Voivod

Vialka is a French avant-progressive band in the Rock in Opposition vein. Their music is a great mixture of genres and influences such as folk, rock, punk (in their musical "attitude", mostly) and Balkan music, notably. Formed in 2002, Vialka consists of Marylise Frecheville and Éric Boros…

A riddle wrapped in an enigma dressed up in leather and studs, Germany's Mekong Delta perplexed the heavy metal world both by playing an unconventional brand of progressive thrash and by keeping the identities of the bandmembers secret for the first five years of a career starting in 1987…

Together with their countrymen Kreator and Sodom, Germany's Destruction constituted the dominating triumvirate of Teutonic thrash metal during the 1980s. And even though they ultimately failed to match these peers in terms of commercial success and longevity, at least two of their albums still qualify among the crème de la crème of the decade's speed metal. Heavy metal underwent a worldwide revolution in the early '80s, when the lingering lessons from '70s giants like Black Sabbath and Judas Priest crashed head-on with the D.I.Y. ethos of punk rock and the sheer velocity of Motörhead to spawn the much ballyhooed New Wave of British Heavy Metal, which, in turn sparked a far more powerful and lasting bastard offspring: thrash metal. Of all the nations contaminated by this musical virus as it proliferated unchecked, Germany was second only to the U.S. in terms of widespread infection…

Possessed by Fire is the debut full-length studio release by German thrash metal band Exumer.
Released in November 1986, the album was reissued in 2001 with three bonus demo tracks and expanded packaging…

Inattentive consumers picking up this album because they confuse it as being by the testicularly challenged American glam rockers will be in for quite a surprise. This is the Canadian band named Slaughter, and their lone 1987 album, Strappado (named after a medieval torture tactic that had victims suspended by their hands, while these were tied behind their backs), contained improbably raw blackened thrash reminiscent of the earliest works of Voivod or, say, Sepultura…

2019 has been a great year for thrash metal fans, with a multitude of releases hitting the virtual and physical shelves recently: Death Angel, Overkill, Flotsam and Jetsam, Exumer, Xentrix, Possessed… the list goes on and on, and August 9th brings another entry on this exclusive group of such high caliber releases: Destruction’s upcoming record Born to Perish…