6 Anthrax
Among The Living (1987)
How many bangers can one
album contain? Here, Anthrax
serve up loads: Caught In A
Mosh, Indians, I Am The Law,
Efilnikufesin (N.F.L.), the title-
track... They’d all turn up
on your dream ‘Thrax set list. No surprise,
then, that Among The Living was a massive
breakthrough for the band, bringing them
mainstream success as it confirmed the New
Yorkers’ place in America’s thrash Big Four.5 Exodus
Bonded By Blood (1985)
Gylve ‘Fenriz’ Nagell,
drummer with Norwegian
black metal legends
Darkthrone, says that when
black metal’s illegal activities
made him feel under threat,
he would have Bonded By Blood on his
Walkman to “keep my blood up” in case
of attack. Good choice. Aggressive, even
by the Bay Area’s standards, it is a furious
statement of brutality. Former guitarist
Kirk Hammett may have wondered if he’d
made the right choice when he heard it...4 Metallica
Master Of Puppets (1986)
As if you need telling about
Master Of Puppets. A complex
labyrinth of riffs that somehow
remains cohesive; a record
breathtaking in scope and
intelligence that still arrives in
the form of a fist, ’Tallica’s final album before
the death of Cliff Burton was a game-changer.
From here on, everything would be different.7 Kreator
Pleasure To Kill (1986)
Pleasure To Kill is like thrash
being set on fire and then
thrown down the stairs. At
times, the frenzy of songs like
Riot Of Violence and Ripping
Corpse is almost exhausting.
In a good way. In frontman Mille Petrozza’s
whipping riffs and vocals that make
surprisingly good use of a teenaged German
accent, you can simply hear nuclear energy
exploding throughout the Essen quartet’s
second album. It is, indeed, a killer pleasure.KERRANG! 49Testament: ready to
head Into The Pit
photoS:getty, rex, gene ambo