Thrash Metal Intros

Bear with me here, but I suddenly find myself annoyed by something that never seemed to be a bother before: thrash intros. Recently I'd begun a workout routine with a massive Spotify playlist filled with thrash--mainstream, obscure, etc. It's quite a fun jam. Anyway, I put this playlist on shuffle to shake things up during the workout.

It seems like every third selection has to be an intro.

Going even further with this, it seems mandatory for every thrash album to carry an intro--usually of the same makeup, too (brooding, atmospheric bass and woosh and so forth). Even worse is when the intro happens to be near two minutes long. Really all I want to do is get to the meat of the song. What do you guys think? Cool way to kick things off, or unnecessary noise?

Definitely unnecessary noise, and I find that almost every new thrash albums has them.

I think they're effective at building suspense, keeping you on the edge of your seat until that first riff pummels you.

The only rage-inducing intro I have come across was the opening track to In Search of Sanity by Onslaught. 5 whole minutes of spooky horror movie music and ambient noise.

They don't bother me until on shuffle. Getting three or for intros in a row DOES get annoying.

Annoying for the most part. Especially on shuffle!

I don't have a problem with this. Like any track, they can be skipped. If you use shuffle, just don't add intros to your playlist.

Lari wrote:

If you use shuffle, just don't add intros to your playlist.

You're right; only thing is I prefer to add whole albums to my playlist--and with 1,768 songs (or however many albums that is), that's a lot to comb through to filter out intros.

I love them when they are musical.

I love the Deliverance intro to Weapons of our Warfare, it just builds you up and then blends into the next song seamlessly. But for the large majority of them, I could do without them.

Temple of Blood wrote:

I love them when they are musical.

Definitely cool with that. The ambient ones I could do without. Sometimes they work upon first exposure to an album, but every listen thereafter I'm like c'mon let's get on with it.

Musical intros seem to serve a greater purpose.

corplhicks wrote:

Lari wrote:

If you use shuffle, just don't add intros to your playlist.

You're right; only thing is I prefer to add whole albums to my playlist--and with 1,768 songs (or however many albums that is), that's a lot to comb through to filter out intros.

Make your playlists smaller?

Lari wrote:

corplhicks wrote:

Lari wrote:

If you use shuffle, just don't add intros to your playlist.

You're right; only thing is I prefer to add whole albums to my playlist--and with 1,768 songs (or however many albums that is), that's a lot to comb through to filter out intros.

Make your playlists smaller?

Nah, I like big playlists, especially for my work drives which can top 10 hours in a day. Besides, I'd still have the same tedium in having to filter out intros.

There should be a thread about good metal intro's, like The Hellion, Abyss (THWTD),the intro to Alice in Hell, even the backward sounding riff of Morbid Angel's Alters of Madness.

John Madden wrote:

There should be a thread about good metal intro's, like The Hellion, Abyss (THWTD),the intro to Alice in Hell, even the backward sounding riff of Morbid Angel's Alters of Madness.

There was one a while back, albeit it wasn't targeted purely at thrash:

http://www.heartofmetal.net/t9062-favorite-song-intro?highlight=intro

All those you listed are great examples (Alters used to freak me out!) and I'd add the intro to Hell Awaits. Eerie.