Manowar Albums Ranked

Hate list features? Feel free to skip this article and others in this series.

Here I’ll be ranking the albums by certain bands in order from Best (actually my subjective favourite) to worst/least good (subjectively, in my opinion). Number 1 is obviously the best. The lowest number is my least favourite.

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1. Kings Of Metal (1988) – Manowar are certainly not to everyone’s taste. This album is Manowar at their most Manowar. If that sounds unappealing, I don’t blame you. In fact, I put off trying it for years and then the first time I heard it, I didn’t really get it. (Even to this day I could deal without an entire four minute spoken word story track, and there’s another track with one of the most overtly misogynistic sets of lyrics ever made, to the point where if you didn’t realise it was parodying the worst traits of other ‘80s bands, you’d be outright ashamed to own it… and even when you do know that, its still pretty cringey).

Not everyone likes this style of hyper-energetic, unrestrained and arguably cliched Power Metal and not everyone likes the symphonic grandiose high-fantasy lighters in the air moments. Even if you do like it, if you were being hyper-critical, you could also argue that there are too many ballad / quiet moments which could affect the pacing / flow of the record. However, once you “get” what the band are going for here, and once you let the best tracks worm their way into your good books, this reveals itself to be a serious contender for one of the best Metal albums ever. The band weren’t exactly lacking for killer tunes before, by any means, but they really hit their stride here.

There’s just something about Kings Of Metal that shines. It just has that really “classic” vibe to it. A highlight not only for their discography, but the whole subgenre and the genre as a whole. If you are into this type of music, this is utterly essential stuff. If for some reason you have never heard it, you really ought to fix that. Even if you aren’t into this sort of music, I’d still recommend you giving it multiple listens – as it could convert you. I may be saying this a lot in this list, but it all comes down to the strength of the songs. I could make all sorts of comments on how the vocals are the perfect blend of Stanely/Simmons, or about how the lift in the chorus of “Wheels Of Fire” is as big as the biggest moments on Painkiller, or how the album provides a nice escapist counterpoint to the more serious music you may listen to… but in the end, those facts may be valid, but they’re not what makes the record so good… it’s the songs. Such killer songs!

Highlights include: “Kings Of Metal,” “Hail And Kill,” & “Blood Of The Kings.”  

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2. Triumph Of Steel (1992) – It can’t have been easy following up Kings Of Metal, a record that I would genuinely consider one of the finest records ever made in the whole subgenre, one which I keep a vinyl copy of on my wall as decoration, but the band came really close with their next record. It is bizarre to think this album came out when Grunge was dominating the media, because this album by contrast is one of the worst offenders of all the bloat and excess and fantasy and non-down-to-earthness of all the things people liked to call Grunge the antithesis of. Now, I really like a lot of Grunge so don’t think that is some kind of complaint about the Grunge movement, just an observation… its comical that when most ‘80s bands where changing their sound, getting less excessive, stripping down, trying to match Seattle’s credibility… Manowar doubled down hard on all of their silliest, most theatrical, most bombastic qualities and made this utterly absurd record. It opens with a twenty minute song with both a bass solo and a drum solo and absolutely no logical structure. There’s even a song that features the line “If you’re not into Metal, you are not my friend” for goodness sake… and I love it with all my heart.

Now, all that cheese, all that bombast and all that showmanship so large it would make Alice Cooper say “Geez… maybe dial it down a bit guys?” would just be a bit of empty throw-away dumb fun without the tunes. The reason this album is so high on my list isn’t actually all the stuff I’ve written so far… arguably in might even be in spite of that stuff. I am not into novelty bands or comedy music, and a lot of people are turned off by Manowar and don’t even try them because the sort of stuff I am mentioning above, which could make them seem like a novelty or comedy band to the untrained eye… no, the reason this album is so high on my list is because the material is so immensely, furiously, massively fun, memorable and enjoyable. Almost every song here makes me want to sing along to every vocal line, every guitar or bass line, every drum fill, every second. These are just some of the best Heavy Metal songs in the world, period. Like I said for the previous album… its all about the strength of the songs. It also doesn’t hurt that its one of their most filler-free records to date.  

Highlights include: “Metal Warriors,” “The Power Of Thy Sword,” & “Ride The Dragon.”  

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3. Louder Than Hell (1996) – If you really like the band’s first four albums, sometimes this album gets seen as something lesser in the band’s discography, sometimes it gets called the beginning of the end or some such insult. For me, personally, this is one of the best things the band ever made. In fact, if there is a red-y/orange cover art with an absurdly muscled dude on the front, it is typically a sign that it will contain some of the best songs I’ve ever heard. This album once again follows a similar formula to the last two and once again delivers absolutely brilliant songs in that style.

