What exactly is Speed Metal?

I'll probably get corrected for, this but I'd say Speed Metal's the love child of heavy metal and punk rock, both of which matured in the late 70s/early 80s. You take the song structure and riffing of heavy metal, but play with the tempo of punk. Thrash tends to incorporate the minor / arabian (?) scales, harsher vocals, tempo changes and breakdowns who you don't see in speed metal.

That said, trying to definte genres and boundaries for everything is the wrong way to look at music! Genrefication lead to elitists, elitists lead to hate, and hate... leads to the dark side.

THIS is the most perfect Speed you can hear: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Jadbru_nlHE (Actually if you search Speed Metal on the dictionary a picture of Exciter is there). For me is the transition between traditional Heavy Metal to power/Thrash, characteristic guitar riffs and tempos. And about Judas Priest well just hear Exciter and Dissident Aggressor and tell me is not Speed, even Queen's Stone Cold Crazy is categorized to be one of the first SM songs.

I guess the best way I would define it is a bridge between heavy and thrash metal

Very hard to figure but very interesting aswell. I would agree to imfans post i guess, that it is a mixture between Heavy and Thrash Metal, but only with Full Throttle. One very important ingredient for me are the high pitched, ear-piercing Vocals! Also Dual guitars, which is not so common in Thrash but very common in regular Heavy Metal. Also it often has a kind of ... well heroic feeling to it which is typical for (good) Heavy Metal and can also be heard in the posted Exciter Song. And of course it has to be relativley fast. ;)
Among the First Speed Metal Songs ever i would surely mention Accept's "Fast as a shark" and Priest's "Exciter".

In my eyes (ears) one of the most perfect, important and Genre-defining Bands is definitely this:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tdCwdfjMqHg
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BOq-ZW6FiOY

Also old Blind Guardian are Top Notch Speed Metal:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y1hfP91cgMw
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gTPcuie-SQU

Really hard to define. I recognize Speed Metal when i hear it, i guess that's my rather lame definition. :)

i've always considered it between heavy and thrash. thats why i consider bands like motorhead and venom to be speed metal since they're not iron maiden or judas priest and they're not anthrax or exodus

I always thought of speed metal as heavy metal played at very fast tempo and with fast and rhythmic riffing and drumming and relatively clean vocals. I would assume though that the song tempo would have the greatest impact on what makes music speed metal. As an example, Flotsam and Jetsam: Doomsday for the Deceiver is an album I've always considered to be speed metal, rather than thrash metal. Eric A.K. is a clean singing vocalist and word for word per minute, he sings about as fast as anyone I can think of on this record. And yes, there are some parts that are played and sung at a slower tempo, but largely the songs here are played at a very fast tempo, with very fast riffing and drumming and very fast, articulated, clean vocals. The title track is played at around 260 beats per minute or so, prestissimo. The beat is subdivided further by the guitar riffs into regular triplet patterns played in rapid succession in the verse, bridge, chorus, basically all the way through, following the slow intro, so the main, dominating riffs are played at menacing speed. But of course thrash has a lot of fast riffing and fast sung vocals so it can be hard to distinguish. I usually associate speed metal with clean vocals and higher quality production (not in a good or bad way) and tighter, more transparent mix (think Blind Guardian) and thrash usually having harsher vocals, with less production value (not in a bad way) and a looser, splashier mix (think Artillery or Sabbat UK), but that isn't always gonna be the case (Slayer comes to mind as a band often regarded to as speed metal, but with harsh vocals). Another thought: a lot of the thrash and speed coming out of the US and Germany during the late 80's were influenced by early Maiden and Priest, who pioneered speed and thrash, imo. Maiden offered more in the trash realm than Priest, largely due to Clive Burr's frantic drumming style and Paul Di'anno's harsh vocals. Priest, I think of as being more of an influence of speed metal. Just look to Painkiller to see how speed evolved for them over time and how it represents the pinnacle effort for the genre in the eyes of many speed fans. Also, Halford is largely a clean singing vocalist. For Maiden, once Dickinson stepped in, the music changed, the riffing slowed down some, and I'll bet the song tempos did too overall. There are other contributing factors, like lyrical content, political views, the band's physical look and stage presence and I'm sure other things I haven't thought of.

Isnt Kill 'Em All a good example of speedmetal?

Does it matter? If it is fast, why not call it speed, if you want.

I always thought that speed metal & thrash metal were interchangeable terms :/ they are both decidedly "speedy"

As for the speed metal "symbol" it was simply a little tag used by the canadian banzai records to let their customers know which albums they were buying that were of a more "extreme" variety; when you bought a voivod or kreator or celtic frost record and saw that little symbol in the corner, you knew this was going to be more aggressive than a twisted sister album or something.
But then someone decided to put the symbol on t-shirts and patches and I guess it ended up turning into a "thing" that people are going to debate about what exactly it means when it really doesn't mean much of anything

Basically heavy metal played at a faster tempo, thus, since thrash and power metal are offsprings of heavy metal, the term "speed metal" is many times interchangeable with those two, that is my interpretation of it :D

Speed metal for example: RAVEN, HERETIC, MELIAH RAGE, LIEGE LORD, RAGE

I think Speed metal an existing between heavy metal and thrash metal...what do you think?

Another great Speed Metal Act from the US (i actually listen to the vinyl right now) : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=La__AjvRPFY

Racer X.. https://youtu.be/bZyIqOq658w

Speedtrap, Speedbreaker, Ewig Frost (thought, this is more Metalpunk, but without a doubt, it's Speed Metal influenced)

- Atlain - Space & Time

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ucNr4X4Ghwg

Killing is my Business... and Business is good...

Enough said.

Sounds silly but here it goes.
Basically Speed Metal is all about the feel of the music. Lets say that a guitar player wanted to play faster than ever or a drummer wanted to show his fast skills then they need some "blow" in order to play faster. Drinking booze helps a little bit in singing. and Bass players, you can't be Steve Harris or Lemmy.

I feel like Speed metal is a more Primitive, a little bit less aggressive version of thrash metal but a more technical version of Traditional metal. So I'm here to preach about the D and G strings on the guitar.....Speed metal in general uses a lot more traditional style riffs on the middle strings of the guitar which was kind of heard in kill em and fistful of metal all but forgotten as thrash got more hardcore like Hell awaits and darkness descends. that type of middle string riffing was very common in traditional metal bands like Accept, and Tank and in NWOBHM in general. the name speed metal barely makes sense anymore because all the bands sound pretty mid paced compared to the beats of Watain or Sadus so the name is easily misunderstood.

I consider speed metal the first albums of thrash metal bands after 84´, because the mayor part of the riffs are in open E, and they played it fast and add some notes , but the mayor part of them are open E, fast guitar solos, and lirycs about beer, been rude, motorcycles,satan,heavy metal.

How about differentiating melodic speed metal from power metal? That's one thing I never understood.

I'd put them under Speed Metal, although, Protected From Reality is pretty thrashy. Another good German Speed Metal band to check out is Warrant.