11 METAL ALBUMS THAT TURN 25 YEARS IN 2020

Its characteristic that each title of its records begins chronologically with the order of the letters of the alphabet was fulfilled for the fourth time. The success of the Americans came from its members, Trey Azagthoth on guitars and programming, Pete Sandoval on drums, Erik Rutanon the other guitar and programming, and David Vincent on bass and vocals. For this last one, this album was the farewell recently released and was replaced by Steve Tucker, who carried a very heavy slab of being afrontman MORBID ANGEL who had a very good pedigree thanks to the support of his followerswho were swarming in the underground as the band did, gaining importance and influence that in the future would be what would take its toll.

The variety of “Domination” is incredible, with its own strong riffs and masterfully executed instrumental themes, without losing its anti-Christian and blasphemous content. Tracks like “Dominate” that opens up this vortex of distorting rhythm changes or “Where The Slime Live” with the guitar solo dedicated to Eddie Van Halen, are samples of a great album. The sinister schedules were among the first to be heard making clear the magnitude of these professionals, they were pioneers. “Eyes To See, Ears To Hear”, “Dawn Of The Angry” or “Inquisition (Burn With Me)” make Headbandig mandatory, the eleven songs are tremendous. MORBID ANGEL, closed an era with the departure of Mr. Vincent, he would return a decade later, the band continued with some ups and downs, cementing its legend, but the evolution for the people of Tampa, Florida was their next destination.

Concept albums are always a very appreciable job. His second demo released after an incredible success of “Soul Of A New Machine”, “Demanufacture” brought us the dispute of the Human Will against machines, a soundtrack prepared by Dino Cazares on the guitar, keyboards and choirs Burton C. Bell in vocals and musical arrangements, Christian Olde Wolbers on bass and Raymond Herrera on drums and more musical arrangements, we had a production called Metal Industrial. 

They benefited from complementary ingredients as an important characteristic in their sound, it was the base of songs like “Replica”, “Dog Day Sunrise”, “A Therapy For Pain”, which came to be classified as inspiration or catalyst of Nu Metal that was strong in those years. Taking into account that for example in the voices they were held in the combinations of guttural and clean or the enormous cruising speed in the percussions, doubting it was allowed but their reality was stained when seeing them on stage. 

The opening to musical creation without stereotypes was given and almost patented with FEAR FACTORY and it was just one of many of that time, without losing the criticism of musical poverty of some critics of the moment, but for tastes the colors. Everything began to be different produced a dynamic reaction current for the demand for dynamism in what the bands would have to give us. They had their sound, they were unique or strange. Criticized and reprehensible were the following editions or remixes such as “Remanufacture” that exterminated this incredible production as a “Terminator”.

On August 28, 1988 one of the worst accidents in history occurred at an air show in Germany. It happened at the American base in Rammstein, three planes and a helicopter collided, three pilots killed and sixty-seven people in the assistants, plus some five hundred people injured. This tragedy caused deep consternation in the Bavarian country, which was still divided by the Berlin Wall, and so impressed the musicians of this band that it suggested the name for them and incidentally the first song of this their first production. 

Till Lindemann on vocals with his military accent, Richard Z. Kruspe on guitar and backing vocals, Christian “Flake” Lorenz, on keyboards and synthesizer; Christoph Schneider, on drums; Paul Landers, on the other guitar and in backing vocals and Oliver Riedel, on bass, gave us the starting point for a “germ” of Extreme Industrial-Metal with “Herzeleid”, which was gaining fame from the underground and its presentations Live where the musicians already pointed shapes to what are now their colossal live performances. 

Musically, their eleven songs, which include stylistic diversity in their pieces composed in a relatively long period of time because the band was creating its own personality, also shaping its sound. A compact and solid base, along with very original keyboards and samplers, from minute one of “Wohl Ihr Das Bett In Flammen Sehen” or another with a lot of raw sound mixed with disco rhythms like “Asche zu Asche” and his first single, with worldwide success “Du Riechst so Gut”, with techno dyes. This machine was well oiled, it started thejourney RAMMSTEIN with a lot of power and corpulence, but with the suggestive fact of singing in its corresponding language.

To much mention Chuck Schuldiner, is to bring to mind the maker of Death Metal, with his guitar he gave us the best riffs in this genre, so suggestive and exciting for those who appreciate this extreme music. Along with Gene Hoglan, on drums; Kelly Conlon on bass and Bobby Koelble on the other guitar conceived “Simbolic,”the sixthproduction DEATH that always featuredas the leader Mr Schuldiner. 

