Great album from start to finish; I has this on cassette and would probably have worn the tape out except I lost it in a hotel room! I found the album online years later, much to my delight.

This is worth getting for the Exciter track Riders From Darkness as well as Venom's remake of Black Metal, tracks that are unavailable anywhere else as far as I know.

Back in 1985, Metallica and Slayer were the "big names" of the bands on this compilation, with Exciter, Megadeth, Exodus and Venom right behind them. This simple compilation increased my record, tape (and a few years later, compact disc) collection of metal music many times over.

24 years later and untold millions of records sold by Metallica and Megadeth alone, this compilation stands as a testimonial to what was then the new genre of "speed metal"; those who would beome the successors to the metal gods of the past like Judas Priest. Even groups like Iron Maiden, still in the heights of creativity and popularity ( and one of my favorites) were soon to be left in the dust when Metallica, Megadeth, Anthrax and Slayer spawned their own New Wave Of Heavy Metal and expanded the metal genre. Without some of the bands on this compilation that expanded the metal horizons, metal might be dead.