Top 15 Albums in Metal

The gore, the iron, & the holy

By Adem Ozoor

etal is undoubtedly one of the
Mees strongest genres despite

its many underground aspects.
For decades, metal has banged, moshed,
and hammer-smashed indulgingly.
From the iron fists of its power, to the
graceful sirens of its atmosphere, from its
bludgeoning blood-shots of death and to
its holy Vikings of Nordland.

In order for
metal to have
reached its strong
state, many bands
from across the
globe have put
out several epic
ia albums that are

  

unforgotten till this very second. Today,
we will explore the top fifteen albums
that have unquestionably played essential
roles in their aspects of metal from the
earliest to the latest.

The
album that
unquestionably
segregated
extreme metal
from heavy metal
is Black Metal
by Venom from
England. Taking elements from punk
rock, heavy metal, and thrash metal,
Venom sired an entirely new string
of witch-demented metal with their
album Black Metal that featured some
of their all time classics. Such tracks
include: To Hell and Back, Teacher’s
Pet, and the unforgettable epic Countess
Bathory. Black Metal positions as the
quintessential album in metal of all times.

Another thrash masterpiece that will
thrash us a second time in this feature
is Pleasure to Kill by Teutonic thrashers
Kreator. It is almost factually justified
to say Pleasure to Kill is the European
version of Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All. Many
nowadays bands trace their influence
back to Kreator’s Pleasure to Kill and
its mighty tracks that include: Ripping
Corpse, Riot of Violence, and Command
of the Blade.

 

After taking
the chaotic
influence of
the early 1980s
thrashers Venom,
Kreator, and
Slayer, the next
goblet of blood
was poured on our caskets back in 1987
by America’s Death with their debut
album Scream Bloody Gore; the bible
of death metal. The title screams it: deep
growls, goblets of gore, and mutilations
dominate the concept of this album. Death
have unquestionably fed us the bloodiest
record of all time.

 

After being
tortured with the
brutality of the
1980s, the 1990s
then introduced
us to more artistic
moves. Sweden’s
Bathory sailed in
with Viking metal’s debut Hammerheart.
After playing a huge role in the first
wave of black metal, Bathory decided to
introduce something extremely new to the
metal scene. On Hammerheart Bathory
decided to maintain the usage of Nordic
themes and culture as an album concept
but with musical alterations. Clean vocals
and relaxing atmosphere musically
dominate Hammerheart making it an epic
album in the history of metal.

As the
1990s began to
roam, England’s
Peaceville
Records sired
three bands that
are now known
as the Peaceville
three. They ar are three legendary English
bands rewarded for pioneering doom-
death metal. Amongst them, Paradise
Lost took a slight turn from doom-death
metal with their second release Gothic,
baptizing gothic metal. After adding
traditional sounds of gothic rock, and
fusing doom with sensations, Gothic
unquestionably stands as the father who
sired gothic metal.

 

  
   

As doom-
death metal
helped us enter
the dooming
world of
madmen’s chapels
in England, across
Norway the
Norwegian black metal scene demolished
several churches and reversed many
crosses. As musicians went to jail and
priests mourned for the loss of their
churches, the most intelligent band of
the entire scene managed to remain in
underground cult status during the rage
of the second black metal wave. That
band is DarkThrone. Their fourth album
Transylvanian Hunger freezes us with
its cold sound of “true Aryan Norwegian
black metal” as once stated on the back
of.the vinyl. That way we get a taste of
Darkthrone’s cold cave, and the fury of
black metal. Transylvanian Hunger stands
as the coldest album of this feature.

At the same time in Norway, a seven
piece band was establishing its trademark
theme as they took doom and gothic
metal to a new stage. As the then vocalist
herself christened the theme “beauty
and the beast”, Theatre of Tragedy have
infatuated us with their renaissance based
tales making Velvet Darkness they Fear

the most poetic and Shakespeare-like
album of the 1990s.

