10 Best Thrash Metal Bands Outside Of The Big 4
9. Death Angel
Despite having a very similar name, Californian thrash band Death Angel did not name themselves after the Slayer song, Angel of Death. In fact, the group were formed four years before Slayer dropped that track.
Hailing from Daly City near San Francisco, Death Angel were privy to the Bay Area thrash scene that birthed so many great bands of the age, some of which will be seen later in this list.
As a result, this group opened for most of the Big Four during their infancy, and although they never achieved the same heights as their peers, they still pulled in a significant fanbase.
Death Angel remained an underground act for most of their career, releasing just one album on a major label, which was 1990's Act III. The album did quite well in Europe and songs like Seemingly Endless Time and A Room With a View got decent airplay on MTV.
So, naturally, the band went on a decade-long hiatus shortly afterwards. Nobody every said thrash musicians had good business sense.
They might never have cracked the mainstream, but Death Angel's music is still beloved and they were pivotal to the genre's key early days.