Thrash legends Exodus bring the noise.

Don't tell Exodus guitarist Gary Holt to slow down, because he probably doesn't know what that means.

Holt has led his pioneering thrash metal band through two breakups, numerous member changes and the death of ex-singer Paul Baloff.

And after nearly 30 years, the band is playing faster and heavier than ever before.

Exodus will storm through the Shaw Conference Centre Sunday night with fellow '80s Bay Area thrash heroes Testament and Megadeth, who promise to perform their classic 1990 album Rust in Peace in its entirety.

"Our goal in Exodus is just basically to defy time, to defy age, to have every album just get more furious and more angry and more intense," says Holt, the only member who has never left the band.

Holt joined Exodus in 1982 shortly after current drummer Tom Hunting formed the band with guitarist Kirk Hammett.

Hammett left the next year to join Metallica where he replaced Dave Mustaine, who subsequently formed Megadeth.

While both of those bands went on to enjoy platinum records and international fame, Exodus has remained relatively unknown outside of metal circles.

Holt blames this partly on his band's live show. Not because it's not good enough, -- but because he reckons it might be too good.

"Other guys are really scared to take us out because we play with the energy of (guys) half our age. When you're out with a bunch of guys who don't, we can tend to make you look bad," he says.

At one New Year's Eve gig in San Francisco, he suspects that's exactly what scared off his old party buddies in Metallica, as the two bands rang in the year 1986 along with Megadeth and Metal Church.

"It was a huge show ... and we crushed them. I think that had a lot to do with why we've never played with Metallica again. People don't like to get one-upped," Holt says.

Exodus was notorious in the Bay Area scene for its hard-partying ways as much as its violent, over-the-top live shows. And unlike Mustaine, who is a sobered-up, born-again Christian, Holt is still up for a good old-fashioned rager from time to time.

"We still like our liquor, that's for damn sure," he says, jokingly conceding that he's cut back from his old daily habit of "a gallon of vodka at dawn."

But while some things haven't changed, the band's last all-new album, 2007's The Atrocity Exhibition: Exhibit A, presents a distinctly modern take on thrash metal that's harder and darker than anything the band was playing in its heyday.

While Exodus once sought to achieve Metallica-level mainstream success -- Holt admits the 1990 album Force of Habit was an attempt to do just that -- the band is now playing with little regard to reaching out beyond the metal world.

The quintet is at the forefront of a reinvigorated thrash scene that includes other middle-aged bangers like Slayer, Kreator, Heathen and Death Angel as well as a crop of youngsters who weren't even born when Exodus released its legendary 1985 debut Bonded by Blood.

"A lot of people will ask me things like, 'Exodus is achieving a lot of popularity again, do you think it's due to thrash metal coming back?' " Holt says. "And I say, 'No. I think thrash metal's coming back because of Exodus.' "

The goal now, he says, is to remain "the most dangerous animal in the jungle."

With legions of younger bands pushing metal to new extremes, that's got to be a tough title to maintain.

Or, so you'd think.

"No," Holt insists. "We're still heavier than anybody."