There is of course some variety here, from a weird proggy tune with David Gilmore-esque guitar parts, to piano intros, to ballads, but the core of this album / the main direction of this album is the thing I love most about Manowar… and not only is the album made up primarily of songs in that style, but they are supremely good songs in and of themselves. On later albums they would also have songs in this same direction, but not necessarily to the same supremely high standard.

If I was recommending this band to a newcomer, especially one who liked bands like Blind Guardian or Helloween or Gamma Ray, this would be one of the first albums I advised. I consider this album and the two that preceded it as the holy trinity high watermark of the band’s discography, and an inseparable threesome that are all essential and near as good as each-other. If you are going to get one, just do yourself a favour and get all three!

Highlights include: “The Power,” “King,” & “The Gods Made Heavy Metal.”  

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4. Fighting The World (1987) – This album is a transitional and unique moment in the band’s catalogue. It definitely doesn’t fit in with the first four albums, which feel like one era, and only about a third of it feels like it fits in with the next four albums which again feel like the next era of the band. This one is a bit of an island. With its Love Gun/Destroyer inspired artwork, ridiculous lyrics, bizarrely uneven tone (is it dark and serious and epic, or is it  barrel of laughs? – it can’t seem to decide… even more so than on previous records), you could be forgiven for thinking that Manowar jumped the shark here if you had been following the band since the start (and I’m sure many people did feel that way at the time). “Blow Your Speakers” in particular feels almost like a commercial sell out move, although with its lyrics decrying such bands as would do that, it kind of escapes that accusation. I think when you realise what big Kiss fans the band are and always have been, this album makes a lot more sense. They’re not cashing in on the Glam trends of the day, they’re just making their own versions of “I Love It Loud” et al.

What really makes this album shine for me though, are the tracks that really set up what I consider to be the archetypal and classic Manowar format, which are the three songs mentioned below. With these three songs, they elevate this album a good four or five places higher up the list than it might otherwise be when listening to the title track or the semi-ballad-come-power-pop-bopper “Carry On.” That’s not to say the rest of the album isn’t “good,” but those three elevate it from good to “great.”

Highlights include: “Violence And Bloodshed,” “Black Wind, Fire & Steel,” & “Holy War.”  

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5. Hail To England (1984) – I remember an old Metal Hammer article where Angela Gossow from Arch Enemy said it was the best Manowar album. Of the early-day albums, this one is the most consistent, even, reliable and solid. “Bridge Of Death” in one single song does everything the previous album was trying to do, but miles and miles better. The faster more aggressive tunes here are some of the best ones of the early days, the production is a bit better than the last two, and there seems to have been a big step up in musicianship. Its everything the previous two albums were trying, perfected.

Whilst I can’t honestly say its not silly at all, it certainly strikes a much better balance between serious and silly than some of their records do, and is almost tasteful in places, (without being po-faced and boring like they sometimes can be at their most indulgent).

A lot of people might have this as their favourite album, and I can see why. For me and my tastes, I just personally prefer the type of stuff they would go on to do later, but for this type of material and this direction, this is arguably the band at the peak of that style. If you like the early sound more than the later sound, then knock this one straight to number one on your priorities list.

Highlights include: “Kill With Power,” “Blood Of My Enemies,” & “Bridge Of Death.”  

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6. Sign Of The Hammer (1984) – Some people complain about this one, saying parts of it are out of time and out of tune, but as someone who loves Motorhead I don’t really see that as a deal-breaker. This album is a more ambitious and fleshed out realisation of what the band had been attempting with their debut, with some songs that showcase the direction they would start leaning more into on future releases. I feel like the vocals here are much better than the previous three records and the simple and tasteful artwork is a big improvement over the previous records as well.

Apart from the band-title track on the debut record, I feel like this album is also the start of when the band really developed their signature self-referential character, and this feels like a transitional moment between slightly OTT but still normal band, and completely ludicrous as would start on the subsequent album. “All Men Play On Ten” in particular seems to be one of the moments when the band really found themselves.

Highlights include: “All Men Play On Ten,” “Thor (The Powerhead),” & “Guyana (Cult Of The Damned).”  

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7. Battle Hymns (1982) – The band’s debut sounds a little bit different to what the band would eventually become. This record is a real treat for fans of classic heavy metal, ala Breaker-era Accept, ‘70s Priest or early Riot. Before they really leaned hard into the Power side of Power Metal, this is just pure hard rocking early Metal. The production still has one foot in the ’70s even though it was 1982.  

