Metal Massacre VIII (1987)

Cost: $1.00

I've owned the 2-on-1 CD of Metal Massacre 8/9 for years, but this was a wonderful find--the original Restless pressing of Metal Massacre 8!  I'm pretty sure this was the first Metal Massacre out on CD at the time of its original release (CD editions of prior volumes are technically reissues, since they weren't available when the albums were originally released).  The odd thing is that Metal Massacre 9 was never released in its entirety on CD, just on the 2-on-1 with some tracks left off.

I'm not going to bother doing a track by track review--what is there to dislike here?--but I'm personally partial to the Overlorde, Fatal Violence, and Tactics songs.  Nothing here really reaches the greatness of some of the moments on volumes 2-6, but this is arguably the most solid Metal Massacre volume as a whole.  The quality level is pretty even, so no tracks really stand out as stinkers compared to others, and there aren't any songs I'm inclined to skip when listening.  You'd think for the release year the compilation would be pretty thrash heavy, but a good chunk of the roster is rooted in traditional, power, and speed metal.