The Batlord

^^^ Love that album. Right up there with Helloween's Keeper of the Seven Keys albums as far as early power metal goes.

I'm fine with genres. I'm not one of those self-righteous pissants who goes around saying, "Who cares about sub-genres, just listen to the music". I know that they're useful, I'm just dubious about whether some of them are really sub-genres or just OCD fans splitting hairs. Like battle metal. Really? I remember when that tag came around, and it just felt like metal mags coming up with a shiny new bullshit label to market a bunch of folk metal bands with extra cheesy lyrics. I love Panzer too. I'm just sad that inbetween Ample Destruction and their comeback that Conklin's voice deteriorated to a degree. I bought their Decade of the Nail-Spiked Bat compilation years ago, since it had some rerecorded versions of songs from Ample, which was out of print, and was bummed at the difference in vocal quality. If only they'd stayed together back in the day then we might have more material with him at his peak.

22. Marduk - Panzer Division Marduk (1999) Many black metal purists don't like this album, as A.) it's heavy influenced by death metal, and B.) it has relatively clean production. These people suck, as this is quite possibly the most intense black metal album I've ever heard, and it gives even the most brutal of death metal bands a run for their money. I guess you could call this war metal for its black/death approach, but whereas most of those bands have pretty muddy production, this album has a much fuller sound, which really lets the aural assault hit you with full force. All the songs sound the same, but who the fuck cares? Extra points for the greatest song name in all of music: "Christraping Black Metal". Honorable mention: "Fistfucking God's Planet".

Same here. Just so crushing. The only DM influences are in the vocals and the abrasiveness of the production. Other than that it just feels like tank treads slowly, relentlessly grinding you into dust. Yet without being droney like funeral doom. And I can't think of another vocalist whose growls have that much "weight" to them. Perfect singer for a death/doom band.

Nah. I love both albums, but The Law is just so heavy, and different from the mountain of other death thrash albums.

I didn't much dig Kyuss for the longest time, partially because of the vocals, but then I turned the volume up to neighbor-hating levels and it just clicked. They may not be Electric Wizard heavy, but their rock 'n' roll take on stoner metal has a great energy that just makes my toe tap as well my head bang.

I certainly don't know enough about the greater, worldwide doom scene in general to say for sure, but with the rise of the internet I imagine all genres are growing more than they would have otherwise. And considering that doom, as I understand it, has historically been largely ignored -- I guess because people throughout the eighties and nineties were looking for metal to get faster rather than slow down -- then it has a lot more room for growth than already bloated genres like death and black metal. It's certainly no coincidence that thrash made such a (unfortunate) comeback around the time that file sharing got big, so if doom is finally getting the same respect as all of the other sub-genres, then I can only give credit to the internet.

Honestly, though Bon Jovi have the trappings of a hair metal band, I kind of think of them as a pop band with guitars. Maybe AOR with enough glam to make them sound relevant to their time period. They're great when they're concentrating on pop hooks, but when they try to rock it's like when the Beatles tried to do the same: just unconvincing and a tad awkward. Just stick to "Livin' On a Prayer/"Eleanor Rigby" and leave the music with actual balls to Motley Crue/the Rolling Stones.

19. Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath (1970) Clearly this list is going to be incomplete until someone mentions Sabbath. Might as well start at the beginning; the beginning of Black Sabbath and metal as we know it. Many disagree on what is their best album, but for me it's always been the debut. It's B-sdie is far weaker than the A-side -- many bands from back then liked to throw in jams at the end of their albums, but this was clearly not Sabbath's strong suit -- but the first four songs are brilliant enough that they outweigh the strengths of every album they released afterward. The falling rain at the beginning of the album, making way for that evil tri-tone riff is the beating heart and soul of everything that is metal. It took me a while to truly appreciate how amazing the title track was, but when I did I was a fan for life. The production is another one of my favorite things about the album. It's not nearly as bass heavy as later albums, but that thinner sound just gives it this phantasmagorical blues atmosphere that they never even came close to again. Why they lost interest in that aspect of their sound I don't know, but I truly miss it.

