Slayer: Reign in Blood
Released the same year as Master of Puppets, Slayer’s Reign in Blood took the opposite road: ten tracks, under thirty minutes, no…
9.5/10 September 19, 2026
Read the review
Section
Reviews
Eyehategod: Take as Needed for Pain
Eyehategod’s second album, Take as Needed for Pain, released on Century Media in 1993, is an absolute pillar of New Orleans sludge.…
8.5/10 September 19, 2026
Read the review
Descendents: Milo Goes to College
Released in 1982, Milo Goes to College is the Descendents’s first album and one of the most influential records in the genesis…
8.5/10 September 19, 2026
Read the review
Hammerfall: Glory to the Brave
In the mid 1990s, when traditional heavy metal was widely dismissed as outdated next to grunge and death metal, a Swedish band…
8/10 September 19, 2026
Read the review
Korn: Korn
The debut album from the Bakersfield band, Korn is often regarded as the birth certificate of nu metal. Produced by Ross Robinson,…
9/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Symphony X: The Odyssey
The sixth album by the American band Symphony X, The Odyssey, released in 2002, marks a decisive step in the evolution of…
8.5/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Fear Factory: Demanufacture
Fear Factory’s second album, Demanufacture, imposed in 1995 a futuristic and implacable vision of metal. The Los Angeles band here perfects its…
9/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Faith No More: Angel Dust
Faith No More’s fourth album, Angel Dust, released in 1992, is one of the most audacious and disorienting records of alternative metal.…
10/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Black Sabbath: Paranoid
Black Sabbath’s second album, released in 1970, Paranoid is one of heavy metal’s birth certificates. Produced by Rodger Bain, it arrived the…
9.5/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Circle Jerks: Group Sex
Released in 1980, Group Sex is the Circle Jerks’s first album and one of the most radical records of early California hardcore.…
8.5/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Soundgarden: Superunknown
Released in 1994 on A&M, Superunknown is Soundgarden’s fourth album and the record of maturity for the Seattle band. More ambitious, more…
9.5/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Machine Head: The Blackening
Released in 2007, The Blackening marks Machine Head’s return to the forefront. The band led by Robb Flynn delivers here its most…
9.5/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Electric Wizard: Dopethrone
Often cited among the heaviest albums ever recorded, Dopethrone (2000) is the third record by Britain’s Electric Wizard and their absolute peak.…
9.5/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Decapitated: Nihility
Released in 2002, Nihility is Decapitated’s second album, and it already definitively establishes the Polish band as a major force in world…
8.5/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Morbid Angel: Altars of Madness
Morbid Angel’s debut, Altars of Madness, stands in 1989 as one of the founding acts of Florida death metal. Fast, chaotic and…
9/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Burzum: Hvis lyset tar oss
Recorded by Varg Vikernes in the early 1990s and released in 1994, Hvis lyset tar oss is recognised as a landmark of…
8.5/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Metallica: Master of Puppets
Metallica’s third album, Master of Puppets (1986), is routinely named as the peak of thrash metal. Cut at Sweet Silence Studios in…
9.5/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Kyuss: Welcome to Sky Valley
The third album by California’s Kyuss, Welcome to Sky Valley (1994), is often regarded as the cornerstone of desert rock. Born from…
9/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Sleep: Dopesmoker
Few albums carry a history as legendary as Sleep’s Dopesmoker. Recorded in the 1990s but released in full in 2003, this record…
9/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Acid Bath: When the Kite String Pops
Acid Bath’s first album, When the Kite String Pops, released on Rotten Records in 1994, is one of the most disorienting records…
8.5/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Ramones: Ramones
Released in 1976 on Sire, the Ramones’s self-titled debut is one of the birth certificates of punk rock. Recorded quickly and on…
9.5/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Misfits: Walk Among Us
Released in 1982, Walk Among Us is the Misfits’s first full studio album and one of the founding texts of horror punk.…
8.5/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Blind Guardian: Nightfall in Middle-Earth
Blind Guardian’s sixth album, Nightfall in Middle-Earth, released in 1998, is a summit of European power metal. Conceived as a concept album…
9/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Slipknot: Iowa
Slipknot’s second studio album, Iowa, arrived carried by the meteoric success of the debut and an exhausting tour. Recorded again with producer…
9/10 September 18, 2026
Read the review
Dream Theater: Images and Words
Released in 1992, Images and Words is Dream Theater’s second album and the first with singer James LaBrie. It stands as one…
9.5/10 September 17, 2026
Read the review
Rammstein: Mutter
The third album from Berlin’s Rammstein, Mutter, confirmed the band’s international status in 2001. A pillar of Neue Deutsche Harte, this record…
9/10 September 17, 2026
Read the review
System of a Down: Toxicity
System of a Down’s second album, Toxicity, propelled the Los Angeles band to the summit of alternative metal. Produced by Rick Rubin,…
9.5/10 September 17, 2026
Read the review
Iron Maiden: The Number of the Beast
Iron Maiden’s third album, The Number of the Beast (1982), is the record of transformation. It is the first with Bruce Dickinson…
9/10 September 17, 2026
Read the review
Dead Kennedys: Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables
Released in 1980, Fresh Fruit for Rotting Vegetables is the Dead Kennedys’s first album and one of the most incisive records of…
9/10 September 17, 2026
Read the review
Rainbow: Rising
Released in 1976, Rising is the second album by Rainbow, the band led by guitarist Ritchie Blackmore after his departure from Deep…
9.5/10 September 17, 2026
Read the review
Alice in Chains: Dirt
Released in 1992 on Columbia, Dirt is Alice in Chains’s second album and one of the darkest records to emerge from the…
9.5/10 September 17, 2026
Read the review
Pantera: Vulgar Display of Power
Released in 1992, Vulgar Display of Power is the record that locked in Pantera’s definitive identity. Having shed the glam of its…
9/10 September 17, 2026
Read the review
Napalm Death: Scum
Scum, released on Earache in 1987, is a founding record in the most literal sense there is: it lays the very groundwork…
8.5/10 September 17, 2026
Read the review
Candlemass: Epicus Doomicus Metallicus
Few albums lend their name to an entire subgenre. Epicus Doomicus Metallicus (1986), the debut by Sweden’s Candlemass, is one of them:…
9/10 September 17, 2026
Read the review
Meshuggah: obZen
Released in 2008 on Nuclear Blast, obZen marks a turning point in the story of modern extreme metal. After more than fifteen…
9/10 September 17, 2026
Read the review
My Dying Bride: Turn Loose the Swans
My Dying Bride’s second album, released on Peaceville in 1993, marks a decisive turn for the young death doom movement. Where many…
9/10 September 17, 2026
Read the review