Disclaimer:
Please don’t unleash years of suppressed anger and throw a hot cup of coffee in your dog’s face if you don’t see (insert band name) at (insert position) or any such situation. This feature is based on the opinions of an author that writes, primarily, based on experiences and makes no claims that the collection of releases you’re going to be reading about is certified by God, Satan, Rick Moranis, or any other extremely prominent deity. Enjoy.
Introduction:
You have reached the final installment of our trilogy focusing on 1989, and more importantly, you’ve reached the complete end of our series focusing on extreme metal in the 1980s.
1989 was a year of transformation across the board. Heavy metal, as an expression, continued to evolve into more radical strains, yet began to congeal with consistency in terms of the formulae for genres such as death metal. The general conceptual core had been established, it now became an exhibition as to who could do it the heaviest, the fastest, and the most violent. Grind was also, at this point, a determined set of musical values, also branching out into more radical and variated sounds to see how hard the formula could be pushed.
Outside of music, the Communist movements in Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Romania began to fall apart through a series of elections and revolutions. The Berlin Wall was being torn down and the only real steward of Communism left in the world, China, was taking a different approach. They were just outright killing protesters.
In the world of art, written words on a page were enough to end diplomatic relations between Iran and the United Kingdom, courtesy of Salman Rushdie’s ‘The Satanic Verses,’ a book volatile enough that multiple translators of the book were violently attacked, people were outright murdered, and Rushdie ended up on the wrong end of a literal fatwa.
Culture rot, oddly enough, was not slowed down by any means, as the USSR ended up constructing their first McDonald’s restaurant in 1989. The Exxon Valdez was kind enough to deposit 240,000 barrels of oil into Alaska’s Prince William Sound, dramatically polluting and absolutely fucking up the wildlife for an uncountable number of miles. The new, shiny, freedom-bringer called the Northrop B-2 Spirit made its debut and would later go on to bomb small brown children in foreign nations.
As far as the global spread on this list, the United States dominates with 11 of the 25 releases, the closet country behind that was Canada and Germany, each with 3 contributions to the list. Poland, Italy, Netherlands, and Switzerland also appear. Not a significant change from 1988, which saw the same number of American contributions.
As far as record label spread, there were plenty of small one-offs from obscure eastern European labels, as well as plenty of contributions from heavy hitters such as Earache Records and Noise Records, who both had a fairly stunning year, with some of their contributions winding up on the American Billboard Top 200.
The biggest difference between 1988 and 1989 was simply the palette of tones and delivery. 1988 was a more varied year, featuring everything from power metal and traditional heavy metal to Viking metal and death metal, to pure grind. In 1989, this was an affair strictly for the obscene and the extreme, loaded down with nothing but thrash metal, death metal, and grindcore.
Without further delay, please enjoy The Top 25 Metal Albums of 1989. Have a gratifying bowel movement.
#25: Blood (DEU) – Impulse to Destroy
Label: Wild Rags Records
After a long sequence of demos between 1986 and 1989, Blood finally dropped their debut full-length album, Impulse to Destroy. Rough production with overdriven vocals, like British grind but more embellished. 24 songs in 34 minutes, these were short bursts of spastic noise that focused on extreme shifts of ripping mid-tempo death metal mixed with spasming, blasting grind.
#24: Disciples of Power (CAN) – Power Trap
Label: Fringe Product
Founded in Canada in 1987, the band raced through a series of demos in 1988 and struck hard in 1989 with the Power Trap full-length, their debut effort and a vicious display of heavy thrash metal with breakneck transitions. Classic material that is often overlooked, this four-piece was a combination of musicians that were absolutely locked in with one another.
#23: Macabre (USA) – Gloom
Label: Vinyl Solution
Combining intense grinding structures with death metal execution and construct, Macabre were masters of their outlandish craft. Physically demanding, maniacal in content, and bewilderingly fast, these murder merchants ripped through cuts like ‘Patrick Purdy Killed Five and Wounded Thirty’ with complete ease. Criminally underrated.
