Savage Grace and other forgotten speed metal

Okay, originally this post was just going to be some brief thoughts about a twenty year old album that I recently got on cd. However, after hearing it and remembering something I read about it a few years ago, I began to think that Savage Grace were not alone and there were actually other similiar bands that also didn't get very far due to a change in speed metal. Okay, I am already going off in way too many directions so I need to slow down and take it from square one.

Who were Savage Grace?
They were an LA band that were around from about 82-88 and they recorded two lps and two eps. The cd that I just bought has the Dominatress ep and their debut lp Master of disguise on it. The Dominatress stuff was okay, not exactly like anyone else and nothing outstanding. The Master of disguise stuff was far better. You can tell they really liked Iron Maiden's Killers album as most of this album is very similiar only faster.

Back in 1985 Savage Grace had two songs on an album called Speed Metal Hell and I bought this on tape back then. My main topic starts along these lines. In 1985, they didn't have all the labels of genres and sub genres that now exist for different type sof metal or at least they were not used as often. So in 1985 a band like Savage Grace were considered speed metal yet so were Metallica, Slayer and Possessed despite the differences between these bands. Along with Savage Grace, I think bands like Exciter, Abbatoir and Agent Steel also fall into the same category. They were considered speed metal yet they were different from Slayer or Metallica. They all had some of the same influences like Maiden, Priest, Sabbath, Motorhead, Venom and Raven yet they these influences in dfferent ways. Savage Grace and Agent Steel sound a bit more like speeded up Iron Maiden and Judas Priest. That is certainly not a knock as I like all of these bands I mentioned. It's just that the songs are generally fast thus the speed part yet the riffs are generally not heavier or thicker than say more medium paced bands like Judas Preist. Now in 1983 Exciter, Metallica and Slayer all released their debuts and all three were along the lines of the speed metal I just described. The thing is Metallica and Slayer progressed a lot over the next two albums. The grew away from the thin riffs and both got heavier although in different ways. Exciter stayed about the same over the next two albums although they were good, solid albums. In 1985 there were bands like Savage Grace and Exciter still playing their kind of speed metal, but there bands like Exodus, Kreator and Artillery who popped up and started putting the heavy riffs in with the speed. I think bands like Savage Grace became old in 1986 when Metallica released Master of Puppets and Slayer released Reign in blood. These two albums changed the face of speed metal. After those two releases, the kind of speed metal Savage Grace, Exciter and others were doing just kind of faded away. Still cd's by some of these bands that I mentioned still fetch decent prices on ebay so someone still remembers them.