Together with their countrymen Kreator and Sodom, Germany's Destruction constituted the dominating triumvirate of Teutonic thrash metal during the 1980's. Although they ultimately failed to match these peers' in terms of commercial success and longevity, at least two of their albums still qualify among the cr�me de la cr�me of the decade's speed metal.Heavy Metal underwent a worldwide revolution in the early �80's, when the lingering lessons from �70's giants like Black Sabbath and Judas Priest crashed head-on with the do-it-yourself-ethos of punk rock and the sheer velocity of Motorhead to spawn the much ballyhooed New Wave of British Heavy Metal. This in turn sparked a far more powerful and lasting bastard offspring: thrash metal. Of all the nations contaminated by this musical virus as it proliferated unchecked, Germany was second only to the U.S. in terms of widespread infection. Among its earliest contenders, there was Hamburg's Helloween, Essen's Kreator and, from the town of Weil am Rhein in the Fatherland's Southwestern tip, Destruction. Formed in 1983 from the remnan...more
