Speed Metal

Speed metal is a subgenre of heavy metal music originating in the early 1980s that was the direct musical progenitor of thrash metal. When speed metal first emerged as a genre, it increased the tempos that had been used by early heavy metal bands such as Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, and Deep Purple, while retaining the melodic approach used by these bands. Many elements of speed metal are rooted in the music of UK's NWOBHM bands while fusing their stylistic approach with the music of 1970's punk rock

The term speed metal has been broken down and specified with other terms under heavy metal (typically thrash metal, power metal, and to a lesser extent, black metal) and is often succeeded by such terms when an artist's sound or style is specifically defined . The term 'speed metal' was also used in a very broad sense by some glam metal and NWOBHM groups during the 1980s. Many Japanese bands from the 1980s to the present can also be described as speed metal, largely due to the success of X Japan.