In part, the lyrics are quite different in places to what the band would become. I mean, if most of the general music buying public thinks of Manowar, they think of oily musclebound dudes in loin cloths singing about Conan The Barbarian and such, not tracks about PTSD amongst Vietnam veterans. The song-writing here is relatively strong (much better than their sophomore album) and there are numerous catchy and memorable tunes here that remain concert favourites to this day.

You almost can’t pick up any Manowar live album or best of without hearing something from this record, and that’s a good thing in m opinion. Just watch out for the dodgy late-career re-recording of this. Re-recordings as a rule are basically always worse than the original. Don’t even get tempted, head straight for the charming debut and skip the clinical and sterile re-creation entirely!  

Highlights include: “Manowar,” “Shell Shock,” & “Fast Taker.”  

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8. The Lord Of Steel (2012) – To date, the band’s final album (although there have been some later EPs) and not necessarily an absolutely amazing career-defining comeback album ala Formation Of Damnation or anything, but still a very strong and solid effort and a big, biiiiiig step-up from the album that preceded it. The production / performance lacks a bit of fire and edge, (its not exactly their most vicious album ever), but the songs are by and large very memorable, very catchy, very enjoyable and the best thing of all… the album is relatively consistent and solid the whole way through, very little messing about, very little that is skippable, very little to make you roll your eyes. Pretty much no filler, which is rare on a Manowar album, and no silly intros or indulgent bass solo.

It does lack the real star power of some of the best Manowar albums, and I doubt it would ever make any Manowar Albums Ranked’s number one spot, but I couldn’t ever see it placing last either. Not one for the casual fans neccesarily, but not a “super-fans and collectors only” affair either. If you’re happy with the post-’87 Manowar sound and just want some more of it, pick this one up once you’ve exhausted the real heavy hitters first.  

Highlights include: “Born In A Grave,” “Hail, Kill And Die,” & “Touch The Sky.”  

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9. Warriors Of The World (2002) – Over half of this album is pure gold, and good enough for me to want to count it as part of a “golden era” with the previous albums, but there is a bit (lot?) of filler, a few questionable decisions and a little bit of absolute guff that sort of dilutes the overall impact of the record. The highlights are very high, but the low-points definitely weaken the impression of the record and relegate it to “lesser” status in the discography for me.

If someone was to say “I only want to get the best records, where is the cut off point?” I think I would say this is the first one that is skippable. That being said, if you chopped off all the weaker moments from this one, and it was just a super tight and concise Reign In Blood-length rager of just the best of this…. I think it could be a full three or even four places higher up this list. To skip this album would be to skip a lot of absolutely stellar material. Quite a shame really, a lot of people will never get to hear the best moments it has to offer, but then again, they’re lucky they don’t hear the dross. Such an album of contrasts!  

Highlights include: “Hand Of Doom,” “House Of Death,” & “Warriors Of The World United.”  

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10. Gods Of War (2007) – Too many intros, too much narration, too many slow bits, too self-serious and worst of all… the songs just aren’t that good, even the ones that sound like my favourite type of Manowar song are just lesser versions of that. Props to the band for trying to make a concept album, a Norse mythology story always appeals to me (Amon Amarth do it really well and many other bands have had a great song here and there) so its just a shame that for the most part, its one of the least exciting set of songs the band has ever put out.

It also doesn’t help that it doesn’t flow very well, and a lot of the things that could have made this a strong rock opera are a bit overdone and mishandled, so it just ends up being a bit too camp and embarrassing, even by Manowar standards. Don’t get me wrong, it isn’t worthless, but its definitely for serious fans only, and only after you’ve collected basically everything else. If this was the first Manowar album you ever bought, you probably wouldn’t buy any more, which would be a crying shame considering how good the band usually are.

Highlights include: “Die For Metal,” “Sons Of Odin,” & “King Of Kings.”  

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11. Into Glory Ride (1983) – I know there will be some fans who say this is blasphemy, but for my own personal tastes, this is the worst Manowar album. It is mostly slow, a bit samey, lacks a certain energy and is just a little bit boring overall. If I listen to a Manowar album from start to finish, I usually have fun, but with this one I only have fun on “The Warlord” and then settle down and then eventually just loose interest, the rest of the record is just tedious, or at least it is when its all in a row. It doesn’t help that the production is a bit thin and the hi-hats sound weird (although that doesn’t hurt Hotter Than Hell by Kiss when the songs are much better than these, so we can’t entirely blame the production here).

I’ve seen some people call this progressive, and I can pick up a slight hint of Audio Visions era Kansas in a few sparing moments, but it doesn’t feel progressive to me. It just has slightly too-long, dull songs that don’t particularly create anything new, and which fail to excite. That’s not progressive, its just bad self-editing.