For many with this album the name of Technical Death Metal or even progressive was born, being the pioneers of what would come the next quarter century and even making it understandable for many. His first track “Symbolic” makes it clear, DEATH has evolved for good musically, creating a constant that solves with tremendous chords scales. “Empty Words”, “Crystal Mountain” or “Misanthrope”, contain a lyric of social and ontological themes, a novelty at that time when this genre was charged with blood, death and annihilation. They changed the concept used by other bands and many put their hands to their heads, but we remember that not all of us are mortal and this album is today a bastion for those of us who like this type of music. It contains quality and artistic brilliance and was not the bestalbum DEATH. 

It could sound infinitely and always surprise, without exaggeration, because even its cover has its sensational story, created by Rene Miville and which recently reached a considerable price in the art market.

Mr. Schuldiner passed away from Brain Cancer on the thirteenth of December of the year two thousand and one, but his work will last forever.  

 The satanic or evil was very powerful in our distant year of nineteen ninety-five andthird album DEICIDE’s , “Once Upon The Cross” was wicked and depraved from its cover by showing us a dead Christ covered by a sheet, which can be seen without it inside the album, which is more blasphemous and irreverent. For more provocation or challenge we had his frontman Glen Benton on bass and vocals, who along with brothers Hoffman, Eric and Brian, on guitars will be complemented by Steve Asheim on drums to give us thunderous and brilliant riffs of a Death- Black metal of lineage. 

With rhythms well controlled and slow for many as in “When Satan Rules The World” that invited to injure the cervical vertebrae, or chant “Kill The Christian” loudly without indulgence or commiseration. In addition to the daring of “They Are The Children Of The Underworld” without respect for any creed, full intensity. 

We have nine themes of rudeness, injury and irreverence, the best example of what extreme metal is, it has always been like this and it remains in our days. MORBID ANGEL, OBITUARY or CANNIBAL CORPSE had it difficult in those years to overcome DEICIDE in everything they did and although they mention that they never changed in their way of sounding, they always carried the adjective of fulminating that made them different and also sinister. After this production they were no longer shocked,because their emotions and sensations were already part of our beliefs and musical dogmas.         

Many of the bands that I mention in this review still continue, most to the joy of many. and these Britons are one of the most esteemed and appreciated: CARCASS.

“Swan Song” was released in Europe a year after its release, it was the fifth showing by Jeff Walker, on vocals and bass, Ken Owen on drums, Bill Steer on guitar, and the only appearance inband Carlos Reygadas’ on the other guitar. With the resounding success of his previous album “Heartwork”, the bar was very high and so it was. This album was used by its members almost as fun and delight to its full potential. 

It has style and character, “Keep On Rotting In The Free World” shows it, they leave their Death-Grindcore Metal style a bit aside giving us excellent songs, for shows “Cross My Heart”, “Polarized” or “R** k The Vote “, where some described it as Death´n´Roll, which is above all good music, solving well the strident riffs with the drums and a heavy bass. Another change to the genre that perpetuated him until today, which brought him many detractors but reinforced his personality. The melodic structures seem to have a lack of elaboration with an intentional decision to give that cohesion by flirting with monotony. 

It could be part of business, remember that the ups and downs in the Most Extreme Metal in the last decade of the last century are segmented by the new generations that emerged that attempted with these classic groups, we can call them that, hence the need to lower the piston, experiment with what they like and get a worldwide distribution stamp. Easy rhythms but without losing the venom in the voices, in this way CARCASS went into hibernation, a pause of seventeen years to orbit the Metal universe again with “Surgical Steel” that came out four years ago, the activity desired is very of them, but they have a good time “Death Rider Da” bonus track of the album that is pure spree and joke.

Survival is important to maintain the species and the natives of New York, the city par excellence for this, were clear in the year nineteen ninety-five. Standard bearers of Brutal Death Metal with its members Frank Mullen on vocals, Terrance Hobbs on one guitar, Doug Cerrito on the other guitar, Chris Richards on bass and Doug Bohn on drums. These last three no longer continued in the band, heading to other projects on their own. 

It was the heyday of ROADRUNNER RECORDS and producer Scott Burns that empowered many groups to achieve the success they wanted. Cataloged as Brutal Death Metal and with a detail that had two African-American members that was a success in those times. in songs like “Thrones Of Blood” or “Torn Into Enthrallment” the bass bass ofare distinguishable, Mr. Richards or the good understandable vocalization of Mr. Mullen giving the detail of being able to assimilate their messages much better. 

