sarcófago - rotting (1989)

RIYL: Obituary, Possessed, Bulldozer

Brazil's Sarcófago are best known for being Brazil's first great metal band, and are frequently given credit for being the originators of the modern style of corpse paint. Their first album, INRI, is a fantastic (if comparatively straight-forward) thrash album, but I prefer their second album, Rotting. On this album, Sarcófago stretch their sound out- remember when I was talking about Bulldozer and metal bands that exist in between thrash, death and black metal? This album is firmly in that camp. What makes this album stand out however is the attention to songwriting beyond just all-out thrashing; Metallica would be a could comparison if Metallica were 1,000 times more pissed off and evil. "Alcoholic Coma" starts off as a raging speed metal song, but halfway through it slows down to sinister death metal riffage, before picking up again. The longer song lengths reflect the fact that Sarcófago are attempting something more progressive than their earlier work, but they still fit in a shorter full-speed thrash track in the form of "Sex, Drinks and Metal", which brings some life to the tail end of the album after some longer cuts. The fact that the album is only six tracks (one of which is the intro) and barely over half an hour long makes this feel like a glorified EP, but the band definitely manage to create something unique on this album.

bulldozer - the day of wrath (1985)

RIYL: Venom, Possessed
The Day Of Wrath by Italian band Bulldozer is an album between genres, created at a time when thrash bands were pushing the limits of evil and heaviness, and the genres of death and black metal were only beginning to take shape.  "Whiskey Time", from this album, is featured on Fenriz Presents... The Best of Old School Black Metal, so it's certainly fair game to call this proto-black metal a la Venom.  But that might not really give you an accurate idea of what it sounds like: dark and filthy thrash, with some NWOBHM elements.  What really stands out about this album is the strange guitar playing- although the songs are structured in a fairly conventional way, the guitar frequently sounds weird.  Not so strange that it is the focus of the music, but strange enough that you'll sometimes be struck by how, for example, it sounds like alarm klaxons going off at three minutes into "Welcome Death".  But apart from the sometimes odd guitar sound and the fact that (for 1985) this is a pretty evil sounding record, much of the music isn't very striking.  The album is back-loaded, hitting its stride mid-way through.  There are a few standouts on this album though ("Mad Man", "Whiskey Time" and "Welcome Death" are my favorites), and its peculiarities (not to mention that excellent cover art) are enough to make this of interest to anyone who likes metal from the era that gave birth to black metal.

hayaino daisuki - invincible gate mind of the infernal fire hell, or, did you mean hawaii daisuki? (2010)

As evidenced by the title of this EP, Hayaino Daisuki have a pretty light-hearted approach to their music.  They celebrate the energy, fun, and above all SPEED of heavy metal.  They are not, as their name might reasonably lead you to conclude, Japanese.  Nor are they (as you might believe after seeing their press photos) a group of tattooed female rockers.  They are, in reality, four dudes from New Jersey, one of whom is the former vocalist for revered grindcore band Discordance Axis.  Although this has the speed and intensity of grindcore, it lacks the aggression and hostility of the genre, instead indulging in melodic and heart-pounding guitar leads.   Every one of the four songs on this EP is a testament to the maximum limits of intensity: the fastest speed, the loudest volume, the hue and saturation turned all the way up.  Every moment is the most epic moment of all time, until the next the next moment, of course.  It's almost too much to take, with no chance to stop or catch your breath- but then that's why Hayaino Daisuki only put out EPs.  A full length album of this would probably give you a heart attack, but this EP is as short as it is explosive.  In my view it's been a fairly disappointing year for heavy metal, but this gets my fists pumping every time I put it on.

dead horse - horsecore: an unrelated story that's time consuming (1989)

RIYL: Death, Atheist, Country Teasers

In 1989, thrash and death metal bands like Atheist, Death and Pestilence were still figuring out how to incorporate jazz rhythms and intense technicality into what would become progressive death metal; in Houston, far from the national hotbeds of thrash and death, Dead Horse recorded an album that was wildly ahead of its time.  Although certainly less well known than the aforementioned bands, Horsecore: An Unrelated Story That's Time Consuming demonstrates that (at least, in '89) Dead Horse were every bit their equals.  Sure, there is the intense riffing and frantic drumming you'd expect on a thrash album, but this album displays more of an interest in complex songwriting and unusual musical styles than many other thrash albums.  The lyrics, too, are interesting, often in a socially conscious vein: on the country-thrashing "Hank", singer Michael Haaga (sounding a bit like a cross between John Darnielle and Steve Albini) sneeringly describes the type of "family man, down right American" he loathes.  "Mindless Zombies" decries the children of Nazis.  "Bewah" deals with.... wait, I think that song is about beer, actually.  Finally, this album is not just technically complex and boldly adventurous in structure, it's also surprisingly well recorded- everything on it sounds crisp and clear.  Frankly, nothing has come close to sounding like this album since its release, and if it had come out today, it would still be considered ground-breaking.

pestilence - testimony of the ancients (1991)

I went on a technical death metal kick a couple of years back, and this was one of my favorite albums thats I discovered. This was the third album from Pestilence, a Dutch band that started out thrash and then progressed to tech death. By this album, the band had already replaced a couple of early members and needed a bassist, so they got Tony Choy (who at the time was in Cynic, and later was in Atheist). Death metal was sort of the last type of metal I came to enjoy, mostly because I was familiar with more modern brutal death metal types, bigger names like Cannibal Corpse, and I wasn't too into it. I found death metal to be too abrasive, too compressed, and too same-y. So it took me awhile to discover that I actually really enjoy early death metal, which still has a lot of thrash in its DNA (later I would discover that I even enjoy more modern and harsh death metal). Early death metal sounds dirty and nasty, like there is a layer of mud covering the amps and phlegm coating the vocalist's throat. I like to think about the transition from thrash, which was a little more fun-loving and party-ready, to death metal, thrash's dirtbag cousin. Anyway, this is still in the early era of death, but at a time when death metal musicians were getting more into pushing the limits of their musicianship and adding synths. Basically, it was the prog era of death. And Pestilence are one of the finest examples of this sound, along with Death, Atheist, and Cynic. Apparently, Pestilence went more jazz-fusion on their next album, which I have yet to hear (this doesn't surprise me, as that seems to be a common progression: thrash-> death -> prog/tech death -> jazz-fusion death). One of the more interesting things about this album is how it is sequenced; between every raw and thrashy metal song is a short ambient track. Personally I like this a lot, it makes the album stand out more than some of its contemporaries. I've even made a playlist of just the ambient interludes, which makes for an interesting listening experience.

Pestilence - Testimony
Pestilence - Soulless