Of all the sub-genres of metal thrash was the most influential. It opened the door for bands to play louder, harder and faster thus spawning Death metal, black metal, grind core etc.. yeah doom stayed on it's own path. The bands that came out of it are now considered the biggest bands in metal...I mean Metallica and Slayer, come one end of debate. Normally I try to limit it to one album per artist. There are some artists that had much more of an impact so they might get another entry or two. There is thrash ranging from proto-death metal to hard core to power metal bands that evolved with the times. I grew up during the rise of thrash and listened to it through out highschool so some of this is determined by which albums did I listen to the most as they came out and which have endured the test of time. Lets face it none of your Toxic Holocausts or Revocations can touch these bands. They are pretty much tribute bands in comparison.
50- Atrophy- "Violent By Nature" 1990
The 2nd album from this Arizonia band found them dialing their song writing in to combine aggression and hooks.
49- Helstar- "A Distant Thunder"
Before power metal was really thought of as power metal, there were melodic speed metal bands giving a harder take on what Queensryche once did. This Texas band did it better than most of their
peers.
48Tankard - "The Morning After" 1988
This is not the only German band on the list. However where most German thrashers has a very militant dark nature to their chug, these guys wrote songs about getting wasted and had more of a punk party attitude.
47-Meliah Rage - "Solitary Solitude" 1990
This Boston band, might have been heavier on their 1988 album "Kill to Survive" ,this album has the edge due to the songwriting being better.,
46- DRI- "4 of a Kind" 1988
Yeah, the first two albums are great. The joke is what do you call a punk band that learns how to play their instruments...metal ! They were never shabby , but this album found them maturing into more of a metal band with the hard core punk side dialed back. There were never shabby just perfected the formula here.
45-Forced Entry -"As Above , So Below" 1991
Being a thrash band in Seattle in 91 was going against the grain. They evolved into something different than the rest here with songs like "Bone Crackin' Fever".
44 Laaz Rockit- "Annihilation Principle"- 1989
The 4th album from this Oakland band found them evoling from a more classic power metal sound into a tighter thrashy sound. The vocals are given a great deal of focus and not an after thought.
43-Kreator- 'Extreme Aggression" 1989
This German band's "Pleasure to Kill" album is highly regarded, but here is where their song writing falls into place, but not forsaking any of the snarl. They were alsos a hug influence on death metal bands to come.
42-Onslaught -" In Search of Sanity"
1989 Steve Grimmett from Grim Reaper sings on this album and it still stays more thrash than power metal, while Steve has never sounded better.
41-Wrathchild America - "Climbin' the Walls" 1989
This West Virgina band might get mistaken for being Metallica wanna bes until you really listen to them and hear how much rock n roll they inject into their take on thrash. They are not afraid to cover Pink Floyd and Drummer Shannon Larkin went onto play in Godsmack.
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