Rex Brown: Pantera’s Bassist, From an Arlington Lab Band to the Reunion
He joined the Abbott brothers as a teenager in 1982 and is still playing those songs to stadiums in 2026. Here is the career, the records, the basses and the book.
Tom Araya in Texas: How Slayer’s Frontman Became “Completely Texan-ized”
He was born in Chile and raised in Los Angeles, and he has spent three decades in small-town East Texas. Here is the move, the ranch, the speedway and the bass.
Anthrax: The Thrash Band From Queens, From Fistful of Metal to Cursum Perficio
Two great singers, a rap-metal hit, a No. 7 album in the grunge years and a 12th record after a ten-year wait. Here is who played in Anthrax, what to hear first and where Texas fits.
Coroner: The Swiss Technical Thrash Band, From No More Color to Dissonance Theory
Three Celtic Frost roadies from Zürich made five records for Noise, quit in 1996, came back in 2010, and in March 2027 they return to Texas for Dallas, Corpus Christi and Austin on three straight nights.
Reinventing the Steel: Pantera’s Final Album, Made at Home in Arlington
No outside producer, a guest solo cut in a bathroom after a Dallas Ozzfest, and a tour that came home to Dallas once: the story of the last record Pantera made.
Arizona Thrash Metal: Flotsam and Jetsam, Sacred Reich and Atrophy
Phoenix gave thrash two Metal Blade bands and a future Metallica bassist, and Tucson added a Roadrunner band. Here is who they were, which record to play first and where they stand in 2026.
King Diamond in Dallas: How North Texas Became Mercyful Fate’s Working Home
The Danish singer Metallica and Slayer learned from has lived in Dallas–Fort Worth for three decades, and a run of his 1990s records was made in North Texas studios.
The Great Southern Trendkill: Pantera’s Heaviest Record, Cut Next Door to Arlington and Sung in New Orleans
Dimebag, Rex Brown and Vinnie Paul tracked it in the small city of Dalworthington Gardens, Phil Anselmo sang it hundreds of miles away in New Orleans, and thirty years later it has a festival named after it.
Groove Metal: The Slower, Heavier Offshoot of Thrash That an Arlington Band Made Famous
Prong and Exhorder got there first, but a record cut in a small studio in Pantego, Texas, is the one that turned thrash’s leftover riffs into a 1990s genre.
Mosh Pit History: From California Slam Dancing to the Thrash Metal Pit
Punks in Huntington Beach started it, a misheard shout from Bad Brains named it, and by 1985 New York thrash fans had claimed it as their own.
Thrash Metal vs. Death Metal: Where One Became the Other
Death metal grew straight out of thrash in the mid-1980s. Here is how to hear the line, which records sit right on it, and how Texas crossed it.
Canadian Thrash Metal: Voivod, Razor, Sacrifice, Annihilator and the Ottawa Band That Came First
Four bands from a mill town in Quebec, a university city, Toronto’s east end and Ottawa built a thrash scene that sounds nothing like California. Here is who they are, which record to play first and where to catch them.
Far Beyond Driven: How the “Overnight Sensation From Texas” Took the Heaviest Record of 1994 to No. 1
Thirteen years after forming in Arlington, Pantera made the most extreme record they could, with Vinnie Paul co-producing, and fans sent it to No. 1 between Ace of Base and Bonnie Raitt.
Clash of the Titans: The 1991 Thrash Tour That Opened in Dallas
Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax shared one bill for the first time on May 16, 1991, at a Fair Park amphitheater not yet three years old, then played four more Texas dates in five days.
Vulgar Display of Power: How Pantera Made the Heaviest Record They Could, in a Studio on Raper Boulevard
Written in the studio, finished around a trip to Moscow and mastered in New York, Pantera’s 1992 album came out of the same small Pantego room where North Texas thrash bands cut their demos.
Battle Jackets: How a Biker’s Cut-Off Became Thrash Metal’s DIY Uniform
Nobody can buy a real one finished. The battle vest runs from wartime flight jackets through biker clubs to the thrash crowd, and the unwritten rules for patching it are argued over to this day.
Megadeth: How Dave Mustaine Built a Thrash Giant After Metallica
Fired from Metallica in April 1983, Mustaine had a new band within weeks and a No. 1 album 43 years later. Here is the whole run, the records to hear first and where it touched Texas.
Slayer: From Huntington Park to Reign in Blood’s 40th in Fort Worth
Formed in 1981 and retired in 2019, Slayer came back for a handful of shows, and one of them lands at Texas Motor Speedway on October 24, 2026. Here is who played in the band, what to hear first and where it touches Texas.
Thrash Metal Band Logos: How Blackletter, Spikes and a Napkin Sketch Became the Genre’s Look
The best thrash logos were drawn by band members and their friends, not design firms. Here is where the look came from, who drew the big ones, and how it played out on Texas flyers.
