Bay Area thrash, from the outside in. Each step is a genre and the single record this encyclopedia would put on first. Play them in this order and the last one should sound like a next step rather than a wall.
- 1 The way in
Heavy metal 1970
It split off from hard rock and blues rock when Black Sabbath tuned down and wrote riffs on the tritone. Volume, riff and a code of its own - every branch below starts here.
Sung. Melodic singing throughout.
Put on
Black Sabbath - the song Black Sabbath. The first thirty seconds are the genre's birth certificate.
Black Sabbath, Black Sabbath (1970) - 2 Then
Thrash metal 1983
NWOBHM plus hardcore punk: palm-muted riffs, brutal tempos and lyrics about war and society. The first truly extreme branch.
Shouted. Barked or chanted, and you can still make out the words.
Put on
Slayer - Reign in Blood. Twenty-nine minutes that redefined the word extreme.
Slayer, Reign in Blood (1986) - 3 What you asked about
Bay Area thrash 1983
The original epicentre: technical riffing, clearer production and a little more melody.
Shouted. Barked or chanted, and you can still make out the words.
Put on
Exodus - Bonded by Blood. Recorded in 1984, released late, and it held up anyway.
Exodus, Bonded by Blood (1985) - 4 Where to go next
Symphonic black metal 1994
Keyboards and choirs over black metal structures. Grand, theatrical and by far the most saleable of the subgenres.
Growled or shrieked. Unintelligible without a lyric sheet. The thing most newcomers bounce off.
Put on
Emperor - In the Nightside Eclipse. Recorded by teenagers, and it sounds monumental.
Emperor, In the Nightside Eclipse (1994)
Assembled from the tree: every genre Bay Area thrash descends from, in order. Bay Area thrash has no subgenres, so the last step is the genre that rates closest to it by sound.