There are people who will tell you this is the first heavy metal album of all time. And I understand why they say that, especially with the benefit of hindsight. I respectfully disagree with that particular claim and I think I have pretty valid reasons for doing so, but that doesn’t take away from both …
Tag: Metal
Fear Inoculum (2019) by Tool
Tool goes Rush (circa late ’70s/early ’80s)!
Scumdogs of the Universe (1990) by GWAR
I was aware of GWAR for years before I ever heard a record. I probably heard a song or two, but it was much more snippets of them on late night music television. Something about them appealed to me.
Consuming Impulse (1989) by Pestilence
This is some excellent death metal. If you are looking for death metal, may I suggest this album.
Gutter Ballet (1989) by Savatage
I find myself stuck with a lot of progressive metal, especially ’90s progressive metal. I often find that it’s either too metal for the description – not a bad thing in and of itself – or too proggy and not metal enough. Apparently I’m nitpicky about this but I believe there is a happy medium …
Morbid Tales (1984) by Celtic Frost
This, Celtic Frost’s debut, is one of those “EPs in name only”, only that’s true of the US release, not the European release. In Europe it was in indeed an EP. In the US it was a short LP. Why bother mentioning this? Well, it’s classified everywhere as an EP, and these records usually get …
Still Life (1999) by Opeth
Guys, I think I don’t like Opeth.
War and Pain (1984) by Voivod
I had heard the name Voivod a bunch before I listened to this record. And I think I had always heard them mentioned as a thrash metal band. But somehow, right before I listened to this, I read they were a speed metal band. And though I think I knew that was wrong, that primed …
Powerslave (1984) by Iron Maiden
Iron Maiden are a little like the AC/DC of NWOBHM. At least they are to my ears. Once they dispatched their original lead singer, their sound really settled into place. And the listener is left with a lot of animals that, on the surface, sound very similar to each other. The distinguishing feature from album …
Times of Grace (1999) by Neurosis
I gave very high marks to Through Silver in Blood not necessarily because I liked it but because it felt, to me, like the beginning of post metal, and like the kind of thing metal bands make now (or at least recently) rather than the kind of thing bands were making in the mid ’90s. …
Stay Hungry (1984) by Twisted Sister
My image of Twisted Sister was pretty much busted by their debut record. So much of what I thought was true about them seemed to not actually be true about them, at least on that first record. However, listening to this, I feel like the initial impression was maybe a little more correct than I …
The Bleeding (1994) by Cannibal Corpse
To the best of my knowledge, this is the best selling death metal album of all time. Something about that makes it sound like its an essential record to me, which is why I find myself listening to a straight-up death metal record from 1994, years after the genres invention, and probably right around the …
At War With Satan (1984) by Venom
I don’t know why I skipped Black Metal last year. I may have listened to it once but I honestly don’t remember. If I did listen to it, I assume that I didn’t hear black metal, and read something about how it was more the title and the production values, rather than the music, that …
Secret Treaties (1974) by Blue Öyster Cult
This is my third Blue Öyster Cult record and I feel like I feel about it as I did about the other two: meh.
Burning the Witches (1984) by Warlock
Music has long been a boys club. It is only very very recently that women musicians have some control over their careers and it wasn’t too long ago, that women musicians were thought capable of only playing certain types of instruments. If there is one genre that would seem utterly impenetrable for women, it would …
Love at First Sting (1984) by Scorpions
I have been avoiding listening to a Scorpions my requisite three times for a long time, every time an anniversary of theirs has come up, because every experience of them I’ve had has told me I do not like them. From their biggest hit (heard here) to any of their records I’ve begun to listen …
Overkill (1979) by Motörhead
I have never listened to Motörhead’s debut in part because I have been warned off it by bad reviews. It came out a year and a half before this record but, in the meantime, the much more polished but still fast and relatively rough (for ’70s metal) Stained Class came out. What I’m trying to …
Van Halen II (1979)
I grudgingly gave Van Halen’s debut album a positive rating because, as much as I do not like this band, I must admit that they have a very, very good guitar player they are good at what they do and they have been (unfortunately) very influential. All of that is still true on the second …
In the Nightside Eclipse (1994) by Emperor
I really enjoyed Anthems to the Welkin at Dusk, the follow up to this record, because I really had no idea what I getting into, and figured it was just some run of the mill black metal. I am listening to this one after that one because apparently like to do things out of order.
1984 by Van Halen
I know when I listened to Van Halen’s debut album – I think the only album of theirs I’ve actually listened to all the way through before this one – I was thinking it lacked one thing: synthesizers. The decision to add a cheesy ’80s synth to a sound that was already pretty fucking dumb …
Defenders of the Faith (1984) by Judas Priest
I can’t say I loved Screaming for Vengeance. It felt pretty commercial to me – a little too concerned with selling records and not enough with Metal!!
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath (1973) by Black Sabbath
Is a band that does one particular thing very well, like Black Sabbath, allowed to evolve? It’s one of those tricky questions. On the one hand, we expect many if not most artists to evolve in some way. (Thank the Beatles for that, if you hate that.) On the other hand, some bands (AC/DC, Ramones, …
Chaosphere (1998) by Meshuggah
I listen to every record I review a bare minimum of three times (but rarely more than that unless I own the album and have heard it before). But every so often I listen to a record three times and I’m pretty sure I need to listen to it more to figure it out. This …
Chaos A.D. (1993) by Sepultura
I don’t know whether or not it’s because I heard Roots first, a few years ago, or because I have heard so much about this record, but upon first listen to this, I was kind of thinking “What’s the big deal?” Sometimes it’s hard to cast your mind back to another time, especially when I …
Heartwork (1993) by Carcass
This is the birth of melodic death metal in Britain, or something like that.
Wolverine Blues (1993) by Entombed
As I feel like I write in every single metal review I write lately, the metal world is a bizarre place where esoteric fusions of niches and subgenres get all sorts of attention from fans and critics while much of the rest of the music world continues on without anyone being aware that something new …
Melissa (1983) by Mercyful Fate
Can you imagine a metal band naming an album Melissa? Neither could I until I learned of this record. And then I just assumed there was going to be some kind of bizarre Allman Brothers cover or it wouldn’t actually be metal.
Killing Machine (1978) by Judas Priest [aka Hell Bent for Leather]
Judas Priest are not my favourite metal band by a long shot, but I had to admire how significant Stained Class was, with some tracks feeling like they were NWOBHM before such a thing even existed. I can’t decide now whether that was due to my very low expectations or the sound of that record, …
Sewn Mouth Secrets (1998) by Soilent Green
The metal world is a weird place, where people seem obsessed by (or at least devoted to) the adherence to genre tropes, so that the goal of some metal bands appears to be “how close can we get to perfectly encapsulating the sound of our sub subgenre?” I’m not sure anyone says that aloud, or …
Focus (1993) by Cynic
Most of the time, when I encounter “progressive death metal” (which this sounds like to me, but which it isn’t categorized as on RYM), I think “this isn’t very progressive.” It usually sounds like more ambitious death metal, but it doesn’t sound very proggy. Well, not so here. If there is one thing this record …