There was a brief window in the early-mid 1980s, between the NWOBHM and thrash booms, when a slew of het-up young kids started picking up instruments with the primary mission to make heavy metal really fast. A mixtape of inciting inspirations might include Deep Purple’s Fireball, Speed King, Highway Star and Burn, Queen’s Stone Cold Crazy, Rainbow’s Kill The King, Motörhead’s Overkill, Judas Priest’s Exciter, Accept’s Fast As A Shark, and numerous NWOBHM neck-wreckers - especially by the rowdy likes of Raven, Jaguar and Venom.
In the early days - as on the mid-80s Speed Kills compilations - the ‘speed metal’ tag was often used interchangeably with thrash, power, death, HM and hardcore. But the subcategory remained a handy way to distinguish those musicians who retained the melodies, themes and clean vocals of trad metal while accelerating its pace and energy, from the more radical, rhythmic, hardcore-inflected intensity of pure thrash. Here are five albums that best explain the speed metal concept.
