“There are very few albums that I consider to be 5.0s or, in AMG money, ‘iconic.’ There are even fewer that I can actually picture the moment I first heard. One of those, however, is Blackwater Park. Opeth‘s fifth full-length album probably shaped my extreme metal tastes more than any other single record and I cannot believe it is already 20 years old.” Park of the beast.
“Unlike the other bands featured in these Retro-spective reviews, New York’s own Riot is a seminal, long running and well known act. Slogging away since 1977, they released classic albums like Rock City and Fire Down Under. So why are they included here you ask? Well, one of their albums seems to have been lost in time and forgotten even though I regard it as their best by far. That album is, or course, 1988’s Thundersteel.” Steel on Steel.
2019 saw Holdeneye shock the world by asking the time-honored question we’ve all at least passively pondered: what’s the heaviest record of all time? Kronos, for his part, appeared to answer a short while later in his review for Devourment’s Obscene Majesty. If you asked New York death metal institution and heaviest band in the universe Mortician, the answer would hopefully be a Mortician record.” Brutal cue.
“1996 represented a challenging year for Rage Against the Machine. It was 4 years after their incendiary debut, Rage Against the Machine, had deftly combined metal and rap, and before nu metal was considered the leper of metal genres. There were already clear creative differences within the band, with front man Zack de la Rocha occasionally at odds with his band-mates. Whereas the songs for Rage had developed organically and spontaneously, the follow-up, Evil Empire, was proving to be a much more labored affair, taking over 2 years to write and perform.” Against empires forlorn.
“Blind, Corrosion of Conformity‘s third album, was an odd duckling for various reasons when it dropped in 1991. It remains the only album to not feature longtime bassist/vocalist Mike Dean in any capacity, but also the only album to feature his replacements, vocalist Karl Agell and bassist Phil Swisher. It also debuted guitarist/vocalist Pepper Keenan, who only sang lead on the album’s hit single, “Vote With a Bullet.” Above all else, Blind saw the band at a crossroads of sorts, with one foot planted in the band’s seminal punk/hardcore history, while planting the other foot into Sabbath-drenched doom/sludge territory. The end result captured lightning in a bottle and today, Blind joins the ranks of the Hallowed and the Olde.” Blind but farseeing.
“Seattle rock legends Alice In Chains may not strictly qualify as metal, but they are widely regarded within the metal community, especially compared to the other big name bands of the famed grunge era, which tend to polarize metalheads. Perhaps it’s the blanket of sorrow and darkness enveloping their sound, coupled with the sludge and doom influences, that compliment their hard rock core and melancholic acoustic forays. Although Alice In Chains are still chugging along admirably to the present day, it was the band’s ’90s heyday and era with doomed frontman Layne Staley that remains the classic and defining era of the band.” Alice lives.
“As such, my hometown heroes are Bobnoxious, a stupendously fun hard rock band fronted by Bob Reid, whom you may recognize from Razor’s terrific records Shotgun Justice and Open Hostility, and the lesser Decibels. There was, however, another special band from London, Ontario. That band was the power trio known as Sabre, and they released only one record in On the Prowl.” Olde swords.
A look back at Nevermore‘s Dead Heart in a Dead World, which is now freaking olde.
“Then there’re examples like Fast Eddie Clarke walking away from Motörhead and the canning of Ozzy Osbourne by Black Sabbath. Anthrax, Exodus, Iron Maiden, and Judas Priest lost their vocalists, who psyched everyone out and returned later anyway. In some cases, end-of-era albums are more like transition pieces—bridging the gap between the band of old and the band of new. Arguably Metallica‘s …And Justice For All fits the bill. It was clear that Justice was different, but it wasn’t until Metallica arrived that everyone saw what Justice really was. King Diamond‘s The Eye is also such an album.” Fading eyesight.
“Overrated. That’s the most recent Twitter post I saw about Painkiller, the specimen of metallic glory that is thirty years olde now. Listen, this album is only overrated if you rank it at the very top of Judas Priest’s long and glorious discography; however, it is most certainly amongst their best albums, and amongst the best that the heavy metalverse had to offer in 1990. And as 2020 draws to a slow and painful close, we can all use some Painkiller to help us get through these last few weeks. Let’s take a look back at this album, and see just why it deserves some extra attention.” PAIN!