One fact is the cover made by Dan Seagrave who imposed his style in the design of several covers of other groups of the genre. SUFFOCATION with this production earned cult band status. The instrumental appreciation is better for the cleanliness of how they were built as in the first theme “Pierced From Within”, all simultaneous with more regular and difficult rhythms to obtain a versatile and insightful style. Each song has a specific theme but in a certain way they have a link that makes them a single set. The jump from the underground was achieved on a good note. 

The labyrinth of technical riffs is inexorable in “Depths Of Depravity”, with parallel guitar duets that only the best can achieve with an almost reckless quality due to the heaviness they cause, with stops and accelerations as the melodies increase. The oscillations of the album are given in the sense that no matter how impressed or excited you are with the first contact, but I can certify that the uneasiness of listening to it again will arise as doing the headbandig automatically. Tight and crispy can be a apt description.

Experiencing an amalgam of sounds they achieved the genre Djent, syncopated to power, the most innovative in Extreme Metal that made MESHUGGAH relevant. Its members, Jens Kidman in the main voice; Fredrik Thordendal on guitar and synthesizers; Tomas Haake, on drums and backing vocals; Mårten Hagström on rhythm guitar and Peter Nordin on bass, in this second production they do it masterfully. 

Like a stiletto cutting meat and tendons with a tremendous edge. Without losing detail in the determination of the sounds they create, loaded with a technicality that made you question what you were listening to. The quality of innovating of course will depend on who wants to consume it, to also give their approval, listen to “Beneath” and not fall into this question is unlikely. The relativity of the absurd can be found in songs like “Transfixion” or “Acrid Placidity”. Strong forceful riffs, repeating themselves to exhaustion, can tire or bore you or just the opposite, under the shadow of the turning point that the Swedes gave us in a masterful way. 

This second album brought fresh ideas and ways to make Extreme Music, an impeccable execution with intensity as a flag, it was the black sheep in the flock of records of that time, there was nothing like it at that time, “Terminal Illusions”, had thesound growing Meshuggah or “Sublevels” madethink this is, theremany denominations came to his style: Technical Groove, avant-garde metal or even progressive. 

Let’s not waste time and let’s just enjoy it like when they give us an unknown gastronomic dish and delight it with curiosity, I assure you that this dish called “Destroy Erase Improve” will leave you satiated and wanting more. The detail that the coming time left us was that the following productions tasted the same or had little variety, but they always wanted it.

The best Metal sample from Portugal began its journey with this album, in a triumphant way worldwide. The versatility of its rhythms where for the first time it enjoys the modulations of voices from low to guttural, passing through an almost operatic tune of its singer Fernando Ribeiro, who with the rest of the band that was formed by Duarte Picoto alias Mantus in the guitar, João Pedro aka Ares on bass, Miguel Gaspar aka Mike on drums, Pedro Paixão aka Passioniss, on keyboards, Ricardo on other guitar, and Birgit Zacher on female vocals provided the world with a formidable debut of the Gothic Metal movement that They gave us bands like THERION or TIAMAT and backed by a fledglinglabel CENTURY MEDIA RECORDS that dared to promote non-traditional and new bands. 

But in “Wolfheart” we had a bit of everything, Black, Death and even Folk Metal on tracks like “Lua d’inverno” or “Trebaruna” sung in their native language as the other cut called “Ataegina” where we have some choirs Feminine that haunted when listening to them with a very original Gothic accent. We also have a certain type of eroticism and carnality in “Vampiria”, with its composition of perverse keyboards that give us a transylvanic landscape, with grim riffs and gloomy percussions. 

But “Alma Mater”, the best instrumental melody on the album, to earn the term in addition to Extreme Metal, a pure feeling of melancholic spirit with effervescence of atrocity and nostalgia at the same time. Being their first album shows their elemental and rough state, an untamed band that with the passing of time and productions has been allowed to tame, but their first howl is intense and firm, all the pieces of this puzzle fit perfectly, cascaded in three quarters of an hour that are spent very soon. A couple of facts that make this creation something like no other, the first the song “An Erotic Alchemy” is an apology for the lyrics and humanism thatgave us “El Marqués de Sade”, which continued to inspire for future works of his career and the Another fact was given a decade ago when the Portuguese postal service included the album cover in memory of the times or circumstance that most influenced Rock in the peninsular country, a detail that marks its national pride status . Summarizing “Wolfheart” it has a good musicality without being imposed due to its complexity in its combination and composition of measures.

