As The Crow Flies 11:28:08: From Kill 'Em All to Corpsepaint - The Evolution of Heavy Metal - Part Two (1984-1991)

Posted by Chris Crowing on 11.28.2008

This week, we trace the development and evolution of heavy metal through the 1980s. From the bright lights to the darkest recesses, can metal thrive or shrivel in the light? Can these bold warriors maintain their mission to take on the world with their heavy metal? Let's find out.

Last week I covered the origins and early adventures of heavy metal from it's roots in blues based hard rock, through to it's apotheosis as a wide ranging musical genre in it's own right in the early 1980s. My cut off date for the first part of metal's history (1983) was not picked by chance, or because I'd become bored writing at that point. I chose 1983, as it was the first time that a group of bands who were avowedly 'heavy metal' bands were making serious dents in the charts. In my view Black Sabbath etc. were hard rock acts, and it took the NWOBHM to make metal; a 'real,' definable genre. Also in 1983, the first feelers of the next wave could be seen as the Thrash bands made their first steps onto our stage.

The nature of metal means that as soon as any band gains acceptance by a wider audience, a portion of their fan base will reject them and go seeking newer, more intense aural pleasures. This became very much apparent in the 80s, as forms of metal far more extreme than the style played by Iron Maiden and Def Leppard appeared, and developed into a varied and rivalry-fuelled underworld.

So, with some bands achieving genuine mainstream success and a host of new bands reaching for their crown, or rejecting the bright lights utterly, we rejoin this epic tale in 1984.


As The Crow Flies over…the Origins and Evolution of Heavy Metal - Part Two


Straying from the normal definitions, it seems to me that in the eighties, metal diverged into two sub-genres. One of these were the big budget video, world-touring, million selling acts - and those who wanted to be like them. The other was a posse of largely younger bands who were more interested in being louder / faster / angrier / more unpalatable to the masses than their older, more successful predecessors. I tried writing this as a straight timeline, but it got so muddled that I'll handle the mainstream of metal and the underground separately.

The first group could be said to straddle hard rock and heavy metal, with the likes of Def Leppard and to a lesser extent Iron Maiden starting to develop a more chart-friendly sheen to their metal. 1984 saw Maiden's Powerslave competing for space in the charts with the veteran Judas Priest's Defenders of the Faith, Scorpions Love At First Sting and Van Halen's 5150.

Symptomatic of this were the exploits of former Black Sabbath frontman Ozzy Osbourne who had long been producing entertaining, yet very commercial hard rock music from his Blizzard of Oz debut in 1980, while Sabbath themselves lost their way following Ronnie James Dio's departure, with a series of increasingly unsatisfying albums made with increasingly weak and unsuitable singers.

I would say that Ozzy songs like "Bark at the Moon" (Bark at the Moon, 1983) or "Shot in the Dark" from 1986's The Ultimate Sin are pretty representative, especially of the public view of metal at the time.

Now, I for one DO NOT regard much of what was popular at the time to be especially 'metal,' finding my riffy kicks more in the underground which we'll get too later. It seems to me that the sudden popularity of the NWOBHM sound produced two offshoots, one which was reliant on big stage shows, interesting use of hair spray and lowbrow humour to maintain a large audience, and the other which was (in the beginning at least) all about the heaviness aspect.

However the exception that proves the rule is Iron Maiden, who produced a mountain of awesome material in the period. The Live After Death live album followed Powerslave's success in 1985, with Somewhere in Time hot on it's heels. in 1986. Seventh Son of a Seventh Son (1988) was probably their most commercially successful record to date, containing the very chart friendly "Can I Play With Madness?" and "The Evil That Men Do." However the punishing schedule and market overcrowding would soon start to take it's toll on Maiden...



In contrast to Maiden's consistently entertaining, progressive compositions (for all their occasional chart baiting shenanigans) were the blatant pop pretensions of the likes of Def Leppard. Their 1987 album Hysteria containing cheese rock standard "Pour Some Sugar On Me" had wandered a long way from what I consider 'metal' to be. You can pull 'rock' faces all young like and have videos with all the motorbikes and stuff you can find,. but if it's a shameless attempt at getting chart recognition, then it's not metal. For me anyway, judge for yourself...



