TheMetalWarrior316 wrote:
Because they had Black Metal elements too? The lyrics, the attitude, the feeling, the outfits?!
And they didn't know what true norwegian black metal was, because, they all created the roots to what once became TNBM.
Hell, Venom didn't sound like later Black Metal too, but they invented the genre, and Slayer, Sodom, Kreator and Destruction were using that style to take it to the more extreme Thrash style, when they mixed the old school heavy metal sound of Venom with punk. And even early Bathory was anything but not True Norwegian Black Metal.
This argument is quite amusing actually. I didn't read the last few pages as I don't have much time, but from the bit that I've read TheMetalWarrior does have the tip of the iceberg of a point...he just seems to have confused himself and seems dreadfully confused or trolling just because you all really have managed to get your panties in a bunch. Anyways, when discussing black metal in the early to mid 80's particularly you cannot talk about a concrete genre, and to an extent the same can go for thrash, particularly the more aggressive bands like Slayer, Sodom, Kreator and even Destruction. If you ask Fenriz, for example, he's stated a few times in interviews that he considered Destruction a "black metal band" (and at the very least we can consider them along with Slayer, Sodom and Kreator to be an influence (rather than bands like Metallica or Overkill) on bands like Darkthrone). I know a few vetrans out there who were around when Show No Mercy came out and would have considered this something "blacker than thrash", and compared to a lot of what was coming out at the time, it was. The problem is, can we really talk about genres like black metal before it even really became cemented, when it was a loose term to describe something darker and more aggressive than the current trends. When you look at a band like Bathory and what it was musically, again all that could really define black metal before the early days of the Norwegian scene was that it was a darker, more aggressive and grittier "style". Obsessed By Cruelty or In the Sign of Evil were definitely darker than your average thrash album coming out at that time, so lets compare it with Sarcofago. New school thrashers try to claim Sarcofago under the thrash banner, death metal under the death metal banner, black metal under the black metal banner. Yet they are both none of the above and all of the above, and the same can be said for the early material of bands like Sodom and Slayer. Does it make them as "concretely black/thrash" as bands that took influence and cemented the mixture later on...probably not to most people's ears, but you can't deny that they weren't just plain straight up thrash.
Anyways, if I'm repeating anything anyone else has said here forgive me, I didn't read the topic in its entirety.
You are right about the lines dividing those nascent genres being very blurry at times.
First wave Black Metal was Bathory, Venom, Mayhem (technically speaking), Tormentor, and the proto- BM of Hellammer, Sodom and perhaps Celtic Frost, though with CF, it is a stretch.
Slayer and (I disagree with Fenriz, respectfully) Destruction were always Thrash, though.
Venom were undoubtedly an important band in Metal's development. Truth is, it was a combination of all these bands, not just one.
