Man, this was a blast, like a big drunken kitchen party with all yer old school thrash heroes. Comprising 101,300 words of intense detailed history and piles of archival memorabilia shots, this book is planned as the first of a thrash trilogy that will wrap up in 1991 (stay tuned to find out why).

In the logical follow-up to Popoff’s celebrated New Wave of British Heavy Metal trilogy (Smokin’ Valves, Wheels of Steel and This Means War), Martin now brings us Hit the Lights: The Birth of Thrash, attacking heavy metal’s next wave of faster, heavier, angrier sounds, with a geographical shift in the axis to San Francisco and Los Angeles, with a bit of New York, Germany and Canada thrown in for good measure.

Utilizing his celebrated oral history method—rich with detailed chronological entries to frame the story—Popoff executes a slow and ruminating burn through 1981, 1982 and the first half of 1983, culminating in the release of Kill ‘em All, the landmark Metallica album widely considered to be the first thrash metal record proper.

Come join Martin, along with dozens of his old school headbanging buddies (including multiple members from thrash’s big four and beyond), as they together tell the tale of thrash’s forging from the influence of punk, ‘70s metal and the NWOBHM. Venom, Anvil, Exciter, Raven, Exodus, Anthrax, Metallica… they’re all here and willing to explain candidly and at length how and why metal past the implosion of the NWOBHM suddenly found itself barreling down the tracks at breakneck speed.