In a similar vein was Whitesnake's eponymous album, released in the same year (and often refereed to as 1987) with a similar hard-rock-bar-jukebox standard meg-hit in "Here I Go Again." In fact I could rattle off a massive litany of bands who were hugely popular, referred to by the mainstream as metal, and gave a lot to the imagery and pop culture of the 80s, but who tickle my 'metal' bones not one bit. Sure, I like some of them to sing along to when I'm drinking in my local rock bar, but one song at a time - it's pretty hard to bear when the jukebox goes into 'hair metal' mode for a few hours. Time to fin another pub...

For the sake of completeness, I'll throw out what I see to be the biggest bands and songs of the time - everyone has heard of Motley Crue and their relentless tales of excess - but while they aren't AS bad as some bands from the time, I think Methods of |Mayhem were more fun, and quite a bit heavier. Anyways, any band who can produce such an enduring piece of cheese as "Girls, Girls, Girls" while maintaining some of the most ridiculous hair ever attempted deserves credit for effort at least.

Less heavy, but more made-up were Poison and the title of their 1986 debut record Look What the Cat Dragged In pretty much said it all about them... But any band who can produce lyrics fit to move the guardians of heaven ("Every Rose Has It's Thorn" from their 1988 album Open Up and Say...Ahh! did this Bill & Ted's Bogus Journey) must have something going on... but mostly make-up as far as I can tell.



However, the MTV sponsored hard rock-heavy metal bleed over did produce some genuinely compelling and worthy music, with the most notable act being Guns N' Roses, whose 1987 debut Appetite for Destruction remains a classic display of guitar fuelled, bass driven rock classic. While not technically 'metal' I'd say that GN'R did more for pushing heavy music forward, especially in the attitude department than many of their simpering contemporaries. Say what you like about Axl, in his time he was a helluva frontman, and there have seldom been better guitar/bass combos than Izzy, Slash and Duff. It's my column, I'll make sweeping statements if I like.

So the 'mainstream' of heavy metal was largely made up of bands who I feel weren't actually producing heavy metal but a kind of neon tinged, cheese laden hard rock, with a handful of genuinely ambitious musical forces occasionally peeking from under all the eyeliner.

Iron Maiden and Judas Priest defended the faith (I could have said 'kept the faith' but that takes us too close to Bon Jovi territory, and I'm not even entertaining the notion of them as a metal band, no matter how some folk would argue) for the old guard and the NWOBHM as best they could, but they were assailed on all sides by the bright lights and the excesses of arena rock were starting to wear on the kids, just as they had back towards 1977. Maiden continued on with No Prayer For The Dying in 1990, although for my money it was a dip on form from the previous five albums. Still it's a hell of a run, and I'll always remember "Bring Your Daughter... to The Slaughter" being a big hit when I was about nine years old. Perhaps it's that which started me on my road to being a metalhead....

However, with the departure of Adrian Smith, and Bruce Dickinson's increasingly less-reliable vocal talents and diminishing commitment the writing was on the wall for Iron Maiden's first golden age.

Judas Priest also released an album in 1990, their last with iconic frontman Rob Halford (until 2005) and this was the seminal Painkiller, regarded by many to be one of their greatest, possibly definitive record. What do you think?



I'll leave the mainstream behind at this moment, as a deeper overview will result in me being even more dismissive, because what I REALLY want to talk about in this timeframe is the emergence of what is nowadays recognised as heavy metal, and that is hand in glove with what is termed Thrash Metal.

Thrash is basically a more aggressive form of the NWOBHM sound, with a higher emphasis on growled vocals, sixteenth note guitar riffs and double kick drum. They added in some more of the aggression of hardcore punk as well as singing less about getting laid and more about social issues like nuclear war, while also singing a lot about the joy of heavy metal, especially at the start.

