best 80's speed metal band
No, sure I know the bands, but I mean, some people say Speed is dirty stuff like Venom, some other say that is more melodic stuff like Agent Steel. I've seen some albums I've considered straight thrash labeled as "Speed Metal" (Hell Awaits for example) and things like that. So I don't know if someone can tell me what makes a band be or not be Speed Metal. As I said, to me it seems like an ambiguous genre that hardly can stand by himself. I've always read "Power/Speed", "Heavy/Speed", "Thrash/Speed", etc.
Nosferatu is fast enough to me. I find it strange that people would call that anything but speed metal.DMR wrote:But Holy Terror are a lot faster. Wouldn't that be the main consideration in determining who's speed metal and who's not?Nightlock wrote:Helstar are much more of a speed metal band than Holy Terror for one thing! listen to the chunky, thrashy riffs of Holy Terror compared to the 90% of the time alternative picked riffs of Helstar and that's not to mention the vocals.
And there's a bunch of death and black metal bands with way faster tempo and nobody calls it speed metal either. It seems that nobody gives a crap about the lyrics either, when it comes to labeling bands to different genres.vansinne wrote:Nosferatu is fast enough to me. I find it strange that people would call that anything but speed metal.DMR wrote:But Holy Terror are a lot faster. Wouldn't that be the main consideration in determining who's speed metal and who's not?Nightlock wrote:Helstar are much more of a speed metal band than Holy Terror for one thing! listen to the chunky, thrashy riffs of Holy Terror compared to the 90% of the time alternative picked riffs of Helstar and that's not to mention the vocals.
Well, of course it's heavy metal... but speeded up. Hence qualifying as my pick for the speed metal thread. 
Now Burning Star I'd categorize as classic heavy/power and Remnants of War power/thrash, but most of A Distant Thunder and all of Nosferatu is pure speed metal to my ears. No need to argue about it though, if I'm not "allowed" to pick Helstar I'll probably go with the popular alternative and nominate Agent Steel.
Now Burning Star I'd categorize as classic heavy/power and Remnants of War power/thrash, but most of A Distant Thunder and all of Nosferatu is pure speed metal to my ears. No need to argue about it though, if I'm not "allowed" to pick Helstar I'll probably go with the popular alternative and nominate Agent Steel.
It's Power/Speed with "A Distant Thunder" and "Nosferatu" having quite a neo-classical influence, almost progressive at times.DMR wrote:I find it strange that people would call it anything but heavy metal.vansinne wrote:Nosferatu is fast enough to me. I find it strange that people would call that anything but speed metal.
I'd deem only "Burning Star" to be of the Heavy (Traditional) style.
bigfootkit wrote:"Your Steel Is Not True"
stormspell wrote:"I hate all my releases. I only listen to Korn and Limp Bizkit, don't you know..."
Compare "Distant Thunder" and "Nosferatu" to an Exciter album.Nightlock wrote: Distant Thunder - Speed Metal
Nosferatu - Speed Metal
Now you know why it's not completely Speed Metal.
bigfootkit wrote:"Your Steel Is Not True"
stormspell wrote:"I hate all my releases. I only listen to Korn and Limp Bizkit, don't you know..."
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I'd say Nosferatu is more thrash than speed to me, although it could be borderline just like INTRUDER - Psycho Savant for instance.
Pure speed metal albums in my opinion not mentioned so far:
REALM - Endless War
AMULANCE - Feel the Pain
LAST DESCENDANTS - One Nation Under God
PARADOX - Product of Imagination
BLESSED DEATH - 1985 & 1987
TOXIK - Think This
HAVE MERCY - EP/Demos
BLOODLUST - Guilty as Sin
VISITöR - S/T
CACOPHONY - Speed Metal Symphony
Best one for me (all 3 for various reasons) would be a toss-up between:
AGENT STEEL - Unstoppable Force
HELLOWEEN - Walls of Jericho
LIVING DEATH - Vengenace of Hell
P.S. forgot to add S.D.I. - Sign of the Wicked to my best list too, as well as RISK - The Daily Horror News
Pure speed metal albums in my opinion not mentioned so far:
REALM - Endless War
AMULANCE - Feel the Pain
LAST DESCENDANTS - One Nation Under God
PARADOX - Product of Imagination
BLESSED DEATH - 1985 & 1987
TOXIK - Think This
HAVE MERCY - EP/Demos
BLOODLUST - Guilty as Sin
VISITöR - S/T
CACOPHONY - Speed Metal Symphony
Best one for me (all 3 for various reasons) would be a toss-up between:
AGENT STEEL - Unstoppable Force
HELLOWEEN - Walls of Jericho
LIVING DEATH - Vengenace of Hell
P.S. forgot to add S.D.I. - Sign of the Wicked to my best list too, as well as RISK - The Daily Horror News
Webstore: http://stormspell.bigcartel.com
...but Realm and Toxik are technothrash!
