Defining the genres pt. I: Speed Metal

The Erlking · Post by **The Erlking** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 11:01 am

EzyMeat wrote:
DaN wrote:Yes. Lesbian teens is such a turn-off
I advocate the killing of all homosexuals, fags and lesbians, hot or not. If I hated fags alone, I'd be some kind of biggot.

WTF

nabel · Post by **nabel** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 11:30 am

"Les Enfants de l'Ombre" for me is the melodic speed metal song. Also top-5 album openers ever. Second thing coming to my mind when talking or asked about speed metal is of course AGENT STEEL and chorus of their self-titled track.

(And sometimes when the feeling is right the best speed metal track is Motormount and the speed metal band is of course Anvil.)

The Erlking · Post by **The Erlking** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 11:36 am

There's speed metal like motörhead's overkill and there's speed metal like judas priest's exciter. Some speed metal is thrashy/venom-like and some closer to power metal. And then there's the very traditional middle ground speed metal!

Ernest Thesiger · Post by **Ernest Thesiger** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 12:33 pm

The Erlking wrote:WTF :!:

http://www.thecorroseum.com/phpbb2/view ... light=#636

EzyMeat wrote:Heh I got banned from m-a a long time ago too. I just harassed everyone anyway.

Figures.

Black Axe · Post by **Black Axe** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 12:37 pm

The Erlking wrote:There's speed metal like motörhead's overkill and there's speed metal like judas priest's exciter. Some speed metal is thrashy/venom-like and some closer to power metal. And then there's the very traditional middle ground speed metal!

Motörhead is rock 'n' roll, not speed metal.

Three that come to my mind:
Riot - Thundersteel
Agent Steel - Agents Of Steel
Mysto Dysto - Power Of The Law

The Erlking · Post by **The Erlking** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 12:52 pm

Well motörhead is dirty rock'n roll but I've always considered "overkill" THE proto-speed metal song along with some Judas Priest tracks. What I meant with...

There's speed metal like motörhead's overkill and there's speed metal like judas priest's exciter.

...is that some "speed metal" can imo be traced back to motörhead's gritty and fast rock'n rolling whereas some "speed metal" uses same kind of ideas as JP's "exciter" and eventually became power metal. There's a big difference between, let's say, Bulldozer and Agent Steel.

sovdat · Post by **sovdat** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 1:13 pm

so what would define the term speed metal? A question for all of you who were already in the metal scene back in the 80s, where did you first hear of this term?

Mostly people pull in the so called speed metal genre everything that's a (fast) mix between thrash and heavy/power, can it be that simple??!

Another example would be Slayer, at least their early works. Just by a quick glance one can see the obvious difference from them and "classic thrash" bands, for example Metallica or early Testament - shorter songs, no acoustic intros, no ballads, different lyrical themes, more explosive and uncompromising solos (I can't find the suitable word in English, but for example take some long and complex Heathen solo and try to compare it with Slayer solos), different song structures, etc., etc. ... yet they are still called thrash by many ...

If you look on some other old bands you'll find out that they share some same details -> 1st Hobbs' Angel of Death, Renegade, 1st Dark Angel album, early Destruction. And if there's a speed metal genre those bands would fit in way more than everything that's fast with high-pitched vocals as it is in common. (in my humble opinion

)

Avenger · Post by **Avenger** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 9:07 pm

I've always determined "Speed Metal" to be defined as traditional riffing sped up to a faster pace.

The difference between Thrash and Speed is essentially the riffing style and song structures.

Pure Speed Metal is played very consistently, with very few tempo changes and the name of the game is speed without compromise.

This is why there are few PURE Speed Metal outfits as most will play some sort of sub-genre mixture/variation such as Power/Speed, Speed/Thrash, Heavy (Traditional)/Speed, etc.

A few examples of albums that are ALMOST entirely Speed Metal would be Metallica's "Kill 'Em All", Mysto Dysto's "The Rules Have Been Disturbed" and Anthrax's "Fistful Of Metal".

SDI and Iron Angel are PURE Speed Metal bands.

great_knuthulhu · Post by **great_knuthulhu** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 9:30 pm

sovdat wrote:so what would define the term speed metal? A question for all of you who were already in the metal scene back in the 80s, where did you first hear of this term?

