Stuff:
-Slayer's first four records, since this last week had The International Day of Slayer. Absolutely stunning records, all of them and just about the pinnacle of
Thrash Metal, if not all of metal as a genre.
Hell Awaits is my favourite, but everything is gold.
-Celtic Frost's
Morbid Tales: I count CF as black/thrash, though admittedly they influenced so much in
Extreme metal's sphere that it's hard to accurately quantify what exactly they were.
Anyway,
Morbid Tales was where Tom G.
Warrior and Martin Ain transistioned from the sloppy, primal
Assault that was
Hellhammer towards a more grandiose,
Austere feel. The best thing about
Celtic Frost is that despite the relative simplicity of their style, they are capable of conjuring such a dark, foreboding atmosphere that truly sounds like nobody else. (despite the fact that the formula this band present was ruthlessly copied
Ever Since) The riffwork is brilliant, with a deeply powerful and weighty feel to how they're written, with some pretty damn solid drumming to back them up. Tom G. Warrior's vocals are as gravelly and powerful as you'd expect.
I don't love
Celtic Frost as much as I do
Hellhammer - a band I pretty much consider to be one of THE canonical examples of metal, period - but there's no doubt about the quality of this EP and
To Mega Therion. Excellent, timeless
Extreme metal from when it was starting to take form.
-Sodom -
Obssessed By Cruelty: Before they became the
Thrash Metal institute we know (and mostly love) today,
Sodom were some of the most frantic and ferocious black/thrash metal of their era. This record, in particular, tends to get forgotten in the grand scheme of Sodom's career, which makes the influence it has exerted on later
Extreme metal (see:
Order From Chaos and some of the norse
Black Metal bands) all the more surprising.
The biggest thing right off the bat is the production job. There's two versions of the record: the original version which was licensed for the US by Metal Blade, and the re-recorded version, which was only ever release on vinyl in Europe. I've heard both but i'm focusing on the original here, which boasts one of the most lopsided mixes i've ever heard in music. The drums completely dominate the mix, with a really fucking loud yet hollow tone to the snare, and Angelripper and the guitars are left to compete for whatever attention is left. It's hard to get into for that reason. The songwriting overall though is pretty damn good;
Sodom clearly became more
Adept writers between
In the Sign of Evil and this record. The riffwork is sloppy, yet well written and highly memorable, with more of a
Venom flavour than later records. Angelripper's vocals are deeper and more powerful here than on the first EP; he found his signature style here and it works out well. Witchhunter is also
Far better and he'd better be, being the loudest goddamn thing in the mic here.
This is filled with some of Sodom's most underrated songs, like "Deathlike Silence", the title track, "Equinox", and "Pretenders to the Throne". They're not as tight as later
Sodom, but they display some great riffs, ferocious performances, and a really dark sense of atmosphere that
Sodom never quite attained ever again. (though
Expurse of Sodomy had it here and there) Well worth looking into, though it's easily the most flawed of Sodom's early albums.
