When discussing the history of thrash metal, the contributions of legendary Los Angeles thrash band Dark Angel cannot be overlooked. The band’s second album, 1986’s Darkness Descends, is widely considered to be one of the seminal recordings of the genre. In fact, Revolver magazine placed the album on its “14 Thrash Albums You Need to Own” list.

The quality of the album owes more than a little to the fact that it was the first to feature powerhouse drummer Gene Hoglan who contributed heavily to the writing process. Hogan would go on to be a key member in both Death and Testament.

Here at Geeks Of Doom, we’re celebrating the 25th anniversary of some of the great music that was released in 1986. It was a big year for music, notably the genre of metal, with major groundbreaking releases coming out from Metallica, Megadeth, Slayer, and much more.

Over the next few weeks, you’ll be seeing some 1986 music flashback-related posts popping up here at Geeks of Doom, and to help keep the theme going, we decided to join forces with the Social Blend and get some tunes crankin’ in the lead up to some of these upcoming posts.

Social Blend mainly focuses on news and stories posted at Mixx.com, but every couple of months we do a special music edition of the show called CRANIUMELODY. Essentially we try and select some obscure and underrated songs for people to check out, and other times we make selections based on a topic or theme for the show.