Destruction

Together with countrymen Kreator, Sodom, and Tankard, Germany's Destruction make up the "big four" in Teutonic thrash metal. Like so many bands, they fell under the spell of the emergent New Wave of British Heavy Metal as classic metal met the D-I-Y ethos of punk rock, then evolved into thrash metal. Destruction was part of the second wave of thrash metal in the mid-to-late 1980s, along with American bands including Testament, Sacred Reich, Death Angel and Dark Angel. Early albums, including 1985's Eternal Devastation and 1987's Release from Agony, are considered genre classics. While they disowned much of their self-released '90s output, they roared back with 2000's All Hell Breaks Loose for Nuclear Blast. They signed to AFM Records for 2005's highly regarded Inventor of Evil, and 2008's D.E.V.O.L.U.T.I.O.N. before returning to Nuclear Blast for 2016's Under Attack. They signed with Napalm Records for 2022's Diabolical.