Among the Living: The Record That Made Anthrax
About six weeks in Miami, a fight over reverb, a dead friend and a comic-book judge. How Anthrax made its 1987 thrash classic, and the night it was taped in Dallas.
New York Thrash: Faster, Meaner, and Mixed With Hardcore
A Queens rehearsal space, a Brooklyn disco turned metal club and a New Jersey record store built East Coast thrash. Here is who made it, where they played and where to hear it now.
Nuclear Assault: The New York Thrash Band That Wrote About the Real World
An ex-Anthrax bassist and an ex-Anthrax roadie built a band on hardcore speed and headlines instead of horror movies. Here is who played in it, what they released and which record to start with.
Overkill: The New Jersey Thrash Band That Never Stopped
Formed in 1980, before Metallica or Slayer, Overkill is still writing records with the same singer and bassist. Here is who played in it, what to hear first and how it shaped a Texas band you know.
Destruction: The Third Pillar of Teutonic Thrash, From the Swiss Border to Texas
A trio from a German border town made two of the rawest thrash records of the 1980s, split, and found its way back. Here is the band, the lineup and the records to hear first.
Sodom: How a Gelsenkirchen Trio Helped Invent Black/Thrash and Outlasted Everything
Tom Angelripper started Sodom in 1982 to stay out of the coal mines. Sixteen albums of new material and more than a dozen bandmates later, he is still the one constant, and so is the gas-masked soldier on the covers.
Kreator: Four Decades of Essen Thrash, From Pleasure to Kill to Krushers of the World
Three teenagers from Essen cut Pleasure to Kill beside the Berlin Wall in 1986. Forty years and sixteen albums later, two of them are still in the band, and they still play its title track live.
Vio-lence: The Bay Area’s Most Violent Thrash Band
One cult classic in 1988, a destroyed pressing in 1990, a singer brought back by a liver transplant, and a band that keeps playing Eternal Nightmare to rooms that never saw it the first time.
Death Angel: Bay Area Thrash’s Teenage Prodigies
A family band of Filipino-American cousins made a thrash classic with a 14-year-old drummer, lost its momentum and then its label after a bus crash, and came back to earn a Grammy nomination.
Testament: Bay Area Thrash’s Great Survivors
Formed as Legacy in 1983, renamed on the eve of its debut, nearly broken by the 1990s and a cancer diagnosis, and still making some of thrash metal’s best records.
Exodus and Bonded by Blood: The Album That Built Bay Area Thrash
Recorded in about two weeks north of San Francisco in 1984, held back by a nervous label until 1985, and still the record people mean when they say Bay Area thrash.
Cowboys From Hell: How an Arlington Bar Band Made a Thrash Record and Went Double Platinum
A birthday-party gig, a hurricane, a Fort Worth club, two months at Pantego Sound and roughly 300 nights on the road: the making of Pantera’s major-label debut.
Devastation: Corpus Christi’s Texas Thrash Veterans
A Gulf Coast band that cut its own debut, signed to Combat, made one of the heaviest records of 1991 at Morrisound, and called off its European tour before it began.
Brazilian Thrash: How a Belo Horizonte Record Shop Built the Rawest Scene of the 1980s
Teenagers in Minas Gerais borrowed instruments, had a friend translate their lyrics into English and made thrash uglier than anyone in California or the Ruhr. Here are the bands, the records to start with and where to hear them now.
Bay Area Thrash: The Scene That Rewired Metal
A Richmond high school band, a Berkeley bar on San Pablo Avenue and a house in El Cerrito gave thrash its first real home. Here is who built it, where they played and where to hear it now.
The Big Four of Thrash Metal, Explained
Metallica, Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax didn’t share a stage until 2010. Here is why those four got the title, who else deserved a look, and how they finally played together.
Teutonic Thrash: Germany’s Big Four and the Sound of the Ruhr
Teenagers in the coal towns of Essen and Gelsenkirchen heard Venom and made thrash rawer and harsher than California did. Here are the bands, the records to start with and where to hear them now.
How Thrash Survived the 1990s, and the Revival That Followed
Grunge took the money, groove metal took the riffs, and the labels moved on. Then a benefit show in San Francisco and a second wave of bands brought thrash back.
Dark Angel and Darkness Descends: The Heaviest Band in L.A. Thrash
A Downey band, a Dallas-born teenage drummer and an $11,000 budget produced one of the most punishing records of thrash metal’s best year.
Metal Massacre and the Birth of Metal Blade Records
A 21-year-old record-store clerk, his Sears appliance-sales savings and a cassette pulled from Lars Ulrich’s back pocket built the label that put Metallica and Slayer on vinyl first.
