In the summer of 1986, three musicians from Weil am Rhein recorded seven tracks at Studio Hilpoltstein in Germany. The production was thin. The drums were flat. The guitar tone was what one reviewer would later call “a razor’s edge.” The bassist was also the vocalist. There was no second guitarist. The album was Eternal Devastation, released July 12, 1986, on Steamhammer Records, and it stands nearly 40 years to the date as one of the essential documents of German thrash metal – the record that confirmed Destruction were not merely the most extreme band operating in their region, but one of the most compositionally sophisticated thrash acts anywhere in the world.
