Детали релиза : VA - Playlist: Metal Blade Records by Qobuz UK (2020) [FLAC (tracks)]

About Playlist
It’s hard to imagine a time when metal wasn’t embedded into America’s musical fabric, but back in 1982, there was no precedent for what Metal Blade Records was about to do. The L.A. label was founded by local metalhead named Brian Slagel who decided to throw together a compilation of young unsigned metal bands that he dubbed Metal Massacre. That first edition featured the likes of Metallica and Ratt, and that was the beginning of Metal Blade’s credibility as one of the genre’s premier tastemakers. Throughout the next few years they’d launch bands like Slayer, Voivod, and Fates Warning; then Gwar and Cannibal Corpse; and eventually become a household for extreme metal legends (Immolation, Vader), death metal staples (The Black Dahlia Murder, Bolt Thrower), deathcore pioneers (Whitechapel, Job For A Cowboy), and many more.

Metal was obviously invented in Britain and the genre is a massively global movement (with an acute popularity in Nordic countries like Finland and Norway), but America is where some of its most important styles were formed. Metal Blade was right there on the frontlines for the birth of thrash (Slayer and Flotsam and Jetsam), crossover (Corrosion of Conformity, Sacred Reich, and eventually D.R.I.), and good-ole American death metal (Cannibal Corpse, Immolation, Six Feet Under). Over the years, they’ve also been home base for festival titans like Amon Amarth, King Diamond, Killswitch Engage, and Behemoth, and they even had an infamously weird stint putting out early punk records by the '90s radio-rock staples The Goo Goo Dolls.

The Metal Blade catalog goes almost 40 years deep, but this mostly chronological playlist will take you from its origins in thrash’s infancy all the way to its recent output of deathgrind and heavy hardcore bands.