#22: Turbo (POL) – Epidemie
Label: Polskie Nagrania Muza
Turbo were masterful crafters of both riff and composition, playing an intense style of heavy metal that bordered speed metal and thrash metal. The band’s output, from their debut effort in 1983 up to this particular point in 1989 was near impossible to top. Creative, angular, and packed full of sharp melodies and crushing riffs, Turbo stood as one of the strongest metal acts out of eastern Europe.
#21: Voivod (CAN) – Nothingface
Label: MCA Records
The band’s fifth full-length album and one that showcased the band cresting at the peak of their career. While not crushingly heavy like some bands, and never intended to be that way, Voivod were masters of phrasing and crafting dissonant riffs that danced and snaked between the other instruments. Nothingface actually peaked at position #114 on the American Billboard Top 200, which is a hell of an accomplishment for a progressive thrash band hailing from Canada.
#20: Magnus (POL) – Scarlet Slaughterer
Label: MiL Records
Another sonic gem hailing from Poland, Scarlet Slaughterer was an unstoppable force of traditional heavy metal blended with aggressive thrash metal. Opening with the endearingly titled ‘Trash Attack,’ Magnus blew through 12 cuts that took the American west coast thrash formula and merged it with the chaos and rancor of the late 1980s South American scene, creating a sonic hybrid that was wholly unique, both masterfully controlled and bursting at the seams with destructive creative energy.
#19: Sodom (DEU) – Agent Orange
Label: Steamhammer
One could view Agent Orange as the precise moment that Sodom became a fully legitimized thrash act, dropping quite a bit of their abrasive ‘blackened’ element that was heavily prominent on foundational releases such as In the Sign of Evil and Obsessed by Cruelty. Perhaps, the end of the first era of Sodom, with Agent Orange being the last record to feature walking riff-dynamo Frank Blackfire.
#18: Schizo (ITA) – Main Frame Collapse
Label: Crime Records
A vicious display of pounding thrash metal mixed with some trace elements of early black metal, featuring members of Necrodeath and Black Prophecies. Reaching paces that touched on blast beats, the band firmly belonged to the same uncompromising musical views heard from groups such as Sarcofago and Vulcano. Schizo, alongside Bulldozer and Necrodeath, were trailblazers of the early Italian extreme metal scene.
#17: Gammacide (USA) – Victims of Science
Label: Wild Rags Records
Heavy, aggressive, double-bass saturated thrash metal from Texas. Gammacide’s release catalogue was extremely thin, featuring Victims of Science and two demos, the band still continues on in some capacity to this day. This lone release signaled a band that had massive potential in the American thrash scene.
#16: Watchtower (USA) – Control and Resistance
Label: Noise Records
Returning from their excellent 1985 debut, Energetic Disassembly, Watchtower struck with another display of over-the-top, ultra-technical, highly progressive thrash metal in Control and Resistance that exchanged pure speed and raw fury for measured restraint that was loaded with guitar precision, insane bass work, and perfectly positioned drumming. This, unfortunately, would be the last full-length the band produced, silencing a career that could have seen the band ascending towards the top of the thrash metal food chain.
#15: Annihilator (CAN) – Alice in Hell
Label: Roadrunner Records
The debut of Canadian thrash institution Annihilator was a playground for founder and creative mastermind, Jeff Waters. Highly technical in execution with composing that was amongst some of the most creative in the thrash scene, Annihilator did not play the ‘look at us’ game of ‘riffs per minute’ density, but instead simply blew past their contemporaries with raw skill and expert-tier songwriting. Perhaps, the band’s greatest moment, as nothing really ever came close to the creative execution on this record.
#14: Exodus (USA) – Fabulous Disaster
Label: Music for Nations
The band’s third effort, much like Voivod’s Nothingface, ended up peaking on the US Billboard Top 200 chart, hitting an impressive 82nd place. Not that mainstream success means anything here, it just serves as a testament to thrash metal’s staying power at the close of the 1980s, with early foundational thrash bands now entering, at least, their second or third album cycles. Exodus produced a concentrated effort, one that may not have hit as hard as Bonded by Blood or Pleasures of the Flesh, but one that still made for a killer album and a strong listening experience.