There is a lot of (I feel somewhat pedantic) debate about the difference between Thrash and Speed metal. To me they are different flavours of the same thing, but they can be distinguished thus... Thrash metal tends to be heavier and more aggressive than Speed metal, and also more given to progressive passages to offset the furious heavy riffing. One way to illustrate this is the difference between Metallica's "Battery" and Megadeth's "Holy Wars...The Punishment Due." Like I said, unless you are an absolute devotee, then it's splitting hairs.
For the sake of non-pedantry I shall refer to thrash and speed metal as one genre, but just so you are aware there are many flavours contained in this particular bag of jelly beans.

The thrash bands came together in the late 70s and early 80s, drawn together by a shared enthusiasm for Black Sabbath, Motorhead, Judas Priest, Venom and the NWOBHM bands. Much has been written about how Thrash was a reaction to the over the top glam antics of the likes of Motley Crue and maybe there's some truth in that - because there is certainly a wide gulf between the bands making the expensive videos in the mid 80s compared to these now-beloved warriors.

Like Grunge, the big four of Thrash all crossed paths before they made it big, with Metallica, Slayer and Megadeth all hailing from southern California. Anthrax were from New York, but in recording their 1983 debut, Metallica spent time on the east coast and encountered them, not to mention influential British band Venom. That was a trip that famously resulted in Dave Mustaine being kicked out of the band and shipped west, only to be swiftly replaced by Kirk Hammet of Exodus. Mustaine would then go on to form his own band, the above mentioned Megadeth. I guess every metalhead in the world already knows that, but I need to at least skim over it, or someone will call me for not mentioning it.

1984 saw Metallica evolve a lot as bass player Cliff Burton's classical skills lifted the compositions on Ride the Lightning above the more straightforward approach shown on Kill 'Em All. The raw speed and aggression of "Fight Fire With Fire" mixed with the midpaced majesty of "Creeping Death," the progressive scale of "the Call of Kthulu" and the affecting epicness of "Fade to Black" makes RTL one of the greatest and most important heavy metal albums of all time, in my opinion. For me it straddles the pace of thrash/speed metal and adds the weight of Sabbath with the progressive element so beloved of Burton.

Of course, such development in a band at the forefront of a scene devoted to speed and aggression resulted in the first of many chants of "sell out!" at the Four Horsemen., I disagree, but there's a whole 'nother column in that....

Anthrax made their recording debut in 1984 with Fistful of Metal but (IMHO) this was a lacklustre debut, and they did far better once they got Joey Belladonna in as singer for 1985's Spreading the Disease. 1985 also saw the release of former Metallica guitarist Dave Mustaine's new band Megadeth. That album, Killing is My Business...And Business is Good was a fine piece of the speed metal template, perhaps a direct attempt to offset Metallica's increasingly prog approach in spite. I'm not the biggest fan of KIMBABIG, as the production is rancid and the songs don't have any of the charm or appeal of Mustaine's later work. Better was to follow.

1986 was THE landmark year for Thrash metal, and one of the pivotal years in the history of heavy metal as a whole. Metallica released their seminal album Master of Puppets, Slayer released the ear-blisteringly intense Reign in Blood and Megdeth truly started punching their weight with Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?. Now the arguments will persist as to which of these albums is the better, indeed Master of Puppets and Reign in Blood regularly top polls of 'best metal albums ever.' I try to be an impartial judge, although it's pretty clear my preference is for Metallica, and I regard MOP to be the peerless yardstick by which all heavy music should be judged, for it's heaviness, ambition, technical worth and emotional weight. Then again I'm also a sucker for blasts of "Raining Blood" or "Angel of Death" for sheer speed and intensity and the title track from Peace Sells...But Who's Buying? remains one of the catchiest things I've EVER heard. You'll all have your own preference, but at this point I pay homage to Slayer's finest hour...



