Electric Eye Audio's The Thrasher is the first proper dedicated Thrash Metal High Gain Distortion Pedal - magnificently representing both West Coast and East Coast signature sounds
When you check out the Thrash Metal genre you can’t help notice how it came to be so heavily dominated by the West Coast California Bay Area movement - as seen by the fact that 3 of the ’Big 4’ hale from that area - Metallica, Megadeth, and Slayer - with only Anthrax representing New York / East Coast. In fact if you cast your net wider to covering Newer and Vintage bands in that genre - the spread gets even more extreme with just a handful of bigger names - including Overkill representing the East Coast. Interestingly - ’Overkill’’s band name presumably comes from the Motörhead song title - which many cite as the key early influence for Thrash Metal alongside Queen’s track ’Stone Cold Crazy’.
So on The Thrasher pedal the Boost switch is labelled New York (EC), and Bay Area (WC) - with the first option representative of the more mids-forward sound signature of Scott Ian’s band Anthrax - essentially a tighter and more modern sound. While the down position delivers a Darker and Deeper somewhat scooped signature. Both sound properly immense - and it’s quite evident that EEA’s Silas Fernandes has spent a long time on exactingly calibrating those controls just so. As with all the EQ knobs - you get fully usable tones right across the sweep of each knob - and incredibly still usable just about with everything at Max.
The Net York Boost is essentially based on Scott Ian’s TC Booster/Distortion pedal, while the Bay Area Boost is based on using a ProCo Rat. Silas further explains that the core distortion circuit is largely based on a highly evolved JCM800 with significantly more heft to the bass. And the New York side is also pretty handy for 7 strings and lower tunings - giving you coverage for such behemoths as Meshuggah and Periphery.
The instruction sheet / manual warns not to take the Gain beyond the ’S’ Shredder level - while I actually kind of don’t mind it it fully ’Nutz’ dimed - in truth it shouldn’t really go above 3 o’c as you do get quite a bit of compression at the extremes. Largely though - the only controls I adjust regularly really are sweeping the Mids control between 9 o’c and 3 o’c - where my default position tends to be the ’9’ o’c, position, and switching up from Bay Area Boost to New York Boost. In some ways that switch is a little like going from Rhythm tone to Lead tone - so might be cool for future editions of this pedal to have the Boost switch as a second Footswitch. Gain sounds fantastic at the Thrasher and Shredder Markers - and up until 3 o’c it maintains that searing clarity - which after that can get a touch diminished at its peak.
Controls - Treble, Mids, Bass, Volume, Boost : New York (Tight Modern), Bay Area (Dark Classic), Gain (Thrasher / Shredder / Nutz).
This has fast become one of my very favourite High Gain Distortions as it's so well calibrated - that it truly sounds fantastic on pretty much every setting and is so easy to dial in. You get such a beautifully thick and richly textured - in fact really well-balanced output - which you can still shape in pretty expansive ways - but it maintains its fantastic core character and texture throughout.
There's plenty of range on every dial here - and it already sounds pretty much perfect with everything at noon - but you can then accentuate which parts of the signal are most pleasing to your ears.
The impact of this pedal is pretty instant - and it does put a number of other high gain pedals to shame with how fantastic its core default sounds right out of the gate.
The build quality is excellent, and both Red and Black edition are really attractive - possibly I lean just a little more into the Black - as I like how the Red knobs and accents elevate that enclosure in particular.
I love hearing my favourite Thrash Metal Riff on so many of the demos - Slayer's Raining Blood - that's always my go-to-riff for the genre - while I weirdly don't particularly love the whole song as such - just the Riff! And that Riff sounds amazing on The Thrasher.
So if you have love for any of those Kings of Thrash Metal - then this properly captures those tones in a very smartly conceived and brilliantly executed format. It's pretty much near perfect. I would though consider sticking the New York / Bay Area Boost switch onto a second Footswitch when this pedal next comes to be iterated.
One of the most satisfying High Gain Distortion Pedals out there for sure!
Available currently on the Electric Eye Audio Webstore with a 20% Haloween Discount (code : PUMPKIN23) at just $152 vs the regular price of $189 - a proper bargain!
The Thrasher pedal isn't just a must-have Thrash Metal Classic - it's one of the best High Gain Distortions out there full stop. Silas definitely knows what he's doing here! Sounds totally killer on 7 and 8 string guitars too!
Demos
