This album is the Nirvana "Smells like Teen Spirit" of heavy metal. It brought heavy metal to its knees, and castrated it mightily. It is, then, by definition, the most damaging, counterproductive, and overrated LP ever to be released. Even standing it up on its own, and not letting it poison the minds of those that came after it, I wouldn't even put it in the top 10 most influential thrash releases of 1986... it's easily killed by the unholy trinity of Darkness Descends, Reign in Blood, and Pleasure to Kill, which pushed the envelope of metal in three different, related directions. It's not anywhere nearly as enjoyable as expatriate Mustaine's Peace Sells, which was technically brilliant and a whole barrel of fun too, or as dark as Possessed's sophomore effort, or Sepultura and Sodom's full-length debuts. It's not nearly as punk-as-fun as Nuclear Assault's first. Then I could throw in fifteen, if not fifty, other backwash thrash LPs that did nothing for the genre as far as influence goes, but are still a whole fuckload more enjoyable than this one.
are they right?