curiously, a 1976 demo by Van Halen had a song just called "Get the Show on the Road"! Pure coincidence?

Don't be fooled by the horrible cover artwork of this debut album by Hawaii!
I am saying this because, with the fast songs "Living in Sin", the titletrack, "Nitro Power" and "The Pit and the Pendulum", "One Nation Underground" (Shrapnel Records) show a band able to reach notable levels of speed and aggression along with the ability to give to the songs a dark and malicious atmosphere (especially in "The Pit and the Pendulum"). At the same time, all this is combined with enviable technical skills, neoclassical riffs and very very hysterical structures that, sometimes, can lead the listeners to a fukken headache! In addition, the songs contains unpredictable surprises like the waltz sequence of "Living in Sin"!
But do you know that the guitarplayer of Hawaii (that came seriously from Hawaii!) was nothing else than Marty Friedman, then destined to do big things with Megadeth?

Raw, fast, epic and a little bit punkish: this is the legendary "Heavy Metal Maniac" (Shrapnel Records), the first album by a band that took their moniker from "Exciter", one of the fastest songs ever written by Judas Priest, so I think that this Canadian trio could play only in that way!
In fact, the album is almost entirely fast but it's also contagiously anthemic in a typical heavy metal style, as shown perfectly with songs such as the same titletrack or the combative "Stand Up and Fight". The variety isn't a strong point of the album but the band is anyway good to offer some nice variations like the powerful mid-tempo of "Iron Dogs" and the 7-minute ballad "Black Witch", that's truly poetic. All this is completed by the vocal performance of the drummer Dan Beehler, that can spew forth some lacerating falsettos (like the banshee screams in the closing song "Cry of the Banshee"); and by a very dusty and dirty production, not the best one but effective.
In brief, "Heavy Metal Maniac", playing basically an anthemic heavy metal fastened a lot, represent the unadultered essence of the speed metal genre in its purest form!

So, we have finally arrived to talk about Slayer, one of the two US bands (both from the Bay Area) that revolutionized forever the destiny of the heavy metal music.
As all you know, "Show No Mercy" (Metal Blade Records) is their debut album, and it show not only heavy doses of manic speed but also a rare ferocity, thanks to a strong wickedness determined, for example, by the Satanic lyrics, the ripping guitar solos of the duo Hanneman/King, and the luciferine vocals of Tom Araya. For me, the best example of all this is the sulfurous "Black Magic", surely the most violent song of the entire album and already very close to the more violent style of the band's future albums. But, to say the truth, "Show No Mercy" is also an album in which the songs are well-structured and articulated while the heavy metal influences are still present not only musically but even in terms of epic atmosphere (as in the instrumental "Metal Storm").
So, we can't still cannot talk of pure thrash metal but it's not far off!

Influenced a lot by metal bands like Motӧrhead and Diamond Head as well by HC punk acts such as Black Flag and Misfits, this pissed young quartet named Metallica created with "Kill 'Em All" (Megaforce Records) a kind of metal able to be very scrapping, violent and fast but also, in some ways, technical just because of songs lasting often 6 minutes or something more. Plus, we're talking about a metal made of sharp guitars, wild guitar solos played at the speed of light, fast drums that spew forth unpredictable tempo changes, an obsessive bass guitar, and aggressive vocals that can be also hysterical due to ferocious screams. And what are the faster songs of "Kill 'Em All"? Well, they are "Hit the Lights", "Motorbreath" (nomen omen), "Whiplash" (the wildest in the list!), "Phantom Lord" and "Metal Militia".
Now try to imagine how much "Kill 'Em All" could be revolutionary at that time. Okay, as you've seen, many fast albums were released in 1983 but none of them, except for "Show No Mercy" by Slayer, had a so violent and aggressive feeling like "Kill 'Em All" by Metallica. And at this point, thanks to their example, nothing was the same anymore: so, the thrash metal genre dominated the entire world for the rest of the '80s, the crossover was born in order to offer also gigs in which HC punk and thrash metal bands shared peacefully the stages, and the metalheads finally learned to mosh!

So ends this long special about the proto-speed/thrash metal. I hope that you followed this story from start to finish but, anyway, I invite you to read also the second part, the third one and the fourth one.
Now, I am wondering if I'll publish other similar metal stories in the future days to come but in the hope to not finish them after many many months as in this case. So, at this point...

...WHAT'S NEXT?