I don’t want to make it seem like I just like fast songs, don’t mistake me. The band had touched on slower, more serious and moody material on the previous album with “Dark Avenger” and had perfected on the next album with “Bridge Of Death” but this is just that same type of thing but not executed anywhere near as well… then repeated over and over again, without enough life, energy or vitality to really peak my interest.

Now, I don’t utterly hate it, there are some good moments, particular guitar solos etc. There are also some good ideas at times. But remember what I said before about other albums being at the top of the list due to the strength of the songs? Well, this is just the weakest set of songs Manowar have ever written. Even when songs from this turn up on live albums/DVDs its usually a skip-button magnet for me. Sure there might be a moment here and there that is good, but they’ve done so much better elsewhere. I know some other people really like this one, but its not for me.

Highlights include: “Warlord,” & “March For Revenge.”  

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Smashing Pumpkins Albums (And some notable EPs/Compilations) Ranked:

This list feature is based on my subjective personal opinion, not fan consensus or journalistic research. They are ranked from best to worst, best being simply “my own favourite” and worst being “the one I personally like the least.” I know it is customary to rank from worst to best, but I prefer to lead with the positive. Check out the rankings home page for more albums-ranked lists.

Today I’ll be discussing Chicago’s own genre-defying, ever-evolving, hard to define band, The Smashing Pumpkins, and their somewhat intimidating discography. (Feel free to add your own ranknigs in the comments).

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1. Smashing Pumpkins – Siamese Dream (1993) – Its quite hard to pick a number one album when the band have two of the most definitive albums of the 1990s, both of which are always featured on every list and retrospective of the most important / most iconic / most famous / best albums in every book, magazine, website, blog etc. that you can think of. (Almost like Pink Floyd having both The Wall and Dark Side Of The Moon in their catalogue). Which one you will prefer will ultimately come down to personal choice: Do you want a tighter more direct ride to your destination? Or do you want the more scenic diverse route that covers more ground, and gets you there in a slower but more colourful way?
I like every album the Pumpkins have made so far, but it is fair to say the most famous two are the most famous for a good reason, and the two best starting points for a new fan. I was almost tempted for half a minute not to pick either the perfect-flowing Siamese Dream or the epic double-album Melon Collie’ for first place, but ultimately decided that was just being deliberately awkward, and inaccurate. After deep consideration, I do honestly believe Siamese Dream is my favourite Pumpkins album and deserving of the top spot, even if it is an obvious choice.  

Great drums, heavy moments, soft moments, grungey moments, occasional proggy tinges and some very memorable hits. Enough has already been written about Billy Corgan’s masterpiece that I won’t write too much steamy praise here, but if you haven’t heard it yet, I’ll just echo the hundreds of voices online that say it absolutely lives up to its reputation, deserves all the plaudits, and gets better on each listen.

And to think, I took a strange dislike to this band as a teenager due to the song “Today” and its music video, and didn’t give the band a fair listen until my brother got me this album as an unrequested gift, only about 4 or 5 years ago. All that time wasted, not realising how good this band are. Oh well, guess I’ll have to make up for it now.

Best hits: “Cherub Rock” & “Disarm”

Best deep cuts: “Silverfuck,” “Geek USA” & “Hummer.”

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2. Smashing Pumpkins – Melon Collie And The Infinite Sadness (1996) – As hinted above already, this huge sprawling eccentric record is another masterpiece, and has an equal chance of being thought of as their finest hour. It is almost difficult to take in during one listen, there’s more creativity and ideas popping off here than in some of their peer’s whole discographies.

It takes all the ideas of their previous two albums, amplifies them, expands upon them and then introduces dozens more new ideas on top of that to create a two-hour voyage through numerous facets of rock, pop and metal music with a loose dreamy passage of time theme, some trippy artwork, and some very evocative lyrics. There are songs for every mood you could be in, for every type of rock fan – perhaps that’s why it was such a monster seller?

Speaking of its sales, I almost find it hard to believe that such a borderline reckless album with seemingly no creative restraint ended up being so financially successful (gold, platinum, multi-platinum and diamond selling, in different territories). Sometimes it doesn’t even seem to know if it wants to be Smells Like Teen Spirit, Pink Moon, Colony Of Slippermen or Enter Sandman. Then again, a few listens, and you get to see how good the songs are, and as mentioned above… there’s something for everything, so I guess it makes a lot of sense.   
 

Best hits: “Tonight, Tonight,” “Zero” & “1979.”

Best deep cuts: “An Ode To No One,” “X.Y.U” & “Where Boys Fear To Tread.”

