Thrash metal

Thrash metal (or simply thrash) is an extreme subgenre of heavy metal music characterized by its overall aggression and often fast tempo. The songs usually use fast percussive beats and low-register guitar riffs, overlaid with shredding-style lead guitar work. The lyrical subject matter is often sympathetic to liberal social issues and often deals with criticisms of The Establishment, and at times shares a disdain for Christian dogma resembling that of their black metal counterparts. The language is typically quite direct and denunciatory, an approach borrowed from hardcore punk. The genre emerged in the early 1980s as musicians began fusing the double bass drumming and complex guitar stylings of the new wave of British heavy metal (NWOBHM) with the speed and aggression of hardcore punk. Philosophically, thrash metal developed as a backlash against both the Conservatism of the Reagan era and the much more moderate, pop-influenced and widely accessible heavy metal sub-genre of glam metal which also developed concurrently in the 1980s. Thrash metal was an inspiration for subsequent extreme genres such as death metal and black metal.