Bolt Thrower
English death metal band
Bolt Thrower were a British death metal band from Coventry, England. They formed in 1986 and released their first album with Vinyl Solution in 1988. The band moved to Earache Records and became one of the label's best-selling bands. Their last label was Metal Blade Records. The band had a succession of members and toured Europe, the United States, and Australia. Over the course of their 30-year career, Bolt Thrower released eight studio albums, three EPs, one live album, three compilation albums and two demos. Their albums have sold over 100,000 copies in the United States as of 2005.
Following the release of their eighth album, Those Once Loyal (2005), Bolt Thrower announced an indefinite hiatus from recording in June 2008, although they continued to tour until drummer Martin Kearns's death on 14 September 2015 and their subsequent disbandment in 2016, on the first anniversary of his death.
Bolt Thrower have been called "one of Britain's most consistent and enduring death metal bands."
History
Early history (1986–1988)
Bolt Thrower were formed in September 1986, influenced by bands such as Slayer, Crass and Discharge. Bassist Gavin Ward and guitarist Barry Thomson founded the band in a Coventry pub toilet during a hardcore punk show.
The public source identifies “Bolt Thrower” as english death metal band. This brief keeps that definition visible, then builds a research path around Bolt, Thrower and English.
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The citation trail is more important than the brevity of the summary: it shows where individual claims can be examined in context. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 17, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q662463. VIAF identifies the subject as 153767485. The Library of Congress control number is no00020985. 4 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1986, 1988, 2005 and 2008.
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This entry incorporates text from “Bolt Thrower” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.