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3. Smashing Pumpkins – Gish (1991) – This is one of the band’s tightest, most efficient, consistent and succinct records to date. Whereas the next two albums made a great success out of being broad, expansive, and diverse, this album’s strength is in its relative straight-forwardness and cohesion.

That’s not to say the album is boring or repetitive, there is a mixture of hard rockers, ballads and sleepy psychedelic moments – its just focused, flows well and has a clear direction. I know the band started off in the ‘80s with a bunch of goth and New Wave influences, but by the time they got into the 90s, their debut album sounds more like early Monster Magnet and peak Kyuss to me than it does like New Order or The Cure. Maybe that’s just my ear. Rock fans who have only heard the big singles like “1979” and “Today,” or “Tonight, Tonight” might be quite surprised with the fuzzed out attacking moments on this record. If you like your “Demon Cleaner” with a side of “Dinosaur Vacuum” – check this one out, you might be pleasantly surprised.

In terms of a well-crafted album, this is pretty damn great. The others are just trying to be “more than an album” and, arguably succeeding. Still, in such a long and very varied career, with members coming and going, with exploration into all sorts of different musical territories, through various breakups and comebacks… whichever album managed to come in at third place behind the two obvious always going to be number one or two shouts must be pretty must-hear, right? Well it is. I feel like every music publication in the rock world will tell you to listen to Siamese’ and Melon Collie, but if you have even the most passing interest in the band, you need to get some Gish in your life too, at an absolute minimum.

Best songs: “Bury Me,” “Siva” & “I Am One.”

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4. Smashing Pumpkins – Zeitgeist (2007) – This album usually features pretty low on critic’s Pumpkins album ranking lists, but I don’t care. This blog isn’t about the common consensus, this is just my own personal taste, and personally, I love this record.

The Smashing Pumpkins have one of the most frustrating and hard to please fanbases in the rock world, and the critics seems twice as unpleasable as that. This album was already written-off by the press before it was even released because bassist and guitarist D’arcy and James were gone, and then upon review, the specifics were added in. It was poo-pooed for being too metal and too simple, despite critic’s favourite Pumpkins albums being full of highly metallic songs like “Zero” and “Bodies” and “Quiet” as well as despite critics previously poo-pooing parts of Machina for being too experimental and proggy, on top of the fact that D’arcy and James contributed the least musically to all the albums the critics do like… its just a weird bandwagon for everyone to jump on.

When the Pumpkins came back with a cool striking artwork and theme (that carried through to all the merch and singles and videos and stage image etc), and a vague promise in interviews to return to the immediacy of Gish, and kept the two most important members of the band, in hindsight it just seems a little weird and off that this album is thought of by so many people as a stinker.

Imagine being Billy Corgan in 2007, or even nowadays looking back at rankings and seeing this at or near the bottom. What must he be thinking? “You’re mad at the Pumpkins because they’re being more simple, like you wanted them to, and writing more metallic songs again, like you wanted them to, and because the band members who make the least difference to the overall Pumpkins sound are gone – but the really noticeable drummer and the voice and writer of 90% of the music is still there…the guy who physically played all the bass on Siamese Dream anyway? – And on top of that, this record and marketing campaign are both really cool and that’s all being ignored in favour of those really nit-picky complaints?”  Yeah, ok, I wouldn’t know how to process that either.

When I personally listen to the excellent music, which has some great Hard Rock / borderline metallic bangers ala the best moments on the first three albums, as well as some great melodic modern moments that rival or even exceed the best moments on Machina (“That’s The Way My Love Is,” “Bring The Light” etc), and even a near-ten-minute Tool-sounding drum fuelled epic (“United Stated”)… I definitely get what I want from the Pumpkins.

I guess some people wanted Dream Pop, or Shoegaze or New Wave or Avant-Garde, and fair enough, those aspects are in shorter supply here, so if that is what you were expecting, those elements aren’t as well represented this time, and if that was the actual criticism, I could respect that. But don’t try and tell me with a straight face that “Death From Above” is a bad song, or that you can really hear the lack of D’Arcy on this album.

Some people don’t like the production, especially on the vocals, and fair enough, that’s personal taste. I can get if you don’t want all the overdubbed vocals and effects. For me, personally, the production here still sounds a lot better than Adore or either volume of Machina did, so its not a deal-breaker level bad production to my ears.         

Best songs: “Doomsday Clock,” “Tarantula” & “United States.”

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5. Smashing Pumpkins – Shiny And Oh So Bright’ (2018) – This eight track album (initially called Volume 1, although there seems no sign of a volume 2 at time of writing) is the Pumpkins’ shortest album to date, at just over half an hour.

