“To put things ever so gently, the 1990s were not a good time for heavy metal, especially not the classic triumvirate of British heavy metal. Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, both riding the winds of success of the 1980s, were struggling to stay afloat due to dips in quality of music, the change of musical tastes in people, the looming flannel-cloaked spectre of grunge, and both their vocalists leaving to pursue solo careers. Black Sabbath, though… hoo boy.” More Humanizer than a human, man.
“The first Metallica song I heard was “Enter Sandman,” although it wasn’t Metallica’s version. I’d become familiar with the song via one of Weird Al’s polka medleys, and one day, when I was around 10 or 11 years old.” Blackened nostalgia.
“The year of our Angry Metal Overlord 2001 was a “very good year,” to quote the everyone who has ever spoken about wine in a movie. Indeed, the year that produced Opeth’s epic and scene-changing Blackwater Park and Propagandhi’s Today’s Empires, Tomorrow’s Ashes, also gave us Mutter by Rammstein, Awakening the World by Lost Horizon and Laundry Service by Shakira. But is Last Fair Deal Gone Down the best album released in 2001?”
“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.
