“Bonded by Blood” A Underground Landmark! – One of many

THRASH METAL!! The best thrash album of all time? Not an easy choice. For me it’s Exodus “Bonded by Blood”. A underground landmark.

Thrash metal. I am sure some of you when you heard those words think of maybe old Metallica or the Bay area thrash scene in the 80’s. When I was started to get into the underground I loved thrash metal. The aggression and the fast riffing and speedy drums and powerful vocals sucked me right in. Thrash metal sort of lost its way in the early 90’s as it was replaced at least in the underground by death metal.

But now what is the best thrash album of all time? That is not an easy choice by any means. But for me there is one album I keep going back to and back to: Exodus “Bonded by Blood”. This landmark total classic release came out in 1985 and took the underground by storm. It still blows me away listening to it today. The twin guitar riffing from Gary Holt and Rick Hunolt totally destroys on this release along with the intense and total pounding of the drums by band member Tom Hunting.

From the first sounds of that airplane humming down and then the first riffs of “Bonded By Blood start it is like let the head banging begin till the last note of the ultra fast “Strike of the Beast” which is the last song on the debut. Not one song on this release is filler and late singer Paul Baloff does a magnificent job on vocals and his powerful voice will rip through your body on this. I totally feel him on every one of these songs and another highlight for me is “A Lesson in Violence”. OMG the riffs to this song simply kill. It is thrash metal at its finest.

I mean of course there are plenty of other classic thrash metal releases, but the above release it doesn’t get any better.