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Heavy Metal Thunder Speed Metal

Genres Heavy Metal Speed Metal

Speed Metal

Heavy metal with the tempo pushed to the edge of control. Not quite thrash yet, but you can hear it coming.

Peak years
1979 – 1992
Origin
USA / UK
Family
Heavy Metal Origins
Bands here
14

Start here

Four records in order of how easy they are to get into — which is not the same as best first.

  1. Ace of Spades Motörhead, 1980 The landmark

    The obvious way in, and the record that made speed a virtue rather than a side effect. Lemmy plays bass through a guitar amp and sings like a man settling an argument, and the title track is over in two minutes forty-nine.

    Listen to Ace of Spades

  2. All for One Raven, 1983

    Faster and sillier than Motörhead, and played by three people who seem to be racing each other. Raven called it "athletic rock" and toured America with an unknown support band called Metallica.

    Listen to All for One

  3. Heavy Metal Maniac Exciter, 1983

    Canadian, primitive and relentless. This is the record where speed metal stops being fast heavy metal and becomes its own thing — there is no groove left in it at all.

    Listen to Heavy Metal Maniac

  4. Skeptics Apocalypse Agent Steel, 1985

    The last stop before thrash. John Cyriis sings almost entirely in a register that should not be possible, over riffs that Slayer were writing at the same time.

    Listen to Skeptics Apocalypse

What it sounds like

Faster than everything around it, and that is very nearly the whole idea. Take NWOBHM's twin guitars and gallop, remove the ballads, push the tempo to the edge of what the drummer can hold, and keep the clean high vocal. Riffs are simple because they have to be at that speed. What it lacks is the palm-muted percussive attack that arrived with thrash a couple of years later — here the chords still ring out, so it sounds like heavy metal in a hurry rather than a different thing altogether. Motörhead are the obvious reference point and also the awkward one, since they never accepted any label at all.

  • Heaviness 3 out of 5
  • Speed 5 out of 5
  • Aggression 4 out of 5
  • Technicality 2 out of 5
  • Darkness 2 out of 5
  • Melody 3 out of 5

Where the name came from

A purely descriptive term that emerged organically in the early 1980s to describe the accelerated tempos of Motörhead, Raven, and Exciter. No single coinage is documented — it simply said what it was.

The bands

Hear these first

  • Motörhead UK
  • Raven UK
  • Exciter Canada
  • Agent Steel USA
  • Anvil Canada

And 9 more

  • Razor Canada
  • Jaguar UK
  • Whiplash USA
  • Insulter Brazil
  • Savage Grace USA
  • Loudness Japan
  • Abattoir USA
  • Griffin USA
  • Witchtrap Colombia

Where it happened

Counting this genre and everything descended from it.

  • Canada Canadian Progressive & Extreme Metal 3 bands

What it led to

If you liked this

Closest in sound outside this family, leaning towards the similar or the gentler rather than straight into the deep end.