The death of Cliff Burton in late in 1986 cast a shadow over the whole Thrash scene, and although Metallica moved on quickly to recruit a new bass player - Flotsam & Jetsam's Jason Newsted, the emotional scars took far longer to heal, as we have seen in the Some Kind of Monster movie. It is a testament to Burton's popularity, the depth of respect his peers held for him and his musical legact that along with his last Metallica writing credit on "To Live Is To Die", Anthrax dedicated their 1987 album Among the Living to his memory, as did Metal Church with their The Dark album. Former bandmate Dave Mustaine was also moved to compose the music to Meghadeth's "In My Darkest Hour" upon hearing of his friend's death. Without wishing to seem over sentimental about an artists I only came to appreciate ten years after his death, I would say that Cliff Burton's demise is one of the greatest losses the heavy metal community has ever suffered, and he remains much missed and respected.

The above mentioned Among the Living album was probably Anthrax's finest moment, coming hard on the heels of a trio of triumphs by their contemporaries. For me it is weaker than any of the above, but is still an important and worthy release, although it does show that Anthrax lack the musical drive or intensity of Metallica, Megadeth or Slayer. But you have to enjoy "Caught in a Mosh" or "Indians." I'll just say I was looking for a video of "Indians" to put here, but the first four I found on youtube all had 'embedding disabled by request' so we'll continue without visual aids...sorry!

The thrash bands were now well established, and knocking on the door of mainstream acceptability, especially Metallica and Megadeth with their more polished sound. All four bands released albums in 1988, and while you may be utterly unsurprised to hear that I think Metallica's And Justice For All... is the best of the four, Slayer's South of Heaven is a damned fine record as well (for the record, it's probably MY favourite Slayer album) and Megadeth and Anthrax's efforts aren't bad either, although definitely not amongst either bands best works. That said Metallica did win a Grammy for their epic song "One" which remains a live favourite to this day, partially because of the impressive pyrotechnic display that they put on beforehand. Observe...



Metallica took longer to produce their next album than the other three, with Slayer releasing Seasons in the Abyss, Anthrax releasing State of Euphoria and Megadeth releasing their best work, the awesome Rust in Peace in 1990.

Rust in Peace is easily my pick of these albums - even if it only contained "Holy Wars...The Punishment Due" which is even more pertinent now that it was in 1990 and the awesome "Hanger 18" which while an ostensibly silly yarn about peace loving aliens imprisoned by a cruel government, also has some shreddingly awesome guitar playing and if you read between the lines you'll see the astute political commentary that led to Dave Mustaine being MTV's face at the 1992 Democratic convention!
Anyway, this is fun...



The last album released by one of the Big Four of Thrash in my timeframe was Metallica's self titled fifth album, now commonly referred to as the Black Album because of it's virtually flat black cover art. This album was a serious departure for the Four Horsemen as it saw them abandon to modular riffing and frantic pace of the thrash template in favour of slower paced riffs. You could say they were done paying homage to Motorhead and decided to try a Black Sabbath approach. The change in pace (not to mention the recruitment of a big name, mainstream producer in Bob Rock, and string compositions by Hollywood's won Michael Kamen) further alienated fans who lived for the speed and intensity of Thrash, but garnered far more mainstream fans and on the back of hit singles "Enter Sandman," "The Unforgiven," "Nothing Else Matters" and to a lesser extent "Sad But True" mugged Iron Maiden for the crown of biggest metal band in the world.

This is not quite the place to discuss they why's and wherefores of Metallica - there's a whole column in that one - but it definitely changed the landscape of heavy music - we'll get to that later.

The Big Four were of course not everything there was to see in the Thrash scene, and there are a host of bands who are well worth a mention, even if I don't have the time and space to go into a deeper dissection of their worth.

Apart from Megdaeth and Anthrax, there were some notable (if much less successful) speed metal bands, most notably Running Free and Germany's Helloween, but also Jason Newsted's pre-Metallica band, Flotsam & Jetsam, who's 1986 album Doomsday for the Deceiver is an under-appreciated classic (in my opinion.)

