Slayer announced today that its new album Repentless would be released later this year, marking the thrash group's first time without guitarist Jeff Hanneman (who died during 2013). Some would argue that it's sacrilege (rim shot) for Slayer to continue without Hanneman. Before we weigh in on the matter, we're going to look at the rest of the big names in the thrash metal scene to check out how they did after they lost one of their founding members. Check out the bands (Metallica, Megadeth and more), the albums they released, and how those albums stack up against the rest of the band's catalogue.
Metallica (And Justice For All...)
Some might argue that Metallica's first album without a founding member was its debut, Kill 'Em All, but we're of the school-of-thought that Dave Mustaine can hardly be considered a legitimate member of Metallica as we know it. Instead, we're going to focus on the band's And Justice For All..., the first LP released by the metal gods following the death of bassist Cliff Burton during 1986. It's somewhat unfair to judge replacement Jason Newsted based on his first album with the group, for a multitude of reasons. The main reason: The last record the group cut with Burton was Master of Puppets, which many suggest to be the greatest metal album of all time. No matter what Metallica did after, whether that be And Justice or St. Anger, it had no chance of living up. Things get really unfair when people suggest that Metallica started its downward spiral as a result of Burton's death...as if most of the music weren't written by James Hetfield, Lars Ulrich and Kirk Hammett to begin with (the bassist got three writing credits on Master...the title track, the instrumental "Orion" and closer "Damage, Inc.") Misguided Metallica fans have turned Burton into a legend, one which no replacement could ever live up to. Was he good enough? Yes. Was he Jaco Pastorius? No. We're inclined to give Newsted a positive review for And Justice, even if he didn't have that much of a hand in its writing, just because the album was about as good a follow-up as we could realistically hope for.
PROGNOSIS: Pretty good.
Megadeth (So Far, So Good...So What!)
Megadeth is a band noted for two things: A) Dave Mustaine is in it, and he may or may not struggle with power as a result of being kicked out of Metallica, and B) the band has gone through a lot of musicians in its 30 years. Bassist David Ellefson is about as close to a constant as you can find, outside of Mustaine. Unlike Metallica, nearly all of the songwriting credit (music and lyrics) goes to its leader, aside from covers, so all of the blame for the quality of one album compared to another has to be laid at Mustaine's feet. The group stuck together without any lineup changes for Killing Is My Business...And Business is Good! and Peace Sells...But Who's Buying?, the latter of which is considered by many to be the band's best album so it's hardly surprising that follow-up, So Far, So Good...So What!—which saw the replacement of original drummer Gar Samuelson and guitarist Chris Poland—was disappointing. But it was majorly bad. Really. The good news is that Mustaine switched guitarist and drummer again for Rust In Peace, which your correspondent would argue is by far the band's best record overall.
PROGNOSIS: Pretty bad.
Anthrax (Spreading The Disease)
This isn't too hard of a case to judge, as Anthrax serves as an exaggerated case of what Iron Maiden dealt with a few years earlier. While Paul Di'Anno was more than competent for Maiden, he couldn't live up to the powerhouse vocals that Bruce Dickinson would bring to the table on The Number of The Beast. Anthrax got its start on Fistful of Metal, a record that's pretty bad all-around. The group decided the problem was the vocalist, replacing Neil Turbin with Joey Belladonna for round two, Spreading The Disease. Granted, this is far from the band's best album (that award goes to the next release, Among The Living), but it's a huge step up from Fistful. This could be an example where Belladonna truly made the difference...Turbin had quite a few songwriting credits on the first album, while Disease resulted in hits such as "Madhouse" and "Armed & Dangerous."
PROGNOSIS: Good.
Exodus (Pleasures of The Flesh)
Even the most hardcore of modern thrash fans have to admit, while the great albums of the time still stand out for their influence on metal, the fashion trends of the time were hilarious. The hair, the sleeveless denim jackets...yeah we know these guys still show up for metal shows today but man...ridiculous. Anyway, Metallica, Slayer and the rest of the big four were smart and kept their unfortunate fashion choices off the covers of their classic albums. That's the more petty mistake that Exodus made for second album Pleasures of The Flesh. More importantly, replacing Paul Baloff with Steve Souza had an awful impact on the band's music. Exodus is kind of the hip kid's thrash band, as it never made it as big as its fellow Bay-area behemoths. That mindset is justified on Bonded by Blood, a terribly underrated album in the metal world. Baloff wrote most of the lyrics and things turned out great. Souza took over for Pleasures and...not so great. Admittedly, the band bounced back strongly with Souza for Fabulous Disaster.
Prognosis: Bad.
Testament (Low)
Despite getting much less attention than the rest of the thrash scene around them, Testament had been more steady in its lineup than the rest of its bigger cohorts (it and Slayer are tied for the most albums with one steady lineup, as both put out their five records with the same personnel). Things finally came to a head during 1993 when both guitarist Alex Skolnick and drummer Louie Clemente decided to depart. The addition of James Murphy (not the same James Murphy of LCD Soundsystem) and John Tempesta seemed to right the ship, if not make it any faster. The albums The Ritual and Low—which came before and after the split, respectively—are of similar quality (although we might give a slight nod toward the latter). All we know is that the period of turmoil in between was a mess: The Return to the Apocalyptic City EP released during 1993 is a hot mess, featuring songwriting credits from both the original and replacement musicians.
PROGNOSIS: Decent.
