GENRES DATABASE

A term applied to thrash metal produced predominately in the 1980s usually by independent bands and/or labels, and normally of low-fidelity/quality.

80s thrash metal is exactly like standard thrash metal as seen through all decades, including today, except it was predominantly produced for and/or by small independent record labels for sale to niche markets. The musical instrumentation, attire, lyric subjects and structure are exactly that of standard thrash metal, influenced heavily by the styles of Slayer, except often invoking more growling and shrieking vocals. Bass chords are often influenced by early death metal and black metal. Some bands lean toward death metal, while others toward black metal in either lyric subjects or instrumentation or both. Violence and the occult themes are very common (almost predominant). The quality of the recordings tends to be low, in most, but not all cases. It can be said that bands like Infernal Majesty were the "primordial soup" of bands that didn't quite make the conversion to death metal or black metal from thrash metal.

To collectors and cult fans it remains popular but is no longer largely produced, and the bands of this style are generally classed as 'thrash metal'. The term was never officially adopted in many circles but, today, the term is now obsolete.

80's thrash metal term was used by the RRCA (now Diskery) database until 2012 but has now been de-listed, and as bands are discovered still bearing this description they will be moved under the category of 'thrash metal'.

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