1986: Thrash Metal’s Greatest Year, Record by Record
Master of Puppets in March, Peace Sells in September, Reign in Blood in October, and a Texas scene cutting its first demos while the big three rolled through.
Crossover Thrash: Where Hardcore Met Metal
In the mid-1980s, punk kids and metalheads started showing up at the same shows, and the bands onstage began writing for both of them at once.
Thrash Metal vs. Speed Metal: What’s the Difference?
In the 1980s they were the same word for the same noise. Here is how the two came apart, which records sit on each side, and why Texas had both.
D.R.I. and Texas Crossover: Houston’s Thrash Export
Four Houston kids got thrown out of the family jam room, cut 22 songs in 18 minutes, drove west in an $800 van and gave a whole genre its name.
Hell’s Heroes and the Texas Metal Festival Revival
A Houston singer booked a reunited Cirith Ungol in 2018, drew 600 or 700 people, and built the fest where 1980s Texas bands finally get their main-stage night.
Deep Ellum and the West Side: Where Dallas Rock Split
Deep Ellum came back to life in 1984 as an art-punk warehouse district, while the metal kids built their own circuit in Arlington and Fort Worth. The story of the split, and the bands that crossed it.
Militia and The Sybling: Austin’s 1980s Metal Underground
In a town busy being bluesy, five young musicians filled an old Sixth Street movie house with speed metal and paid for a 100-copy record that collectors now chase across two continents.
S.A. Slayer: San Antonio’s Other Slayer, From Prepare to Die to Hell’s Heroes
San Antonio teenagers called their band Slayer, released a record in 1983, gave up the name over vodka after a mall in-store, and came back forty years later to play the songs in Houston and Germany.
Helstar and the Making of Houston Metal
Two Houston kids lost the same battle of the bands, then debuted on Combat in 1984, made a Dracula concept album the critics hated, and never quit.
From Thrash to Doom: Solitude Aeturnus and Arlington
In 1987 a founding Rotting Corpse guitarist decided thrash was too limiting, slowed everything down, and Texas got one of the great epic doom metal bands.
San Antonio, Heavy Metal Capital of the World: The Radio Station, the Promoter and the Bands
Two DJs at a frugal freeform station played Judas Priest and Rush before anyone else in America would, a promoter put 4,000 to 6,000 fans in the Municipal Auditorium behind them, and a city of teenagers started bands.
Watchtower: How an Austin Band Pioneered Technical Thrash
A party band that grew up on Rush and Iron Maiden covers put out its own record in 1985, and bands from Death to Dream Theater later named it as an influence.
Corpus Christi Thrash: Devastation, Anialator and the Coast
Three bands formed in one Gulf Coast city in one year, signed to three different labels, and turned a stretch of South Padre Island Drive into the loudest room in South Texas.
Tape Trading: How Thrash Metal Spread Before the Internet
A blank cassette, a trade list and a stamp got an unsigned band from a garage in California or a practice room in New Braunfels, Texas, to a kid in Warsaw or Belo Horizonte, years before anyone had an email address.
The Dallas–Fort Worth Metal Scene in the 1980s: Three Rooms That Built It
Dallas went punk and new wave. Arlington and Fort Worth went metal, in a pasture, a bar, a tombstone factory and a garage a Lebanese landlord never wanted to be a metal club.
Gammacide: The Arlington Thrash Band Behind Victims of Science
One album on a tiny California label, a decade of silence, and a record that kept finding new listeners until the band had to come back for it.
Pantego Sound Studio: The Small Texas Room Where Pantera, Gammacide and Rotting Corpse Recorded
A country songwriter’s studio at the end of a dead-end street in a one-square-mile town made Cowboys From Hell, Vulgar Display of Power and half the thrash demos in Dallas–Fort Worth.
Pantera Before Cowboys From Hell: The Arlington Glam Years, 1981–1988
Four self-released albums, a father’s studio in Pantego, three sets a night in Texas bars, and a singer change that turned a Kiss-and-Van-Halen cover band into something heavier.
Rascals, Arlington: The First Metal Club in North Texas
A short-lived bar that changed everything. From its opening in May 1985 to its closure six months later, Rascals in south Arlington was the only place in North Texas where metal fans could go.
Rigor Mortis: The North Texas Thrash Band That Got to Capitol Records
Four kids from Arlington cut a ten-hour demo in Garland, handed out 500 cassettes at the Tombstone Factory, and became the first Texas thrash band with a major-label deal.
Texas Thrash Metal Bands: The Groups That Built the Scene, City by City
Arlington pastures, a Fort Worth club called the Tombstone Factory, an Austin band inventing technical thrash in 1985: the Texas story nobody has told in one place.
Warlock: The Arlington Band That Started North Texas Metal
Before Pantera went heavy and before Rigor Mortis signed to Capitol, a band from Arlington built the stage, opened the club and wrote the songs everyone else followed.
