Cinephilic Musings

Murder in the Front Row: The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story is an entertaining, breezy exploration of the dawn of thrash metal. As with grunge in Seattle, the dawn of heavy metal in the United States centered around a specific geographic region - the San Francisco Bay Area. Even bands that originally formed elsewhere (for example, Metallica) ended up moving to the Bay Area to get access to talent and the network the area provided. Being the largest example of commercial success of this genre, Metallica naturally gets the most airtime during the documentary, but the film also devotes a considerable amount of time to their peers, Exodus. Though successful in their own right, Exodus becomes more of a contrast to Metallica, with their original frontman, Paul Baloff, famous for refusing to write any ballads. The film devotes a considerable amount of time to exploring the culture and milieu surrounding the Bay Area scene, including club owners who were willing to let the scene gro...