While other Smashing Pumpkins albums tend to have a hook or angle of some sort (eg. broad, diverse, eccentric, arty, commercial, electronic, heavy, quiet, proggy, back to basics, etc) this one just seems to focus entirely on “good song writing” which for my money, is a very admirable goal.

There are only eight songs here, but all of them are a winner, nothing is skippable, all are immensely memorable.     

The Rick Rubin-produced affair sees the return of guitarist James Iha (absent since 2000) and drummer Jimmy Chamberlain (absent since 2009), which makes for good headlines, although early bassist D’arcy Wretzky is still absent, which rankled some critics, so I guess you could only consider it a partial reunion… kind of like Guns N’ Roses getting Slash and Duff back in the band, but not Adler.

Oh well, if the results are this good, I can live without the optics of a full reunion.

PS. I don’t mean to come across like I dislike D’Arcy or anything, not at all, I just really don’t understand when some people online or in the media come out with a real hard-line “No Pumpkins album without D’Arcy is any good” attitude. I just don’t see it. They’ve released some spectacular work without her.   

Best songs: “Seek And You Shall Destroy,” “Marchin’ On” & “Silvery Sometimes (Ghosts).”

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6. Smashing Pumpkins – Machina II: The Friends & Enemies Of Modern Music (2000) – Smashing Pumpkins are years ahead of their time. They gave an album away for free on the internet more than half a decade before Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails made it cool. They had some alternate-reality marketing before a similar idea made Reznor look like a genius. Hell, they even had the idea of an animated band before the Gorillaz.
If you are wondering what the heck I’m talking about, have a good old read online about the stillborn double album Glass And The Machines Of God. Ok, it wasn’t all completely original…  the idea of a rock opera about a rock-star thing had already been well explored by bands like WASP and Savatage a decade prior, and of course by Pink Floyd over a decade before that. But the they handled/were going to handle it, seemed like quite a cool update / twist on the basic premise.   

When the record that was initially to be a double eventually morphed into two separate records, Machina 2, (the one that didn’t unfortunately get a proper commercial release and which you have to listen to online or via dodgy bootlegs), was actually the better of the two, with the best songs, the best ideas, and the most clear narrative.

Until this eventually gets rereleased in some glorious deluxe edition, you’ll just have to search-engine your way to a trustworthy copy, and the sound won’t be perfect, but for the tunes its worth it.

Although it has such an interesting backstory, it is not a mere gimmick, and if it was just an album you could always get in the shops just like anything else, it would still be one of their best. I can’t even think of the Pumpkins without thinking “Shattering fast…”  

Best songs: “Glass’ Theme,” “Cash Car Star” & “Dross.”

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7. Smashing Pumpkins – Monuments To An Elegy (2014) – This album has the somewhat weird distinction of having Motley Crue’s Tommy Lee on drums. As odd a pairing as that is on paper, Lee actually fits the music tastefully and you wouldn’t even know he was there unless you were told.

Similarly to Shiny And Oh So Bright, it is barely over half an hour in length. With the exception of the quite rocking opener, the musical direction is quite upbeat, poppy, synthy. It’s a very pleasant listening experience.

If you want blistering guitar solos, throat rending screams, and gen-x angst, you’ve very much picked up the wrong disc, but if you want to hear the band in a more contemplative, mature, less aggro space, this is a nice diversion. Simple, elegant, understated. I guess you could see it as Billy exploring what songs you can write at the polar opposite point to the complex, ostentatious, over the top end of the spectrum that brought us Melon Collie. I wouldn’t like them to live here full time, I love it when they go big, but as a one off album, I really love that this exists.

Best songs: “Tiberius,” “Drum + Fife” & “Anaise!”

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8. Smashing Pumpkins – Pisces Iscariot (1994) – Ok, this isn’t a real album, its actually a B-sides compilation, but its as good as most band’s real albums. In fact, there’s many a Pumpkins fan who would place this as their second or third best record, almost up there with the top tier classics.

Its well sequenced, and flows like a real album, moreso than a compilation, and if someone told you it wasn’t just their second album between Gish and Siamese Dream, you could easily fall for that line.  

For that reason, I’ve decided to include it on the list here. If you’re using this list as a buyer’s guide, seriously treat this compilation like a true album, its unskippable.

Best songs: “Frail & Bedazzled,” “Pissant” & “Starla.”

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9. Smashing Pumpkins – Oceania (2012) – 2012’s Oceania is the first full-length Pumpkins album with Jeff Schroeder officially on it, even though he’s actually been in the band since the comeback shows of 2007.

