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Blast beat is a drum beat made with rapid alternating or coinciding strokes primarily on the bass and snare drum. The snare drum and emphasised 'push'. Diverse patterns and timings are also frequently used by more technical players, such as Gene Hoglan (Strapping Young Lad/Dethklok), Alex Hernandez (Immolation) or Flo Mounier (Cryptopsy). Alternative styles of blast beats include using a two strokes on bass drum followed by one stroke of the snare drum, such as played by Pete Sandoval (Terrorizer, Morbid Angel), or using scarce strokes on the bass drum, which are frequently played by Max Duhamel (Kataklysm).

Blast beats have their roots in hardcore punk, most notably D.R.I's "No Sense" on their first LP (1983) and Beastie Boys "Riot Fight" on their first EP, Pollywog Stew (1982). Other examples include Heart Attack, Cryptic Slaughter and Lärm. Blast beats were, however, first used in jazz by drummers such as Angelo Spampinato, Tony Williams and Sunny Murray, in particular his 1964 Greenwich Village recording of "Holy Ghost" with Albert Ayler. They are a prominent feature of power violence, grindcore, death metal, and black metal, although blast beats do appear in other genres as well to increase speed, density, and percussiveness.

The original use in metal music is generally attributed to Dave 'Grave' Hollingshead (Repulsion), Charlie Benante (Anthrax, SOD), and Mick Harris (Napalm Death). Grave received most of the credit for the "single footer." Benante showcased the technique by a double-handed blast beat in the track "Milk" on the SOD album Speak English or Die, later played single-handed on the live album Live at Budokan.

Harris started using it as a fundamental aspect of Napalm Death's early musical compositions. As perhaps the most important of innovations, Mike Smith invented and pioneered the technique of a blast beat that is played with bass drums, snare, and cymbals all in synchronization, as opposed to the original form, which most attribute to Napalm Death's Mick Harris, where the snare drum alternates with the bass drum and cymbal.^{[citation needed]}

Early blast beats were generally quite slow and less precise compared to today's standards. Nowadays, a blast beat is normally played in tempos from 160-180 beats per minute, with so-called "hyper blasts" existing in the range of 240-260 bpm (or even higher). There is also the "gravity blast", which implements a one-handed roll, called a gravity roll. This technique uses the rim of the snare as a fulcrum on which the stick is rocked back and forth, allowing two snare hits with each full arm motion (one on the down motion, and another coming up, essentially doing the work of two hands with only one).

Typical blast beats consist of 8th-note patterns between both the bass and snare drum alternately, with the hi-hat or the ride synced. Variations exist such as displacing hi-hat/ride, snare and bass drum hits and/or using other cymbals such as splashes, crashes, chinas and even tambourines for accenting, for example when using odd time or playing progressively. While playing 8th or 8th note triplets some drummers choose to play in sync with one foot while others split the 8th notes between both feet.

Examples of blast beat notation:

H- x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|   H- x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|   H- x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|   R- x-x-x-x-x-x-x-x-|
S- o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-|   S- -o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o|   S- o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-|   S- oooooooooooooooo|
B- o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-|   B- o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-|   B- oooooooooooooooo|   B- o-o-o-o-o-o-o-o-|

Recorded samples of the notated drumtabs