– 1985 –
Possessed kind of entered the proto-BM party through the back door, seemingly trying for straight thrash but having to settle for raw through sheer instrumental ineptitude (their second LP, 1986's Beyond the Gates, betrayed this intent by being a reasonably well-played thrash album after the band got an extra year of woodshedding under their belts). Consider "The Exorcist", a true over the top classic of the pre-BM era, which features some of the loosest timekeeping in all of metal history courtesy of Michael Sus' insane drumming.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ehsl1bpEInQ[/youtube]
The arhythmic, stop/start quality of the song is so intrinsic to its charm that, when Cannibal Corpse covered it years later as a b-side to "Hammer Smashed Face" they didn't even bother trying to clean up the tempo too much. Anyway, Possessed are more rightfully considered an early contender for "first death metal band" rather than being black metal in any real sense, but the sheer "go for broke" attitude of feel vs technique continues to find sympathy even in today's thrice-removed black metal scene.
Continuing in the "tattered thrash as early BM influence" vein, there were a handful of other new bands on the scene who had little use for the precision riffs and clean production of the US Bay Area bands. Much like Sodom before them, Germany's Kreator would only have a brief dalliance with anything raw enough to qualify as an early progenitor to black metal. Endless Pain is still a touchstone for modern black metal bands striving for that "throwback" sound, particularly in Mille Petrozza's tortured vocals.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oOhSoabPtSY[/youtube]
Italy's Bulldozer also didn't stick with the raw and ragged approach for very long, but their first album, Day of Wrath, has that same breakneck pace and scrappy, musically challenged quality that helped point the way toward things more sinister in that same vein.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wcxaQ1Nmaik[/youtube]
Onslaught were one of the very first thrash bands out of the UK, and are probably best known today for an uncharacteristic album they put out in 1989 with Steve Grimmett from Grim Reaper on vocals (In Search of Sanity), but their classic period saw them trying their hand at Venom-informed blackened thrash. They reformed ten years ago with the old singer (Sy Keeler) and original guitarist (Nige Rockett), but to many the first two albums will always represent the band's apex.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qOM9586VbkY[/youtube]
Celtic Frost entered 1985 as a continuing, rough-around-the-ages influence on black metal to come, but by year's end they'd moved on to more experimental, less abrasive material (see: To Mega Therion). Their last hurrah with a black/death prototype was a real doozy, though, including one of their most covered songs:
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qnFYwNw7-dU[/youtube]
Finally, we'd be remiss if we didn't wrap up the year with the continuing adventures of Bathory, the one band in all of the 80's that did as much if not arguably more than Mayhem to forge the original black metal template. Their second album, The Return, upped the ante on the debut by transcending thrash altogether. If you've watched all the clips in the series up until this point, this will be the first Black Metal Primer song that sounds every bit like it could have been recorded and passed off as "trve kvlt" even today.
[youtube]https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tTBNYPp9iis[/youtube]
