Thrash metal is the point at which heavy metal stopped being about power and started being about velocity. The mechanics, the three parents, the four scenes, the ten records, where the borders with death and black metal actually run, and a thirty second test.
By Declan Rourke
20 September · 11 min read
Portraits
He joined Exodus at seventeen, inherited the writing when Kirk Hammett left for Metallica, and has played on every record the band ever made. Then he spent eight years holding Jeff Hanneman'...
By Declan Rourke
Essential Albums
Black metal vinyl is read like an ice core: the thin first pressings at the bottom, the represses and coloured variants drifted over them. The yellow goat of 1984, Moonfog's first catalogue...
By Eirik Solvang
Explainers
Most of the lettering on doom metal sleeves was bought from a catalogue rather than drawn, from Victorian display capitals to phototype faces and a digital blackletter. We follow the typefac...
By Ilse Brandt
Eirik Solvang
Black Metal
The Black Metal Records Collectors Chase
Andrzej Sawicki
Blackened Death
Viking, Folk and Everything Else Death Metal Absorbed
Rafael Quintero
Death Metal
Why Death Metal Became So Extreme
Gareth Llewellyn
Grindcore
The Underrated Sludge Metal Albums
Ilse Brandt
Doom Metal
The Doom Metal Fonts
Declan Rourke
Heavy Metal
What Thrash Metal Actually Is: Sound, Speed and Style
| Date | Band | Album | Type |
|---|---|---|---|
| 21 Sep 2026 | Pale Reflection | Fading Daylight | Full-length |
| 23 Sep 2026 | Hail Conjurer | Abyss & Ekstasis | Full-length |
| 23 Sep 2026 | Violet Eternal | Azure Stardust | Full-length |
| 23 Sep 2026 | Bassaium | Wrapped in Death | Full-length |
| 23 Sep 2026 | Chosen Undead | Cinder of a Fading Dream | Full-length |
| 24 Sep 2026 | Slaughtercult | Devoured by Perversion | Full-length |
| 25 Sep 2026 | Lacrimas Profundere | Lay Me Down O Silent Fear | Full-length |
| 25 Sep 2026 | Crown Magnetar | The Hollowing of Godflesh | Full-length |
| 25 Sep 2026 | Metalite | Discovery | Full-length |
