the.com/speed metal
music played as if the band saw the deadline approaching.
means A fast, aggressive subgenre of heavy metal characterized by rapid tempos, tight technical playing, and driving rhythm guitar, which emerged as a forerunner to thrash metal.
from A plain compound of "speed" and "metal," the latter clipped from "heavy metal" — itself a phrase borrowed from chemistry and industry, where a "heavy metal" is a dense element like lead or mercury. The transfer to loud, weighty rock music spread in the late 1960s and 1970s; "speed metal" arrived as a descriptive label in the early 1980s, when bands began playing the same sound at punishing tempos. The name is exactly what it says on the tin: metal, but faster.
- BPM
- often blasts past 200 beats per minute
- origin
- emerged from late-70s metal and punk's collision
- pioneers
- Motörhead and Venom lit the fuse
- offspring
- thrash and death metal owe it everything
- technique
- demands inhuman alternate-picking and double-bass stamina
judas priest — british band that pioneered speed metal in the 1970s with albums like sad wings of destiny (1976)
motorhead — lemmy kilmister's band that defined the speed metal sound starting with their 1977 self-titled album
helloween — german band that perfected speed metal with keeper of the seven keys part i (1987), establishing the genre's blueprint
sodom — german speed metal band formed in 1982 that merged the genre with thrash and black metal influences