The story of Tankard’s rise to one of the most revered thrash metal bands from their humble beginnings in Frankfurt Germany, began under their first name of Avenger in the early 1982. It was their Heavy Metal Vanguard and Alcoholic Metal demos changing hands in the era’s bustling underground tape-trading network that exposed them to the international metal community.

Positive word of mouth soon attracted the attention of Germany’s own metal start-up, Noise Records, which signed the newly re-christened Tankard (beer mug) to a deal. Tankard’s tenure at the label spawned seven studio albums, one live record, a live video and a compilation and established them as one of the most enduring on the thrash scene. One they still tour globally to this day, to their hordes of maniac forces fans.

Never taking themselves too seriously and fuelled by a love of beer, their unique take on ‘fast thrash-punk’ is pure anarchy with lots of fun. Their ’86 debut Zombie Attack was fast, furious and chaotic fun which set the table of what was to come. Following hot on the heels of their debut, 1987’s Chemical Invasion sealed their thrash chops, with 1988’s The Morning After cementing the band on the global scene. The Alien EP kept momentum in ’89 until the 1990’s dawned with the reflective, The Meaning Of Life. 1991 saw their live fury documented in Fat, Ugly & Live and also a legendary thrash fest in East Berlin was committed to film in the form of Open All Night. Tankard remained prolific through the tough times for thrash of the 1990’s, keeping the faith with the introspective Stone Cold Sober (1992), Two-Faced (1993) saw them bare their teeth against social injustice and The Tankard’(1995) took them back to the familiar surroundings of the pub.

For A Thousand Beers is a deluxe 40th anniversary celebration of Tankard’s Noise Records discography and is the definitive collection of their decade of recorded work and contains :

- Zombie Attack (splatter vinyl)
- Chemical Invasion (swirl vinyl)
- The Morning After (including Alien EP) (splatter vinyl)
- The Meaning Of Life (paint drop vinyl)
- Stone Cold Sober (splatter vinyl)
- Two-Faced (half/half colour vinyl)
- The Tankard (including Tankwart EP) (splatter vinyl)
- Fat, Ugly & Live DVD – containing ‘Open All Night’ concert film, ‘Fat, Ugly & Live’ album plus previously unreleased video concert from the Dynamo, Eindhoven 1987 and audio concert from Frankfurt 1988.
- 12” x 12”, 40 page hardback book of photography, quotes and lyrics from the first decade of the band’s existence. Contains rare and previously unseen photos from the era.

All housed in a case of beer box.

For A Thousand Beers will also be available as a 7xCDs and DVD clamshell box set containing all the studio albums, EP’s and the DVD with all the live concert bonus material.

Available on February 25, you can pre-order here, and watch a new video for "(Empty) Tankard" below.

(Photo - Axel Jusseits)