The thrash scene itself was a fecund and productive place, with a host of great records from Exodus, Metal Church, Armoured Saint, Testament, and Vio-lence while it wasn't an entirely American scene with Celtic Frost wading in from Switzerland, and Sepultura showing their heavy teeth all the way from Brazil.

1991 was a landmark year for alternative music as a whole, with Nirvana going over huge with Nevermind and "Smells Like Teen Spirit" and immensely successful and influential albums coming out from the likes of the Red Hot Chilli Peppers and the growing popularity of Industrial music opening up wide vistas of commercial viability for those of a less mainstream persuasion.

Some will see this as a terrible thing, that metal lost it's soul to MTV in this time and the mainstream edge of metal has never recovered, while some (myself included) love the fact that the boundaries were being broken down - but that's a discussion for next week's column.

It is the success of Metallica and the tour that followed, the fact that the 'classic' Iron Maiden line-up was soon to split, and the rise of grunge and 'alternative rock' in place of heavy metal in the public imagination that leads me to close this chapter in 1991. We shall resume with the deep, dark days of the 90s next week.

But first...

My 84-91 time frame also saw the rise of the 'extreme' metal genres, populated by bands who were making even darker and more anti-social noises than the Thrash/Speed bands.

Newcastle's Venom gave their name to Black Metal, which is defined by the ever-informative Wikipedia as "often employing fast tempos, shrieked vocals, highly distorted guitars played with tremolo picking, double-kick drumming, and unconventional song structure." So it's heavy metal then... Pardon my sarcasm, I always get this way when confronted with silly genre divisions.

For me, Black Metal is defined largely by it's very dark, often Satanistic or misanthropic, and even sometimes deeply offensive lyrical themes (making it the favoured musical refuge of knuckle dragging extreme nationalists of every allegiance.) Please don't take that as a slur on all Black Metal, because I like some of it, although I'll admit I like the later, more polished stuff much better.

Nonetheless, the early period of Black Metal produced some seminal acts, most notably Hellhammer and Bathory not to mention to more thrashy approach of Hellhammer's sister band, Celtic Frost, and Denmark's Mercyful Fate. Black metal came into it's own in my next time frame, so there will be a far more detailed and in depth discussion there.

On the flipside, there is Death Metal, which sounds to the untuned (or unwary) ear virtually identical to it's Black counterpart. However, there is a difference, largely that Death metal is more direct, the vocals are lower and growled (as opposed to higher and shrieked), the drums tend to be even more prevalent in the 'blast beat' style and while using 'unconventional' song structures like Black Metal, the changes between song sections tend to be more abrupt and clipped, for the maximum in disconcerting effect.

Again like Black Metal, the Death version's lyrical themes tend towards the socially offensive, although this is usually more of a morbid obsession with (you guessed it) death and gore, often recited like the Cookie Monster doing the stage directions for a low rent splatter movie.

As above, I prefer later Death metal bands but the early scene had some important innovators like Death and Morbid Angel who's 1989 LP, Altars of Madness is still talked of with what passes for reverence in DM circles.



Both Death and Black Metal would go on to far greater things in later years, but I think it's important to show that at this stage in 1991, heavy metal encompassed bands in the full bright lights of mainstream success, had a second tier where some of the bands were breaking through into the real big leagues, and there was a growing underground who rejected all thoughts of such things as being fundamentally against what they were trying to achieve.


As The Crow Flies over…the Origins and Evolution of Heavy Metal - Part Two

This time period, from 1984-1991 saw heavy metal become (arguably) the widest spread and most popular musical genre in the world. Existing bands like Iron Maiden, Black Sabbath and Def Leppard were among the biggest in the world, Metallica were about to join them, while Slayer and Megadeth were cementing a widespread following. On the level below that, some bands were continuing what had come to be seen as the guiding principles of metal. That's it should be heavier, more extreme than the general public would accept, that it would push the boundaries that you are not meant to push.

In my view it is this innovation and desire to push boundaries that is both metal's greatest asset as a genre, and greatest weakness. This desire to push has produced some of the most consistently innovative, emotional and affecting music in the last forty years.