#13: Coroner (CHE) – No More Color
Label: Noise Records
Much like Annihilator and Watchtower, Coroner traded the heavy-handed high-speed execution of many other thrash acts and opted for precision and progression. At this point, a well-known band thanks to the success of R.I.P and Punishment for Decadence, Coroner’s final record of the 1980s was an excellent close to the decade and another in a string of nigh untouchable records in their discography.
#12: Kreator (DEU) – Extreme Aggression
Label: Noise Records
Kreator had an untouchable decade in the 1980s, one that saw four incredible albums produced in a row, all which represented some of the best of the early German thrash metal, a scene that directly rivaled that of the legendary American west coast. However, the tank was running a little low on creativity at this point, with one last push in the form of 1990’s Coma of Souls before starting a pretty lackluster 90’s run. Extreme Aggression saw a more consistent, less off-the-rails version of Kreator, not a true inversion of Pleasure to Kill, but a change that indicated maturity as composers and riffcrafters.
#11: Dark Angel (USA) – Leave Scars
Label: Combat Records
Gene Hoglan deserves infinitely more credit as a drummer, as his prowess displayed in the 1980s was terrifyingly powerful. Absolute machine-gun power on the double-bass pedals. The band found themselves in a position where they critically needed a strong follow-up to the incredibly impressive Darkness Descends, and they created it on Leave Scars, even with a change in vocalist from album to album. Crushing thrash metal with total rhythmic domination.
#10: Nuclear Assault (USA) – Handle with Care
Label: In-Effect
If anything represents the canon of Nuclear Assault, it was their third full-length, Handle with Care. Purely thrash and never anything else, Nuclear Assault took the blend of hardcore punk and heavy metal and turned it into a something pure and iconic. Yet another thrash metal album that ended up on the Billboard Top 200 chart in 1989, this could perhaps be seen as the close of their best songwriting years.
#9: Carcass (GBR) – Symphonies of Sickness
Label: Earache Records
The follow-up to debut effort Reek of Putrefaction, Carcass returned as a more composition-minded monstrosity, one with more focus on central riffing and fluidity, rather than caliginous noise. Still a grind act through and through, this was Carcass at their disturbing peak, representing a new facet of sound to the English grindcore scheme, one that was more in line with early death metal barbarism.
#8: Bolt Thrower (GBR) – Realm of Chaos (Slaves to Darkness)
Label: Earache Records
The sophomore effort of Bolt Thrower saw a significant clean up in terms of their clarity and production. There was a shift from the almost grindcore affair of 1988’s In Battle There is No Law to one that was more pure in terms of death metal tonality and delivery. Realm of Chaos (Slaves to Darkness) represented a band in violent evolution, like the arrow evolving into the bullet, and proved it through their intense, almost-mechanized delivery.
#7: Repulsion (USA) – Horrified
Label: Necrosis Records
One of the cornerstones of American grind, Repulsion’s solitary album was an almost perfect blueprint for the grindcore formula. Overdriven, raw, frontal, percussive, but not noise or utter caveman riffcrafting. Delivering 18 songs in roughly 30 minutes, these were rapid, pained ideas that were birthed from a blend of hardcore punk and heavy metal that was balanced and amplified to extreme levels. Repulsion has had many duplicates, but no imitators.
#6: Pestilence (NLD) – Consvming Impvlse
Label: R/C Records
A sonic ritual invoking the tempo and machine-gun pacing of thrash with the intensity and execution of death metal. The last Pestilence record to feature Martin van Drunen on vocals, the bands follow-up to 1988’s Mallevs Maleficarvm was an extension, and a better actualization, of the musical ideas that were laid forth by the band’s earlier efforts. Consvming Impvlse showed an expert blend of precision and technicality with no-frills delivery, leading to an honest, engaging listen and one of the best for the year.
#5: Obituary (USA) – Slowly We Rot
Label: R/C Records
The debut effort of Florida’s Obituary was undeniably death metal, from the first note to the last note. Where others felt the need to accelerate and play at blistering paces, Obituary channeled a callous doom-like approach at mid-tempos where they combined long, simplistic chord sequences with grinding tremolo chaos. One of the originals and one of the best to do it, a true classic in the American death metal canon.
