Dark Angel – Darkness Descends (1986)

Dark Angel were the greatest thrash band no one talks about any more. The LA monsters’ second album, Darkness Descends, is still one of the most imposingly weighty thrash albums ever: a punishing blizzard of black distortion. The guitars are twin buzzsaws, while Gene Hoglan’s drumming knocks yer block off, yet the real beauty of this album, however, lies in its sheer nastiness – a thickly mean-spirited vein runs through its entirety, and never more so than on the wonderful Merciless Death.