Welcome to, what will hopefully be the first in a series of "must have" heavy metal releases, as recommended by the current (2006) HailMetal.com staff and contributors. This, I guess, is intended to be a guide as to what we collectively consider to be albums that have brought something to the table in the way of heavy metal releases, furthering the respective genre through innovation, brilliance, conviction and sometimes just brilliant music. We are segregating the lists by sub-genre (only the main ones, so there is no argument about whether the list was necessary in that respect) and for each fan of that respective genre, you should consider each album on the list an essential piece of heavy metal history. For those of you unfamiliar with a genre, or band, it will also hopefully help provide you a starting point on what to be looking for in a release. Anyway, without further adieu, I'll get cracking on the detail.

The first sub-genre off the rank is none other than THRASH. HailMetal.com staff decided on this genre first, because we felt we could get the most definitive list from it due to the fact that all of us are into the genre in one way or another. The main contributors for this were militia, oli, Damien-X, Bird, Lukelord, Decadent and myself (byrne), although there were some mild bits of inputs here and there from others. The list began as an idea probably at the start of '06, just after we had finished our "Top 25 albums of 2005" list. Everyone was pretty keen for the idea to get going, but as you will note from my brief discussion below, it was quite a time consuming process. Once it had been decided that the site needed some firm in-house recommendations for users to perouse through, we confirmed the genre we would start with and that's when the structure and composition of the list began.

The first step was originally designed as being one where we would gather potential contenders for a top 10 or 15. As the list grew in the admin forums (not without me reminding the guys that we "probably only needed 20 recommendations or so"), Goran (militia) realised that we couldn't really limit or decide on only 20, so it was extended to 50. From there, we collated everyone's recommendations for their favourite thrash albums. Several emails and weeks later, we finally developed a complete list of potential albums which were likely to make the top 50. We ended up being content with somewhere around 90 - 100 albums. In the meantime, I had been maintaining a highly technical (yeah, right) ratings list. Every album had to be rated by people in one way or another. Staff either gave the album a score out of 100, or rated it zero if they hadn't heard it sufficiently to comment. Now, in case you are thinking people would rate on uneven scales, it didn't matter - based on the assumption I made (which I hope is reasonable) that people rated their albums consistently.

There were also checks in place to ensure that the list was free of bias and so forth. So after the list had been decided based on average marks, there was somewhat of a sensitivity analysis on what it looked like. Sure enough, it wasn't in its best shape. Thus the second limitation - due to averaging, the list began to look somewhat "samey". By that I mean, on average, our tastes reflected the same bands over and over. We literally had blocks of Slayer, Metallica, Megadeth, Kreator (etc) albums. So a little bit of rework went on, to make it more reflective of who the best thrashers actually are.

Throw in a touch of web design, a little bit of commentary (hopefully you don't think this is too long winded, but fuck, you don't HAVE to read it) and hey presto, you have your top 50 thrash til death albums list.

One further point, the list is just based on what we considered as thrash. I am well aware that there is probably room for genre crossover for some of the bands on our list. There are possibly other bands you think are worthy of making a "thrash" list we haven't otherwised mentioned. But we had to draw the line somewhere! You get to the point where you go "if we consider To Mega Therion thrash, then why not Unchain the Wolves"? Not that I am suggesting they sound similar .... but you get the point. For simplicity such albums were left outside the list. So the albums you see are albums which adhere to the more traditional definition of the genre, ignoring things like anus.com's definitions of "thrash" and "speed" metal.

The List

The list was fucking hard to put together. People had different views on what is considered "thrash", people had wildly conflicting tastes, some people hadn't heard what others considered to be essential listening. Getting everyone thinking on the same page was a nightmare. But overall, if you look at the result, I think we did pretty well. Sure some people will be disappointed with where their favourite albums rated (or in some cases didn't rate), but that's life. Just so you get a bit of a feel with what happened with some of those albums - Exodus - Bonded By Blood was one which had some quite heated discussion. It rated fairly well, but it essentially ended up where it was due to the law of averages. Some people think its the greatest, some think it is the most overrated. Another point of discussion was Metallica - Master of Puppets. Typically rivalling Reign in Blood for the greatest thrash album of all time, it didn't fare so well on HailMetal.com's list. We had a think about shifting it around, but the end result was there was no justification for it. And so it went on, until you get what you currently see.

Other notable absences included things such as, Sabbat - A History of Time to Come, Nuclear Assault - Game Over, Onslaught - The Force, Kreator - Endless Pain, Sepultura - Schizophrenia, Annihilated - The Ultimate Desecration and Morbid Saint - Spectrum of Death. It would have been nice if these "classics" could have also made it, but not everyone is going to be a winner.

Lastly, some overall commentary on the list. As mentioned earlier, we are pretty happy overall with what we have come up with. The typical favourites are there (despite some not ranking AS WELL as you might expect), there is some different stuff on the list and a good mix of mainly old, but some new stuff too.

Kreator was the favourite by a considerable way and from the very get-go, looked to be the firm #1 favourite. Following Kreator, I would say you probably aren't all that surprised with the names that feature in the top 15. Slayer, Megadeth, Metallica, Sodom, Testament, Exodus etc. However, it is the albums that I would expect throw somewhat of a spanner in the works. Ride the Lightning over Master of Puppets, Show No Mercy pipping Hell Awaits and Reign In Blood. I think this really illustrated our coverage of the genre - comprehensive and individual. The message to the public - forget what the fucking magazines tell you. They force feed you the crap they know you want to hear. Go out and try things with more of an open mind. For example, the biggest shock from my perspective was Coroner. I think we found somewhat of a Coroner haven here at HailMetal.com. Everyone loved both Punishment for Decadence and RIP - but we just couldnt justify Coroner rating two albums in the top 10.

Anyway, there is only so much I need / can say without just getting annoying. So I'll let you interpret the rest as you please. Enjoy!

Byrne
HM Administrator