...technospeed? Hah sounds like some futuristic drug.
I don't really care as I've said in the other thread speed is defined in 5 ways or something, anyone can pick and take, all that I keep from it is that the music is going to be FAST.
About death metal and black metal that are faster than speed metal comment: in bpm they are faster, but they don't really feel faster (in fact a lot of droneish black metal might blast all the time but it sounds perfectly still. No propulsion). This happens for a lot of reasons. One is subdivision of beat:
-music nerdtalk-
a beat is not a tempo (though it is played at a tempo). A tempo exists when a source is triggered in even intervals. A beat exists when two (or more) different percussive sounds divide this tempo in even or uneven patterns (which we call eighths, halves, dotted thirtyseconds, what have you). So let's say a snare is one source and a kickdrum is another source.
This is a tempo: (try to imagine someone playing these every half a second): s s s s s s s s
This tempo then would be 120 bpm. This has no propulsion, it is just a meter.
This is a beat: k s k s k s k s (for purposes of simplicity let's say all these hits are eights), same tempo.
This beat would then be a polka beat (or thrash beat in this forum) playing eighths at 120 bpm. If the hits were halfs it would still be 120 bpm thrash beat playing halves, though for self-apparent reasons (since nothing - in this very basic example- occurs every second 120 bpm tempo strike) this would probably by simplified to 60bpm. A tempo and a beat are useful materials for the musician that wants to communicate a certain effect to another player, they are not set in stone, they are to be interpreted.
So this snare/kickdrum alteration in eigths is a is basic division of a beat at 120 bpm.
'Speed' is a musical effect, a connotation so to say. It isn't as blatant as counting the bpm of a song and saying 'if over 190, it's a speedy song'. Imagine the beat at this tempo being
kkkkkkkkkkkkkk s kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk s so on, all hits being sixteenths.
The tempo might be fast, the beat is subdivided so much that the sense of propulsion is fragmented and you get quite a different 'feel' of it. This would feel like a train rolling through. The doublebass would be pummeling but the snare occurs only every whole, so the thing actually would lumber along and feel slow! (Check Morbid Angel material for proof of this). The song effectively doesn't feel fast though in purely tempo talk, it is!
In empirical terms, a polka beat ( k s k s ) seems faster to the mind than a rock beat or something because the two different sources alternate faster and there's nothing in between them. Density and repetition are the keys. Less density = more speed, repeats occur more often = more speed. However there is a limit to this. A blastbeat (which is basically a polka beat, only so fast that the kick and the snare hits appear to occur almost instantaneously) LOSES in terms of speed in comparison to a polka beat because it's more chaotic, it sounds like an endless roll! The constant subdivision of beat without strong anchors to what the suggested tempo is does this. The blastbeat then is more chaotic than fast, and that suits a lot of death metal and grindcore just fine. Also going from a blastbeat to an even polka beat is one of the more 'ARGGH I WILL KEEELL YOOOU' inducing Heavy Metal tricks ever. It just sounds like pure adrenaline. That's good, but its not focused on speed but the juxtaposition of it against chaos. This is why speed is just a tool for death metal but it is the POINT AND PURPOSE of a speed metal band.
So for a genre such as 'speed metal' (where chaos doesn't seem to belong and precision does) the fastest it would make sense to include would be the thrash beat, also of course the variation of it with doublekicks is allowed, which however sounds a bit 'slower' to the brain though the bpm might be the same, but it sounds more grounded and powerful. This explains why power metal that enjoys that sort of robustness more is constant doublekicks everywhere whereas most 'pure' speed records emphasize the kick- snare contrast to suggest more speed. Blastbeats are out, tempos over 230 or so aren't speed anymore, they just seem like a blur.
-music nerdtalk ends-
...technospeed? Hah sounds like some futuristic drug.
I don't really care as I've said in the other thread speed is defined in 5 ways or something, anyone can pick and take, all that I keep from it is that the music is going to be FAST.
