The noise might have been building since the early 80s, but 1986 was the year thrash metal broke – bursting like a zit on a teenage metalhead’s bumfluffed chin. Slayer, Megadeth and Metallica all released landmark albums, with the latter swapping fleapit rock clubs for a string of arena dates supporting Ozzy Osbourne. But while these California acts would alter the course of rock music for ever, a clutch of like-minded teenagers were carving their own path 5,500 miles away from the genre’s epicentre.
What Kreator, Sodom, Destruction and Tankard – the “big four” of German thrash metal – might have lacked in finesse and professional outlook, they made up for in sheer unbridled aggression. Faster and meaner than most of their American peers, these bands helped to set a new benchmark for brutality while unwittingly influencing the next generation of death- and black-metal musicians.
