The term “THRASH METALl” was first referred to by the music press was UK’s Kerrang Magazine journalist Malcolm Dome while making a reference to the Anthrax song “Metal Thrashing Mad” in Kerrang issue number 62, page 8 published on February 23, 1984. Prior to this Metallica’s James Hetfield referred to their sound as power metal.
Thrash metal generally features fast tempos, low-register, complex guitar riffs, high-register guitar solos and double bass drumming. Thrash metal rhythm guitar parts are often palm-muted to create a tighter and more precise sound. Palm-muted parts are often played with a “crunch” distortion guitar tone. Vocally, thrash metal can employ anything from melodic singing to shouted vocals. Most thrash guitar solos are played at high speed, as they are usually characterized by shredding, and use techniques such as sweep picking, legato phrasing, alternate picking, tremolo picking, string skipping, and two-hand tapping.[6] Thrash lead guitarists are often influenced by the New Wave of British Heavy Metal movement.
In Europe, the earliest band of the emerging thrash movement formed in 1979, which was Venom from Newcastle Upon Tyne, Great Britain. Their seminal 1982 album Black Metal has been cited as the major influence on many subsequent genres and bands in the extreme metal world, such as Bathory, Hellhammer, SLAZYER and Mayhem. The European thrash scene was almost exclusively influenced by the most aggressive music both Germany and England were producing at that time. British bands such as Tank, and Raven, along with German metal exports Accept, motivated musicians from central Europe to start bands of their own, eventually producing German thrash exports such as Sodom, Kreator and Destruction as well as Switzerland’s Coroner. Here is the list of 10 best German thresh metal bands.
(SOURCE” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thrash_metal)