This member of the “Big 4” was not always looked at with kind eyes. In the middle of the last decade of the last century ANTHRAX began to enter uneven vertigo and deteriorated in what corresponded to its creativity capacity. 

They lost personality due to the abandonment of some of their members such as their unlikely singer Joe Belladona and their guitarist Dan Spitz for different reasons such as pursuing hobbies such as watchmaking. At this time the band was formed by John Bush, who came from ARMORED SAINT on vocals and who had even been tempted by METALLICA to be part of them, in addition to Paul Crook on guitars and who was a member of MEAT LOAFbearing who werethe aforementioned casualties, along with Scott Ian on guitar, Frank Bello on bass and Charlie Benante on drums and even with the latemember PANTERA Dimebag Darrell who is featured as lead guitarist on the songs “Riding Shotgun” and “King Size” where he clearly leaves his class. 

“Stomp 442”, it has a lot of speed, many nuances, great vocal ranges, percussions with a great rhythmic punch, with sparks of Punk mixed with Grunge, which was what it sounded like at the time, a tremendous and exceedingly extraordinary production, but as a situation rare was not accepted with much enthusiasm, almost the rejection was his sign of presentation of this seventh work of the New Yorkers. A wonderful song is “Fueled”, it is ANTHRAX at its core, Thrash Metal with a cutting edge that is marching like them. 

We also have a sweetened ballad, “Bare”, that goes from halftime to the grandeur of extraordinary riffs, a striking and unique way to close the album, so are these geniuses, unpredictable, who in one way or another give us its artistic quality. A separate mention is the cut “American Pompeii”, where it describes the destruction of the City of Pompeii allegorically and the exhibition of an insulting society with its members, which even today remains almost the same. The “But” of “Stomp 442”comes because the emerging members, instead of reinforcing cause insecurity, sound good but without emotion, uneasiness or restlessness. 

It discourages the followers that the attributes of ANTHRAX made them fall in love and this time they stayed sounding like any other Metal band, they lost their strong identity or at least left it forgotten in a place that must have spent a long time to recover it. A lot of forcefulness but without aspirations. But circumstances have shown that the band knows how to recover from adversity, for some reason they are part of the “Big 4”, they are an allegorical myth. 

The first album by the Polish band formed by Adam Darski, better known as Nergal on vocals, guitar and bass; Adam Baal Ravenlock Muraszko on drums, because above all BEHEMOTH at the moment was a duo, like other groups of their European style that were joined asguest musicians Demonious, on the keyboards of the songs “Ancient” and “Hell Dwells In Ice “, and the other musician named Cezar on the rest of the keyboards on the album. We have a prototype of the best pure Black Metal style, without additives to pure bleeding sore, a pillar of what would come talking about bands and compositions, with an affinity to bands like MAYHEM or BURZUM, our reviews were some young men along with them . 

“SVENTEVITH (STORMING NEAR THE BALTIC)”, encompasses and encompasses the style that marked a progressive character of the band in the proximities by allowing the conversion and variation of their sound, acquiring at times a certain popularity and popularity. Passion and dedication were never lacking, it shows in songs like “Wolves Guard My Coffin”, or the ethereal sense in “Ancient” or “The Touch Of Nya”, until reaching the melodious by the keyboards and acoustic strings in “Hidden In The Fog “and the opening theme” Chant Of The Eastern Land “. All the themes are steeped in his inherited historical pedagogy, which was his own affiliation with fragments of Satanism well camouflaged but deductible. But without sharing the National Social ideas channeled into Black Metal, it can be said that it was the last chaste feature of European art, which was used even as a tourist attraction, losing its identity. 

Your Frontman and leader Mr. Nergal never shared it and seconded. The Riffs are hard and cold, backed by evocative and solemn keyboards, along with a powerful bass and the constantly looped bass drum beats that create the rhythmic backbone of the songs, without forgetting the voice of Mr. Nergal very revolutionary far from the guttural tendencies that would characterize him in the future. We have before us the debut of what would later become one of the most successful bands in the Extreme Metal environment, their brutal sound proposal that mixed Death and Black Metal is several of their tunes, without losing sight of the baton of their Leader drawing critical acclaim, he has certainly made a difference in both musical growth andimage and fame BEHEMOTH’s.

I can conclude this article-review that our musical taste is perpetual and constant. These bands are just a sample of everything we have and historically in this confinement that helps us to have a good time in our confinement. Enjoy it and long live the EXTREME METAL.