Underrated Thrash Metal Albums Pt. 1 of 2

I started last week with death metal. This week I will be looking at ten thrash metal albums. Thrash metal is my favorite genre, but this was hard to do. I had a tough time with the meaning of underrated on this genre, so I went with overlooked bands, groups not in the major scenes, or if they were, groups that have not received as much attention. I strongly considered Morbid Saint for this post, but I have covered them quite a bit in the past and that album is getting quite a bit of recognition now.

I also had a problem limiting it to ten, but here we go:

DEVASTATION: IDOLATRY
Brutal thrash metal is not a sub-genre that gets thrown around often. But if any band, and there will be several in these two posts, show more of what brutal thrash can do, it's this one. Devastation was completely overlooked in the late 1980's/early 1990's and that is a major shame. Along with Sadus, Morbid Saint, and Demolition Hammer, Devastation played a major part in bringing brutality to thrash metal in the U.S.

SLAUGHTER LORD: THRASH 'TIL DEATH '86-'87
This is not technically an album, but rather a collection of demos. The reason for that being that Slaughter Lord never released a full-length album. The Australian thrash metal band can be looked at as a major influence on the Australian war metal scene, along with Hobbs' Angel of Death, headed by Destroyer 666. Their thrash was razor-sharp and brutal. The band was even covered by At the Gates on some bonus tracks for their Slaughter of the Soul album. Yet, very few people have actually heard this band. Strange.

RAZOR: VIOLENT RESTITUTION
I have talked this album up a little bit in recent weeks and it fully deserves it. Even for a Canadian thrash metal band, Razor is overlooked. And that is a major shame because they were every bit as good and powerful as any of the Bay Area bands. Providing tons of catchy riffs and infectious songs, Razor had a long run of great albums. This is my personal favorite by the band. Razor really should be a better-known band.

INTRUDER: PSYCHO SAVANT
This technical progressive thrash metal band recorded an absolutely fantastic album. Easily the equal of luminaries such as Heathen and Anacrusis. However it came out at the wrong time. It was released after Metallica's black album and thrash was becoming a bad word. Poor timing. If it had been released a few years earlier, this band could have been legendary. As it is, this is a fantastic example of the style of thrash metal.

DEMOLITION HAMMER: EPIDEMIC OF VIOLENCE
I name-dropped them earlier and here they are. Either of the band's first two albums could have been considered, but I chose this one because it was more apparent that the band knew what they were doing. Demolition Hammer is extremely heavy and brutal thrash metal. It comes close to death metal, without straying over the line. It is however, fast and brutal. It's rare for thrash to achieve this type of brutality.

Blind Buy Surprise Albums Pt. 15: Intruder: Psycho Savant

I have covered this album before, quite in depth. Essentially, this is a thrash metal band from the late 1980's and early 1990's when thrash was on the downswing of a spectacular period of activity. The band sounds like a cross between underrated Bay Area bands Death Angel and Heathen. They are a technical thrash metal band with a vocalist with a higher register vocal range. There are some great, cathcy songs on this album, but I have already covered that before.

What I want to talk about is how I came across this album. There is a shop here in Norfolk that is something of a novelty shop. They sell a bunch of random stuff and there is a tattoo parlor inside as well. They also have two walls of music, including CDs and cassettes. I don't think that the store gets new music in. It seems more likely that it somehow inherited this collection of music at one point and is still trying to rid itself of it.

I found the Intruder cassette in this store. Immediately upon looking at the cover, I could tell that this was a metal album. I picked it up without knowing anything about the band, I just knew the cover looked great. Am I ever glad I did that. This is a highly underrated thrash metal band from the genre's glory days. It's fun making discoveries like this.

Dusting Off a Cassette Pt. 28: Intruder: Psycho Savant

One of the problems with a genre exploding in popularity is that a shitload of bands start playing that genre and suddenly record stores are swamped with bands of varying levels of quality. It becomes difficult to separate the good bands from those who really did not deserve any sort of recognition whatsoever. Such was the case with thrash in the late 80's/early 90's (and is beginning to happen again now). Still though, some gems get kind of lost in the shuffle.

Which all brings us to Intruder's Psycho Savant. This is actually an exceptional album and a completely hidden gem. I had never heard of the band until a few weeks ago when I was at the local excuse for a record store whose only redeeming value is the wall of cassettes in the back. I saw this tape in the bargain bin for $3.00 and decided to pick it up, guessing as to its metal classification only by the cover art.

As it turns out, this is a great album that came out right before grunge "killed" the metal scene and is thus an afterthought album. At a time when many of the bigger metal bands like Metallica were softening their sound, this album stands out as a last ditch effort to retain the glory days of early 1980's thrash. Sounding like a progressive-tinged mashup of Exodus, Anthrax, and Testament, Intruder clearly had technical chops, savvy songwriting ability, and infectious riffs. If only this album had come out a few years earlier, Intruder could have been a much bigger name than they are.