After the press and even a lot of the fans unceremoniously took a dump on the fantastic Zeitgeist album, in which the band had tried to be simplistic and go back to basics, but also took a dump on the live shows of the time in which the band tried to be creative and progressive and boundary pushing, (see the excellent documentary / live DVD “If All Goes Wrong” for context), then also ignored their ahead-of-their-time, creative new “we don’t do albums anymore, we’ll just release stuff online” approach of the next few years… the Pumpkins were at a bit of a cross roads. People aren’t happy when the band go back to their roots, people aren’t happy when the band making progress… the only thing people can really seem to ever agree on is liking  Siamese Dream. Everyone likes Siamese Dream. So, Billy and company decided with Oceania to deliberately try and remind people of Siamese Dream. Not so much obvious retreading, but “capturing a vibe.” Well, I say not obvious retreading, but you’d have to try very hard to find a review of this album that doesn’t mention “Cherub Rock,” or “Disarm” or maybe even “Spaceboy” and “Luna” …everyone is tripping over themselves to hear hints of Siamese Dream on this album, and tell .

Its not all Siamese-nostaliga though. You can actually hear as much were they would be going on future albums like Monuments’ and Cyr in some of the poppier and synthier moments as much as you can riffs or drum rolls that remind you of the glory days.

In terms of ranking it, it is a pretty strong album, but a bit of filler holds it back from the absolute top tiers. If it had either been a tad more adventurous, or else a tad more succinct, it would have been even better. As it stands, its just pretty good, but not an utter classic.

Best songs: “The Celestials,” “Inkless” & “Quasar.”

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10. Smashing Pumpkins – Teargarden By Kaleidyscope EPs & Singles (2010) – As mentioned above, after the music journalists savaged basically everything Billy and his merry band did since they returned, the decision was made to abandon the traditional album format, and instead just release digital EPs and singles.

This was quite forward thinking, but like Lars was right about Napster at the time, and people are starting to realise it in hindsight, but it seemed crazy at the time and people just didn’t rally around it like they should have. It seems like the whole “lets eschew albums in favour of just digital singles or short but frequent EPs” mostly idea is more relevant today than ever. You can’t switch on a music podcast these days without some artist or industry insider pondering about whether the album format is old fashioned in the era of streaming and downloads.

Technically, Oceania and Monuments’ are part of this overarching project too, but they work as well (if not better) as distinct albums, so for this entry, I’m just talking about the rest of the material. If you take the EPs The Solstice Bare & Songs For A Sailor plus the rest of the Teargarden single tracks, they basically all add up together to form a third album’s worth of material, and so for ease of organisation, I tend to just think of them as one album, and have actually just formatted them as one album in my music library. A sort of missing album between Zeitgeist and Oceania if you will.

You know how they say don’t look a gift horse in the mouth? Yeah, well, considering these are totally free tracks, it’s a very enjoyable set. Alright, if you want to get your critical analysis skills out, sure, it isn’t as accomplished as the upper half of the list, but for a free record, it’s a heck of a lot better than you’d expect.

Best songs: “Song For A Son,” “Freak USA” & “Cottonwood Symphony.”

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11. Smashing Pumpkins – Cyr (2020) – The newest album on this list at time of writing, Cyr is a double disc synth-pop album. It was talked up as being their attempt to create something modern, but to me it sounds like ‘80s worship. I wonder is this in fact closer to the vision inside Billy’s head when they started the band, than a genuine attempt to be modern?

At first, I wasn’t quite as into this record as most of the others. My main concerns were basically, “What’s the point of having a drummer as good as Chamberlain back in the band if you are going to have programmed beats and restrained songs?” and “what’s the point of having a double album if its all sort of one pace and all sort of one duration, with no peaks and valleys?” but from repeat listens, it has really grown on me. At the end of the day, a good song is a good song. Yeah, it isn’t as heavy and aggressive as I like, or as proggy and weird as I like, or as acoustic and beautiful as I like, or as diverse and surprising as I like, or as virtuosic and instrumentally impressive as I’d like… but do I spend a lot of the week humming choruses or melody lines from it… so Billy must have been on to something.

Best songs: “Ramona,” “Anno Satana” “Tyger, Tyger” & “Wyttch.”

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12. Smashing Pumpkins – The Aeroplane Flies High Boxset (1996) – Originally this was a box set collecting all the singles from Melon Collie, but nowadays you can just get it on iTunes or Amazon etc, and if you ignore the hit Mellon Collie songs, its kind of works like a (less-good) follow up to Pisces Iscariot. In contrast to that very wonderful compilation though, this doesn’t flow like an album, isn’t consistent all the way through, and isn’t a must-have. If you love the Pumpkins and just want a bit more, it is worth seeking out, and there are some great tunes on it, but it is definitely uneven and for-fans-only.