#4: Autopsy (USA) – Severed Survival
Label: Peaceville Records
The other side of death metal, the slower, doom-laden approach that felt like impending death was on the way and unavoidable. Autopsy came off a pair of demo tapes in 1987 and 1988 that served less as a demonstration and more as a warning, and Severed Survival was the portent of doom. 11 songs at around 42 minutes, where the tracks were allowed to form and resolve without forced immediacy. The guttural sewer approach of the band felt completely organic and miserable, to which many bands will never equal.
#3: Sepultura (BRA) – Beneath the Remains
Label: Roadracer Records
Quite possibly the peak of Sepultura. Coming off a pair of albums that included the inhumane Morbid Visions and the refined Schizophrenia, Beneath the Remains represents the full transition into a thrash powerhouse, laden with riffs and chaotic drumming, there were simply no equals in thrash that could compete with this record. One of the best the genre produced in 1989 and one of the best heavy metal records for the year overall.
#2: Terrorizer (USA) – World Downfall
Label: Earache Records
As with Repulsion, Terrorizer were also one of the cornerstone institutions of American grind. Easily the best release the group ever put forward, it was just a culmination of elements and a moment of time where the band and its members were all collectively creating something far greater than themselves.
#1: Morbid Angel (USA) – Altars of Madness
Label: Earache Records
A solid year for both David Vincent and Pete Sandoval, pulling double-duty on two of the best albums of the late 1980s. Morbid Angel takes the top spot for a variety of reasons; the technicality, the execution, the speed, the fluidity, the composing, on and on. It was just light years ahead of anything that was on the open market. Trey Azagthoth took what he established on the demos between 1986 and 1987 and made it full nuclear on Altars of Madness, giving a career-defining performance and cementing himself as one of the premier death metal guitar players.
Outro:
There you have it, The Top 25 Metal Albums of 1989.
As you noticed, this was a big year for iconic releases. Beneath the Remains, Altars of Madness, World Downfall, Horrified, Slowly We Rot, it was just a completely over-the-top year of pure excess on the extreme metal front. This list feels like this was ‘it,’ that this was the year that extreme metal started taking over as the frontline form of violent expression. A lot of heavy-hitting mainstream heavy metal acts did not release anything in 1989, which gave other underground acts the room to shine on this list, acts such as Blood, Schizo, and Macabre, all bands that absolutely deserve the recognition over some of the mainstream acts.
Sepultura showed the underground that thrash metal was still relevant in terms of sonic intensity, coexisting alongside the brute force of Altars of Madness and the grinding hell of World Downfall. Other acts such as Obituary, Autopsy, and Bolt Thrower proved that death metal was a force that was capable of not only standing on its own two feet, but that it was capable of sonic domination that was captivating and worth returning to over and over again.
One must acknowledge some of the musicians from this particular year who put together stunning performances. Trey Azagthoth of Morbid Angel put on a clinic in terms of guitar soloing and showed himself as one of the premiere riff writers in all of heavy music. Pete Sandoval pulled double-duty between Morbid Angel and Terrorizer, cementing himself as one of the top drummers of his time, not just in speed but versatility. Gene Hoglan deserves a mention for his work with Dark Angel, delivering machine-gun double-bass bursts that put many drummers to shame. The guitar fireworks by Annihilator mastermind Jeff Waters and the bass magic worked by Watchtower bassist Doug Keyser deserve recognition as well. There are simply too many high-quality musicians to mention, an aspect that made this period and time of heavy music unimaginably brilliant.
If you’re interested in checking out the other parts of the trilogy focusing on 1989, check out The Top 25 Metal Demos of 1989 and The Top 25 Metal Splits/EPs of 1989. To see what the previous year’s top 25 metal albums looked like, you can check out The Top 25 Metal Albums of 1988.
As always, thank you for reading! If you would have changed anything on this list, let me know in the comments.
AJK
apanthropy 
Leave a comment