What did Thrash bands think of Death metal when it emerged?

I've always wondered what thrash bands thought of early death metal,since about 89 when the genre exploded. Did they like it? Hate it? I've never really seen documentary evidence of what those thrash bands thought of the early death metal scene. Did Metallica realize it was useless to "keep up with the Jonses" and made the black album instead? Obviously, from a business viewpoint, probably the best decision they ever made...Why didn't more thrash bands adapt and growl? I know Sodom went in a death metal direction, and so did Testament with "Low" but in general, I wonder what those bands thought of death metal back then and if they felt their careers were threatened by this new upstart music.I know Possessed, Revenant,Death were around from the early days, but I considered them death/thrash missing links and not full-fleged death metal.Your thoughts? !BOOM!

I'd imagine that some may have thought it was a natural progression ? Early death metal seemed to have some elements of different things before it became what it became. You forgot to mention the impact Hellhammer/Celtic Frost had on the scene and even Venom to a lesser extent (IMHDO)

James B. wrote:

I'd imagine that some may have thought it was a natural progression ?   Early death metal seemed to have some elements of different things before it became what it became.  You forgot to mention the impact Hellhammer/Celtic Frost had on the scene and even Venom to a lesser extent (IMHDO)

Agreed. I was starting to move away from the extreme metal scene by '89 but there were a lot of the bands considered to be pioneers of death metal making records and demos from '85 onwards and to be honest I didn't give it that much thought, the scene had so much variation anyway and certainly the people I knew weren't so hung up on labels I just got my copies of Seven Churches or Scream Bloody Gore or the Autopsy demos and thought that it was cool stuff. In the U.K particularly it was a progression with Carcass, Napalm Death and Bolt Thrower slowly moving away from grindcore and D-beat into the death metal sound.

By the time the likes of Deicide, Cannibal Corpse and co rolled around I had lost interest and to this day I hate most of that stuff.

I just remember Kerry King complaining about DM vocals. Probably just upset that they were faster and more "evil" and that they were the sound of yesterday.

A lot of them seemed to like it, as many thrash metal bands who dissolved had members who formed and/or joined death metal bands.

But as others said, natural progression, in a sense. Around 1992-93, thrash metal became almost completely extinct. Almost every thrash metal band broke up or changed their sound around the mid-1990s. Death metal, as well as groove metal (or "post-thrash", such as Pantera), stole thrash metal's thunder in the metal scene. There was also the rise of black metal.

It's sort of funny that black metal has never had a lull, and death metal never had a true lull, and hordes of bands who came out in the 2000s and 2010s have/had the groove metal/post-thrash sound that was popularized in the early 1990s by Pantera and Machine Head.

However, for a while, it was pretty much impossible to find new bands playing thrash metal, or older thrash bands who were recording new albums that could be considered proper thrash metal albums. (Don't get me wrong, many of the bands who moved away from thrash still made some good albums, but they weren't thrash metal albums.)

Like most people, probably thought it sucked.

From what I can tell I came on board around 1994; from what I understand that was a pinnacle for DM? Anyway I was already a thrash fan by the time I heard Altars of Madness. Surprisingly, I was underwhelmed. I felt the production was so empty on some of those albums compared to how muscular thrash was, and it all seemed a little gimmicky to me. I warmed to it over the years, embracing the low budget production. It's an...interesting palate cleanser. Always has been. I get bored of what I'm listening to, I throw on Death Metal. Hear it for about a month. Good times. Move back to less extreme metal. It really balances things out. Anyway that's the way I've always felt about the subgenre.