However, some metalheads use these tenets as 'brownie points' to prove that they are 'more metal' than some around them, calling once underground bands who have made it to the big stage (Iron Maiden, Metallica) 'sell outs' or any newer bands who choose a more melodious approach are 'fakes' or 'poseurs' who are not 'true metal.'

I can't stand this type of thing, because I love Metallica, all the way from Kill 'Em All to Death Magnetic, but I also love Carcass and Paradise Lost. With a different part of my heart, I love Linkin Park, Nine Inch Nails and with another I love Pearl Jam, VAST, Biffy Clyro and hell, I've even got a soft point for Stevie Wonder, Take That and some of Andrew Lloyd Webber's musicals.

The point is, I love music, and anyone who feels the need to bash someone else's music to prove a point, is a weak, flawed, scared, fundamentally insecure individual, who is more concerned with how their peers think of them, than really being into their music. That's not very 'metal' is it?

Sure, in my columns here, I've had a dig at Emo - but I tend to have a go more at the self-harming, everyone-follow-the-fashion scene, rather than the bands themselves (unless, like Bring Me The Horizon's Ollie Sykes, you are a girl-hitting misogynistic piece of arrogant crap who needs a good beating or seven.) I quite likes some My Chemical Romance songs, and I LOVE Coheed & Cambria but there is no excuse for those jeans! In this week's very column, I've showed the snide side of my character towards Def Leppard and Motley Crue, but please note I HAVE mentioned them as very popular and important at the time - in fairness, I can't say I like them all that much.

That's enough of that, but it's a little rant that needs to be said, I would hope that most of my readership feel similarly.

1984-1991 had metal spreading out and embracing new ground, conquering the heights and digging into new, darker lows. In the decade ahead, it would spread further and uncover yet more new ground, yet the period after 1991 is traditionally regarded as a fallow time for metal...

Was it, though?

Well that's next week's question, isn't it?

The Murmur Round the Murder

I have now been paid, but again I have spent so long doing 'research' I haven't found anything new, so here's some killer cuts for your delectation and delight.

The Murmur Round the Murder Mixtape -
Volume 2: the Best of Heavy Metal 1984-1991

Side A - Monsters of Rock

1 Def Leppard - Hysteria - "Love Bites"
2 Iron Maiden - Powerslave - "2 Minutes 2 Midnight"
3 Scorpions - Love At First Sting - "Rock You Like a Hurricane"
4 Van Halen - 5150 - "Hot for Teacher"
5 Ozzy Osbourne - No More Tears - "No More Tears"
6 Poison - Open Your Mouth And Say...Ahh! - "Every Rose Has It's Thorn"
7 Guns N'Roses - Appetite for Destruction - "Welcome to the Jungle"
8 Slayer - South of Heaven - "South of Heaven"
9 Judas Priest - Painkiller - "Painkiller"
10 Iron Maiden - No Prayer for the Dying - "Bring Your Daughter...To The Slaughter"
11 Megadeth - Rust in Peace - "Holy Wars...The Punishment Due"
12 Metallica - Metallica - "Enter Sandman"


Side B - The Watchers in the Dark

1 Venom - Eine Kleine Nachtmusik - "Warhead"
2 Metallica - Ride the Lightning - "Fight Fire With Fire"
3 Slayer - Reign in Blood - "Angel of Death"
4 Exodus - Bonded By Blood - "A Lesson in Violence"
5 Flotsam & Jetsam - Doomsday for the Deceiver - "Doomsday for the Deceiver"
6 Celtic Frost - To Mega Therion - "The Usurper"
7 Testament - The New Order - "Into the Pit"
8 Sepultura - Beneath the Remains - "Stronger Than Hate"
9 Death - Human - "Suicide Machine"
10 Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness - "Visions From the Dark Side"
11 Bathory - Hammerheart - "Baptised in Fire and Ice"

Until next week, get ready to fook sheet up!

Chris