As both
black and doom
metal reached
their peak by
the mid 90s, a
band of atrocious
vampire-lusted

imuaea English lads
birthed us Dusk = her Embrace.
Debatably put in the black metal category,
but unquestionably borrowing a lot of
elements from doom, Cradle of Filth took
us on an embarking tale in Carpathia and
astonished us with their intimidating yet
charmingly artistic music. Dusk and her
Embrace is a must-hear album for those
with dark desires and poisoned souls.

Thinking
that metal may
have seen enough
progenies in its
family during
the 1990s, this
was no excuse
for Finland not
to birth its own branch. From Espoo, a
band of rebels, the Children of Bodom,
fused thrash & death metal while
incorporating classical elements and tones
of keyboards while writing about a native
Finnish incident that took place back in
1960. With reapers murdering kids, the
feel of the cold Finnish north, and not
forgetting the booze, we found a fusion
of Something Wild taking place in this
feature.

 

 

As poetry
and ballads

flourished in

the 1990s, it is
factually agreed
that Opeth from
Sweden played

a huge role in
progressive metal throughout the decade.
Fusing clean jazz vocals with death metal
grunts, Opeth have set us on another
compelling journey with their album

Still Life. Dealing with the concept of a
character named Melinda and the setting
that starts off in a moor; Still Life stands
as the paragon of progressive metal of the
1990s.

After reading thus far, people may
question “where are the dragons, the
sorcery and the masculinity? No we’ve
certainly not forgotten about power metal.
After the flourishing of the genre from the
1980s, Wizard from Germany took power
metal in their own unique hands. While
Bound by Metal they pray to Odin in their
vault and launch on a warrior’s rampage
all in the name of metal. With tracks
such as Believe in Metal, Battlefield of
Death, and the unforgettable Dark Wings,
Bound by Metal stands out as one of the
most powerful metal-patriot albums of

  

 

 

 

 

(Fs aruRE
all times. After one listen, listeners will
indeed be bound by metal.

Tea Cay In the new
millennium,
Swedish melodic-
death metal was
quite the wave.
One of the most
outstanding
albums of that
wave is Arch Enemy’s Wages of Sin.
Arch Enemy had freshly recruited a new
vocalist who is now one of the most
highly respected divas in metal of all time.
Burning Angel, Ravenous, Dead Bury
their Dead, Web of Lies; all tracks on this
album are lacerating, sinful, aggressive,
and melodic. Wages of Sin stand out more
than any Swedish melodic-death metal
album of the early millennium.

One more time from Finland,
metalheads across the globe devoured
a freezing epic by the one-man band
Wintersun. Jari Maenpaa delivered us an
album that was atmospheric, cold, and
melodic; yet fast and progressive leaving
us mesmerized face down in the northern
snow. As he described the album himself

as “extreme majestic technical epic
melodic metal”, Wintersun stands as the
most fascinatingly creative album of the
millennium.

After

decades of sin

and satanic
4 concepts, who
would have come
to believe that

: metal has a holy

and irae side? After observing the
Star of David and hearing tracks such as
The howling, Frozen, Our Solemn Hour,
Hand of Sorrow, and The Cross, there
is absolutely no way one can question
Within Temptation’s divinity in The Heart
of Everything. Choirs, symphonies,
clean vocals, and divinity gracefully
ring like church bells making The Heart
of Everything one of the most tranquil
albums in atmospheric/symphonic metal.

Last but not least, Deathstars’s Night
Electric Night can be thought of as one
of the best industrial metal albums of all
time. Carrying on with their stylish but
dark appearance and mafia-like attitudes,
Deathstars are really one of the most
different modern contributors to the metal
genre. With tracks that include Death Dies
Hard, Mark of the Gun, and Opium, join
Deathstars’s embarking alternative mafia-
style album as the electronics leave you to
question society’s intelligence.

Here we have them, the top fifteen
albums that have influenced metal in
several aspects. Weather that is debatable
or not, each album has certainly played
its own role of being a great album
coming from a hardworking band that’s
guaranteed to keep your head banging.

13