Wikipedia
The genre features fast tempos, low-register, quick, complex guitar riffs, and high-register guitar solos. Palm muting and staccato are used in these tightly controlled riffs to create a "chugging" sound. Thrash guitar solos are almost exclusively played at high speed, as they are usually characterised by shredding, and use techniques such as sweep picking, legato phrasing, alternate picking, string skipping, and two-hand tapping. Thrash lead guitarists are rooted in the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement, but with more influence from progressive rock and speed metal. As with many other metal subgenres, thrash lead guitarists are often influenced by outside musical genres too, such as jazz fusion (Ex-Megadeth guitarist Chris Poland) and classical music, such as Marty Friedman and Alex Skolnick, have lead styles that could be grouped in the neoclassical shred genre.
The speed and pacing of the songs is what defines thrash metal. The music tends to have a visceral, propellant feel to it due to the often intense drumming, most commonly utilizing the snare drum on the 1/2 beat, or the 2nd and 4th beats of the measure. Frantic bass drum use is also common. Thrash drummers often use two bass drums. Many thrash drummers, such as Dave Lombardo, Jürgen Reil, Gene Hoglan, Igor Cavalera, and Charlie Benante are revered as some of the best drummers in rock music due to their ability with the double-bass as well as adequately keeping time. Due to the genre's high speed, many thrash bassists use a pick to keep up with the other instruments. However, a few prominent bassists in the subgenre including Carl Peterson, Frank Bello, Greg Christian, Robert Trujillo, and the late Cliff Burton have shunned the use of the pick. Distorted bass (popularized by Burton and Lemmy) is not uncommon.
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The speed and pacing of the songs is what defines thrash metal. The music tends to have a visceral, propellant feel to it due to the often intense drumming, most commonly utilizing the snare drum on the 1/2 beat, or the 2nd and 4th beats of the measure. Frantic bass drum use is also common. Thrash drummers often use two bass drums. Many thrash drummers, such as Dave Lombardo, Jürgen Reil, Gene Hoglan, Igor Cavalera, and Charlie Benante are revered as some of the best drummers in rock music due to their ability with the double-bass as well as adequately keeping time. Due to the genre's high speed, many thrash bassists use a pick to keep up with the other instruments. However, a few prominent bassists in the subgenre including Carl Peterson, Frank Bello, Greg Christian, Robert Trujillo, and the late Cliff Burton have shunned the use of the pick. Distorted bass (popularized by Burton and Lemmy) is not uncommon.
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But let's skip to the important part: the recommendations.
The obvious choices for beginners would be the group known as the Big Four of thrash metal:
Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and Anthrax.
My recommendations for these bands would be the following:
Metallica - Ride The Lightning
Megadeth - Rust In Peace
Slayer - Hell Awaits
Anthrax - Among The Living
These are good starting albums. Still interested in thrash? Then I would suggest you go onto the next most recognizable names in thrash metal, the big 3 German Thrash bands:
Destruction, Kreator, and Sodom.
My reccommendations would be:
Destruction - Infernal Overkill
Kreator - Pleasure To Kill
Sodom - Agent Orange
Beyond that, I really don't know what to recommend that would apply to everyone. Before you start digging deeper, though, I would suggest listening to these seven albums and deciding on the styles you enjoy, and then asking for recommendations here.
