(ThyBlackMan.com) The “Big 4 of Thrash Metal” refers to four American band’s that had massive influence on thrash metal’s formation and popularity during the 80s. This influence also extends to American metal in general.
These four bands include Megadeth, Slayer, Anthrax, and the most known of the four, Metallica. There’s also a “Big 4 of Thrash Metal” for German bands that were crafting the subgenre around the same time. These bands include Kreator, Sodom, Destruction, and Tankard.
However, we’re going into the more familiar American group. Hopefully, this helps with recognizing bands, their lyrical content, sound, and albums to check out. From there, just seek out similar sounding bands if these catch your ear.
A Refresher On Thrash Metal
We’ve touched on thrash metal before in some of our rock and metal lists. Thrash is faster, aggressive subgenre that has its roots in speed metal and the New Wave of British Heavy Metal of the early 1980s. It basically takes speed metal, cranks it up faster, and adds a lot of edge to it. The immediate forefathers of thrash metal are bands like Motorhead, Venom, and Raven—all from the UK.
Most bands on this list formed in 1981 with Megadeth being the youngest, being formed in 1983. Around these four bands, you saw a number of other speed metal and thrash bands formed in that same time. In many cases, bands shared the same members with the chances of each band having a member who was in another notable thrash band being very high.
Metallica: Biggest of the Big 4 of Thrash Metal
Formed 1981 in Los Angeles, Metallica is headed up by vocalist and guitarist James Hetfield and drummer Lars Ulrich. With glam metal (or hair metal) bands setting up can in L.A during the 1980s, Metallica moved to San Francisco—which had its own metal scene that was more in line with the band’s sound.
Today, they play a mixture of heavy metal and thrash metal but in mid-1980s, Metallica played straight up thrash metal. They were the first to release an American thrash album and some consider Metallica to be the band that established the sound.
Personally, I believe it’s a case of staking your flag first. Of the bands, I’d say Metallica has one of those catalogs where you have to really listen to different albums. Throughout their career, the band has gone through different sounds. Lyrically, Metallica’s music was about metal, rebellion, and life early on before becoming more about life as the band matured.
They were thrash on their first few albums, a more heavy metal approach with the release of Metallica (the “black album”), aggressive hard rock throughout the 90s and into the 2000s, and back to heavy metal and thrash towards the end of the 2000s.
Recommended Albums: Kill ‘Em All*, Ride the Lightning*, Master of Puppets, …and Justice for All
Recommended Songs: Motorbreath*, Ride the Lightning, For Whom the Bell Tolls
Megadeth
Formed in 1983 following Dave Mustaine’s dismissal from Metallica. Mustaine was a guitarist who wrote quite a bit of the songs on the first two Metallica albums. Vocally, you can sometimes hear James Hetfield in Dave Mustaine—or vice versa—depending on the song. Mustaine will tell you himself he had a hand in forming two other bands on this list by teaching their musicians or being in the band itself.
Lyrically, Megadeth is about conspiracies, politics, religion, and life—not exactly in that order or evenly. Of the bands on this list, Megadeth is tightest musically. Part of this is down to a jazz influence in Mustaine’s playing that sets the pace for the band. The other part is that Mustaine was always a guitarist first and a singer second.
Recommended Albums: Peace Sells…but Who’s Buying?, Rust in Peace*, Countdown to Extinction*, Youthanasia
Recommended Songs: Hangar 18*, In My Darkest Hour, Dread and the Fugitive Mind, A Tout de Monde*
Slayer
Of the bands here, Slayer is probably the most notorious. I’ll also mark them down as the most aggressive and fastest of the four. Formed in 1981 with vocalist/bassist Tom Araya, drummer Dave Lombardo, and guitarists Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman, Slayer’s debut Show No Mercy leaned heavily towards speed metal than going full on thrash of the follow up.
It also came a few months after Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All. Slayer’s sound can best be described as fast and abrasive with lyrics about evil, violence, and hell. As the band matured, they explored war in their lyrics.
Basically, Slayer was a faster, American version of British band Venom which stood out with lyrics about evil and hell.
Recommended Albums: Show No Mercy*, Hell Awaits*, South of Heaven*,
Recommended Songs: Show No Mercy*, Hell Awaits, War Ensemble*
Anthrax
This is another 1981 band but it was formed in New York City. Its most recognizable member is guitarist Scott Ian. Like Slayer, Anthrax has speed metal roots. They started to form a thrash sound with the second album before eventually mixing thrash with hardcore punk or crossover thrash.
If you checked out Hirax from our review of their debut, Anthrax played similar music although not Hirax’s speeds.
Their lyrics touch on society, life, politics, and comedy. Of the bands listed, Anthrax has the toughest discography. The 1990s was hard on thrash metal and thrash in general stateside but the drop in quality—generally from experimenting with new musical directions—popped Anthrax hard. However, when they play their classic material, they still got it.
Recommended Albums: Fistful of Metal*, Spreading the Disease, Persistence of Time
Recommended Songs: Deathrider*, A.I.R, Lone Justice*
Staff Writer; M. Swift
This talented writer is also a podcast host, and comic book fan who loves all things old school. One may also find him on Twitter at; metalswift.
