10 Greatest Thrash Metal Albums Of All Time
3. Dark Angel: Darkness Descends (1986)
Dark Angel’s second album proved to be a macabre landmark in the thrash genre upon its fiery release in November 1986. Legendary drummer Gene Hoglan makes his debut with machine gun percussions that the rest of the band match with equal fury.
The titular track is centred on the comic book villains known as the Dark Judges from 2000 A.D.’s classic Judge Dredd series. Murderous, undead beings from a parallel universe, the Dark Judges deem life itself a crime with their nihilist mantra, “This city is guilty, the crime is life, the sentence is death,” turning up in the song lyrics.
Lyrics only get darker from there thanks to the likes of Perish In Flames focusing on nuclear armageddon, Death Is Certain (Life Is Not) charting euthanasia and Black Prophecies dealing with some of the spookiest amongst the many prophecies of Nostradamus.
Notorious for reaching new levels of thrash metal extremity, California’s most hyperactive thrash troupe batter the listener with all out musical chaos. Heaviest of all is The Burning of Sodom, a work of audio insanity employing riffs made all the heavier by a surprise injection of punk. No nonsense, no melodic mercy and no restraint, the track is a work of murderous art.