Speed metal
Speed metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music that originated in the late 1970s from new wave of British heavy metal roots. It is described by AllMusic as "extremely fast, abrasive, and technically demanding" music.
It is usually considered less abrasive and more melodic than thrash metal. However, speed metal is usually faster and more aggressive than traditional heavy metal, also showing more inclination to virtuoso soloing and featuring short instrumental passages between couplets. Speed metal songs frequently make use of highly expressive vocals, but are usually less likely to employ "harsh" vocals than thrash metal songs.
Origins
New wave of British heavy metal
One of the key influences on the development of speed metal was the new wave of British heavy metal, or NWOBHM. This was a heavy metal movement that started in the late 1970s in Britain and achieved international attention by the early 1980s. NWOBHM bands toned down the blues influences of earlier acts, incorporated elements of punk, increased the tempo, and adopted a "tougher" sound, taking a harder approach to their music.It was an era directed almost exclusively at heavy metal fans and is considered to be a major foundation stone for the extreme metal genres.
The NWOBHM came to dominate the heavy metal scene of the early-mid-1980s. It was musically characterised by fast upbeat tempo songs, power chords, fast guitar solos and melodic, soaring vocals. Groups such as Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, Venom, Saxon and Motörhead as well as many lesser-known ones, became part of the canon that influenced American bands that formed in the early eighties.
Other metal influences
Motörhead is often credited as the first band to play speed metal in the mid-1970s. The Sweet released "Sweet F.A." and "Set Me Free" in April 1974 which heavily influenced speed metal later in the decade. Some of speed metal's earlier influences include Black Sabbath's "Children of the Grave" and "Symptom of the Universe", Budgie's "Breadfan" and Queen's "Stone Cold Crazy", as well as certain Deep Purple songs such as "Speed King", "Fireball" and "Highway Star". The latter was called "early speed metal" by Robb Reiner of speed metal band Anvil.History
The origin of the genre's name is the aptly named "Speed King" by Deep Purple. Recording on the song started in 1969 making it nearly a full decade ahead of the musical style being recognised. The song is not only very fast and technical but was also extremely loud creating noticeable distortion in the recording process. The title song for the band's next album, Fireball, is a further refinement of the band's influence with drummer Ian Paice's use of the double bass drum. The way the double bass drum is played in "Fireball"—uptempo "four on the floor"—became a mainstay in many heavy, speed and thrash metal songs in the years that followed.Speed metal eventually evolved into thrash metal. Although many tend to equate the two subgenres, others argue that there is a distinct difference between them. In his book Sound of the Beast: The Complete Headbanging History of Heavy Metal, Ian Christe states that "...thrash metal relies more on long, wrenching rhythmic breaks, while speed metal... is a cleaner and more musically intricate subcategory, still loyal to the dueling melodies of classic metal." However, on the very next page, Christe calls speed metal a "subset of thrash metal" and argues that "There was little intrinsic difference between speed metal and thrash metal. With the sudden boom of fast, raging bands, however, it sometimes helped to distinguish between the throbbing, rhythm-heavy thrash metal and something a bit cleaner and more melodic--dubbed speed metal."
Some may argue that first-wave black metal bands such as Venom, Sodom, and Bathory were speed metal and that black metal evolved as an extreme form of speed metal. Speed metal also played a major role in formation of power metal, with Helloween's, one of the "big four" of power metal, first two albums being speed metal, or speed metal adjacent, in the case of Keeper of the Seven Keys: Part I.