And Then There Were None

Bonded by Blood is one of thrash metal's founding documents — recorded in 1984 but released in 1985, the Bay Area scene at its most raw and aggressive. Exodus were contemporaries and rivals of Metallica, and many listeners of the era considered them equally promising.

And Then There Were None demonstrates the Exodus formula at its most effective: a riff designed to cause whiplash, Gary Holt's guitar work precise and violent, Paul Baloff's vocals at the extreme edge of controlled aggression. The production is raw in ways that major-label thrash of the same era wasn't.

Exodus's subsequent history is complicated by lineup changes and tragedy. But Bonded by Blood as an artifact of a specific moment — the birth of thrash — remains genuinely thrilling.