By the time Forbidden released their debut album,
Forbidden Evil, on September 30th, 1988, the NorCal crew had some big shoes to fill. The Bay Area thrash scene had already given birth to many important and highly influential metal acts including Exodus, Death Angel, Testament, Possessed and, of course, Metallica (who had relocated from Southern California in 1983).
Forbidden had been kicking around the scene for three years up to that point, so they were well aware of the region s legacy and the need to come out guns blazing with their debut. And they delivered. Upon its release,
Forbidden Evil caused such a ruckus in underground metal circles that it made people outside the Bay Area once again stand up and take notice of what was happening on the West Coast.
The San Francisco Bay Area is known far and wide as the epicenter of the Eighties thrash movement, and one of the bands central to the scene s second wave was Forbidden. While they may not have achieved the same widespread recognition as Bay Area forebears like Metallica and Exodus or peers like Testament and Death Angel, Forbidden left an indelible mark on the genre with two now-classic albums the 1988 debut
Forbidden Evil (which was also the band s original name) and the 1990 follow-up
Twisted Into Form.
Both efforts are packed with the sort of breakneck precision riffing, pounding drums, bark-to-a-scream vocals and all-around go-for-the-throat untamed wildness that characterized thrash in the Eighties, with