About death metal and black metal that are faster than speed metal comment: in bpm they are faster, but they don't really feel faster (in fact a lot of droneish black metal might blast all the time but it sounds perfectly still. No propulsion). This happens for a lot of reasons. One is subdivision of beat:
-music nerdtalk-
a beat is not a tempo (though it is played at a tempo). A tempo exists when a source is triggered in even intervals. A beat exists when two (or more) different percussive sounds divide this tempo in even or uneven patterns (which we call eighths, halves, dotted thirtyseconds, what have you). So let's say a snare is one source and a kickdrum is another source.
This is a tempo: (try to imagine someone playing these every half a second): s s s s s s s s
This tempo then would be 120 bpm. This has no propulsion, it is just a meter.
This is a beat: k s k s k s k s (for purposes of simplicity let's say all these hits are eights), same tempo.
This beat would then be a polka beat (or thrash beat in this forum
) playing eighths at 120 bpm. If the hits were halfs it would still be 120 bpm thrash beat playing halves, though for self-apparent reasons (since nothing - in this very basic example- occurs every second 120 bpm tempo strike) this would probably by simplified to 60bpm. A tempo and a beat are useful materials for the musician that wants to communicate a certain effect to another player, they are not set in stone, they are to be interpreted.So this snare/kickdrum alteration in eigths is a is basic division of a beat at 120 bpm.
'Speed' is a musical effect, a connotation so to say. It isn't as blatant as counting the bpm of a song and saying 'if over 190, it's a speedy song'. Imagine the beat at this tempo being
kkkkkkkkkkkkkk s kkkkkkkkkkkkkkk s so on, all hits being sixteenths.
The tempo might be fast, the beat is subdivided so much that the sense of propulsion is fragmented and you get quite a different 'feel' of it. This would feel like a train rolling through. The doublebass would be pummeling but the snare occurs only every whole, so the thing actually would lumber along and feel slow! (Check Morbid Angel material for proof of this). The song effectively doesn't feel fast though in purely tempo talk, it is!
In empirical terms, a polka beat ( k s k s ) seems faster to the mind than a rock beat or something because the two different sources alternate faster and there's nothing in between them. Density and repetition are the keys. Less density = more speed, repeats occur more often = more speed. However there is a limit to this. A blastbeat (which is basically a polka beat, only so fast that the kick and the snare hits appear to occur almost instantaneously) LOSES in terms of speed in comparison to a polka beat because it's more chaotic, it sounds like an endless roll! The constant subdivision of beat without strong anchors to what the suggested tempo is does this. The blastbeat then is more chaotic than fast, and that suits a lot of death metal and grindcore just fine. Also going from a blastbeat to an even polka beat is one of the more 'ARGGH I WILL KEEELL YOOOU' inducing Heavy Metal tricks ever. It just sounds like pure adrenaline. That's good, but its not focused on speed but the juxtaposition of it against chaos. This is why speed is just a tool for death metal but it is the POINT AND PURPOSE of a speed metal band.
So for a genre such as 'speed metal' (where chaos doesn't seem to belong and precision does) the fastest it would make sense to include would be the thrash beat, also of course the variation of it with doublekicks is allowed, which however sounds a bit 'slower' to the brain though the bpm might be the same, but it sounds more grounded and powerful. This explains why power metal that enjoys that sort of robustness more is constant doublekicks everywhere whereas most 'pure' speed records emphasize the kick- snare contrast to suggest more speed. Blastbeats are out, tempos over 230 or so aren't speed anymore, they just seem like a blur.
-music nerdtalk ends-
Agent Steel is a Speed/Power Metal band though.Nightlock wrote:Compare Agent Steel and Exciter and you get the same thing, not all Speed Metal mimics Exciter, nor should it all sound repedative and lack emotion like Exciter.
They aren't a pure Speed Metal band like Exciter...
bigfootkit wrote:"Your Steel Is Not True"
stormspell wrote:"I hate all my releases. I only listen to Korn and Limp Bizkit, don't you know..."
Helm, nice stuff you wrote, although it wasn't really an easy read
Avenger & Nightlock - you're both just saying "that's power" / "that's speed", "just listen / compare to" .... the real question is WHY are Agent Steel power / speed? WHY (in your opinion) are Helstar speed, thrash, heavy or whatever?
Avenger & Nightlock - you're both just saying "that's power" / "that's speed", "just listen / compare to" .... the real question is WHY are Agent Steel power / speed? WHY (in your opinion) are Helstar speed, thrash, heavy or whatever?