Don't think I ever heard the term "Speed Metal" used that much at all in the 80s. Of course, it was used by Dave Constable/Bernard Doe in the liner notes on the first Speed Kills compilation to describe Metallica. I also remember Kerrang using it about Megadeth around the time when Killing is my business... came out.

It seems to me the term is used differently by North-Americans and Europeans too, but let's see where they discussion here takes us before I conclude with any certainty.

sagrotan · Post by **sagrotan** » Fri Oct 24, 2008 10:46 pm

wasn't really into any kind of scene in the 80s but "speed metal" for us back then was, for example, HELLOWEEN - Walls of Jericho. SLAYER, early METALLICA etc. were labelled thrash.

Helm · Post by **Helm** » Sat Oct 25, 2008 12:09 am

From this thread

Speed metal is a term that emerged in the 'Heavy Metal, only BETTER AND NEW AND MAKES OLD HEAVY METAL REDUNDANT' days I think. Back when Metallica printed business cards that read 'POWER METAL' on them and so on. speed, power, thrash (initially) meant 'better metal' as far as I can understand because they were used interchangeably and they didn't solidify in describing actual musical traits until later on. Back in the day the evolution of metal was understood to be linear. Thrash Metal killed Heavy Metal and so on. It's only today that new metal listeners say 'I recognize all these different genres and respect them all equally'.

Speed Metal is largely meaningless if you think about it. It either means 'savage thrash metal without the bay area chops' or it means 'proto-thrash on-the-fence Metal-Blade-Metal like Savage Grace' or it means 'neoclassical technical thrash metal like Megadeath' or it means 'germanic power metal bands before they were power metal like Helloween and Blind Guardian'. So I try to avoid the term. Usually when I use it I mean the 'Savage Grace' type, really. The Corroseum seems to go with the 'savage thrash' version I think. Seriously, I am not sure at all that when people talk about speed metal, anybody understands what the other person is saying besides the fact that the damn thing needs to be fucking fast.

It was pretty meaningless to begin with, especially since in the early-to-mid 80's most heavy metal bands didn't specialize on one single facet of metal. They had their anthemic power metal hymn, their slow epic metal track, their almost-glam embarrassment and their speed metal hell track. It was much later when bands have started having a concrete idea of what 'metal is' that they started to mimic not their favorite bands but genres. You no longer said 'I want to start a band that sounds like Masters Hammer having sex with Torchure' you said 'I want to start a black/death band' and that's awful.

Since I wrote this it has gradually began to seem to me that this "speed/power/thrash is BETTER METAL" mentality is most of all american, where musical trends die out quite quickly and every band is trying to get their own 'brand' into being a survivable niche. Anyway, sorry for digging up an older post for this but I haven't really changed my mind any since I wrote this

In The Raw · Post by **In The Raw** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 1:33 am

sagrotan wrote:wasn't really into any kind of scene in the 80s but "speed metal" for us back then was, for example, HELLOWEEN - Walls of Jericho. SLAYER, early METALLICA etc. were labelled thrash.

Thats the way I remember it too. The first time I remember anything (at least in print) being referred to as "speed metal" it was HELLOWEEN's "Jericho" album.

Speed Metal to me is stuff like early HELLOWEEN, vintage AGENT STEEL and maybe IRON ANGEL. I always saw an IRON MAIDEN connection in those days - HELLOWEEN sometimes reminded me of MAIDEN's faster stuff sped up and with less "classic" vocals.

EXCITER were a dirtier proposition and some of their early stuff was not all that fast (like "Blackwitch" and those mid-paced crunchers "War Is Hell" and "Pounding Metal"). Funny thing is that they were called Power Metal by many back then... along with bands like SAVAGE GRACE (who I'd say now fit better in the speed metal category).

Piotr Sargnagel · Post by **Piotr Sargnagel** » Tue Oct 28, 2008 6:55 am

as far as I always understood, and to be perfectly honest, I'm well past really caring at this stage, but speed metal for me was that Walls of Jericho, early Megadeth stuff. I even reckon ( but my brain might be wrong here) that speed metal was a term used before thrash metal really became defined, speed metal = classic heavy metal sped up, melodic and searing, thrash metal = those elements too if you want but with much dirtier aspects mixed in which then came to predominate. I totally agree with Helm on his comments about that period of time when genres came along and "killed" the ones that came before.