18. Exhorder - The Law (1992) Groove metal. Thrash. Post-thrash. Whatever the fuck you wanna call this album, it's heavy and brutal as fuck. One thing that most groove metal bands don't seem to get right is that they lack a certain dynamic energy that carries you through from track to track, making all but the best albums boring halfway through. Pantera often fails at this. Machine Head does as well. Exhorder do not. Their thrash roots allow the heavy-as-fuck riffs to remain enthralling from beginning to end. As far as I'm concerned, when I'm in the mood for brutal death thrash, this is usually my first stop, followed by Morbid Saint and Devastation and Demolition Hammer and etc. Simply one of the most badass metal albums of all time. And just check that Sabbath cover, dude. Fuck yeah. Also, just to stick up for Pantera -- while they're not my fav band by any stretch of the imagination -- the idea that they ripped off Exhorder is nonsense. If they ripped them off then just about every thrash/death/black/etc metal band in existence are nothing but rip offs. Not to mention pretty much the entire NOLA sludge scene would likewise be thieves. Influence does not equal ripping off.

Heavy. Thy name is Kyuss. O8VmoqBz9Vg

I don't know what that means, but more power to ya.

I'd just like to narcissistically point out that the three threads I started are all in the top ten, with two of them at the top. Booyaka.

You know. I think we can be friends.

I know we haven't known each other long, but can I have your TV when you're gone?

Well, yeah, but to what purpose? Their royalties are gonna be shit regardless. Like, shit shit. It's the touring that keeps them eating food. You can make yourself feel better by buying their albums (I try to at least), but the probable truth is that when a lot of these long-term bands that you love so much break up and finally go back home, in all likelihood they're living in poverty. Like boxers who retire and can't remember their own name cause they have so much brain damage, or football players who die in their forties from heart failure cause the strain of playing football at that level for years literally killed them.

I don't believe in guilty pleasures. I'll like whatever the fuck I wanna like. If my musical taste was defined solely by metal then how boring would I be? Just for a lark I once reviewed Britney Spears' entire discography for a music forum, and ended loving every single album but her first -- which really was just awful. I'll bump any dance pop you throw at me: Kylie Minogue, Madonna, motherfucking Kesha, Katy Perry, Lady GaGa. I don't give a shit. Nineties/early '00s chick singer-songwriters like Alanis Morissette and Natalie Imbruglia? All day, baby. Shit, pretty much everybody else on their label might be a giant pile of ass, but I have an obsession with the Insane Clown Posse. I know they're dumb, I know their music is talentless, I know their fans are a plague, I just don't care. I've seen them in concert too. Amazing.

How much money did bands EVER make from album sales? And unless you're a top-tier artist like the Rolling Stones or Jay-Z, or have another way into the music biz (like a producer) then music has never been a viable career. Why do think Slayer are still going so long after their music stopped being any good? After over a decade of gaining no job skills or work experience beyond maybe pumping gas inbetween tours, the only option besides recording another shitty album and going on another tour is to go flip burgers. I mean what kind of work do you honestly think Kerry King is qualified for? Any band that's smart will release a few albums and then call it quits while they still have time to get some kind of job that doesn't require wearing a nametag. Or be like Darkthrone and just never tour.

That was one of the most retardedly awesome things I've ever heard. How have I never listened to that before? Devin Townsend is a complete whackadoo.

12. Acid Bath - When the Kite String Pops (1994) Kind of hard to describe this bitch. I guess it's kind of like the Ride the Lightning of stoner metal: certainly part of its genre, but with such an eclectic collection of songs that just calling it stoner metal doesn't quite do it justice. You've got stoner doom in "The Blue", the pure Sabbath-meets-hardcore-punk stoner of "Tranquilized", flirtations with death metal and death/doom on "Jezebel" and "Dr. Seuss Is Dead", and one of the most nihilistically beautiful ballads in existence with "Scream of the Butterfly". Their singer is also an integral part of their sound. His tortured screams are present and correct, but he has a clean singing voice somehow even more horrific, mocking in its morbid delight at the disturbing tales it reveals. This record is a towering monument of stoner metal that completely eclipses all but the very finest of its competitors; a masterpiece with unique songs that are catchy as sin, creepy as fuck, and that will make your head bang right off its neck with or without your consent. If you have any love for stoner or just metal in general then you owe it to yourself to listen to this albums five times in a row ... now ... right now. Go away and blast this shit already, asshole! Unfortunately, there are like no Youtube videos of either any single songs or the entire album on Youtube, so here's a Grooveshark link. Enjoy. Grooveshark: Acid Bath - When the Kite String Pops