Best songs: “God,” “Pennies” & “Marquis In Spades.”

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13. Smashing Pumpkins – Machina / The Machines Of God (2000) – I really like the album, but I’m going to have to try and justify putting it so far down the list, lower than things that aren’t even real albums, between albums you can’t even buy on CD and between albums without most of the original line up. Far below albums many critics outright panned. It would be easy to just say “personal preference” chalk the whole thing up as a good job, and knock off early for ice cream, but I suppose I better try and come up with a rationale anyway.

The production on this one has a bit of a harsh sheen on most of it, and sort of hurts my ears. It’s a bit too bright, brittle and loud.

The record is also a bit overlong and although there is some diversity and some totally new ideas, it suffers a bit from filler in the middle and so unfortunately feels like it doesn’t justify its length.  

The heavy, energetic, intensely memorable opener is one of the best songs in the band’s history, and there are some nice trippy experimental moments here and there, but most of the album is a bit too syrupy.

Also, for a concept album / rock opera, the narrative doesn’t really come across as clearly as you would expect.

If either they had combined this and Machina 2 into one giant epic, or else they had trimmed this down to its best moments, and toned down the production a bit, then perhaps it would be a bit higher up the list, but as it stands, it is a good Pumpkins album, but not a great one.

Best songs: “The Everlasting Gaze,” “Try, Try, Try” & “Wound.”

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14. Smashing Pumpkins – Adore (1998) – It feels harsh having this album last, and indeed it will be utter blasphemy to some fans, but something has to be in last place, and although I like it, it is unarguably my least favourite. The songs, for the most part, aren’t just quite as good as the Pumpkin’s best. There’s definitely good stuff here, but there’s better stuff elsewhere.

I don’t mind them not playing hard or metallic, I don’t mind them not having Chamberlain’s drums, and I don’t mind them using synths or being gothy elsewhere, so don’t think I’m some kind of luddite just rejecting this album because it was a big sonic shift for the band.

Its just a bit plain, unadventurous and dreary when compared to the Pumpkins’ bigger more beloved albums, and also not as memorable, concise and well-written as their lesser well-known material. Even compared to their other ‘80s and electronic tinged album, its not as fun.

I’m sort of making it sound as though I don’t like it, but that is not the case, I do still like it… I’m just trying to explain how it can be last on the list, so the hardcore fans put down their pitchforks and flaming torches. It has some memorable moments, a unique aesthetic in the band’s catalogue, was historically important. I’m not denying that. It is an interesting portrait of a dark, bereaved time for the Pumpkins and confused time for the music business. But its just not as much my cup of tea as all the others.

Oh wait, did I essentially just say “personal preference” and knock off early? Woops. Anyone for ice-cream?

Best songs: “Ava Adore,” “Blank Page” & “For Martha.”

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Also, the EPs American Gothic and Lull deserve honorary mentions. You can do with “Slunk” and “The Rose March” in your life if you like good Pumpkins.

Kingcrimsonprog’s Metal Nerd Blog Albums Of The Year 2021:

Its been a strange old year, but there’s been a lot of good music.

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01. Gojira – Fortitude – The album that got me into Gojira at long last, the album I’ve listened to most out of anything this year, the album I knew would be my number one from the very first listen, and yet has still grown on me more with each listen. A straight up masterpiece in my eyes that will go down as an eternal classic album in my head-cannon. Beautifully melodic, deliciously groovy, and still some great heavy moments and masterful musicianship at times. I can’t recommend it enough.

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02. Helloween – Self Titled – Well, I was never not going to like this. I love Helloween with Kai, I love Helloween with Kiske, and I love Helloween with Deris. The idea of all three coming together on one super-group-esque album bringing all the eras together (sometimes even within one song) with artwork evoking the band’s peak, but song-writing not too far away from the band’s modern style and not just a rehash of the past but also acknowledging all the progress they’ve made over the years, with tasteful tribute paid to late drummer Ingo, self-referential lyrics and yet the whole thing feeling like a proper album and not just a gimmicky cash-grab. Excellent.  

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03. Trivium – In The Court Of The Dragon – Trivium have been on such a hot streak in the last half-decade, and this current line-up have released arguably their three best ever albums (or at a minimum, three of the best even if you disagree on the exact placement of the best) and ‘Dragon continues that fine formula of the last two albums while also leaning into the more expansive and technical direction of their Shogun record (one of their all time best records so a very good decision) and even reworking an old Shogun-era demo into an amazing album closer for this one. Great work.

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04. Volbeat – Servant Of The Mind – A deliberate course-correct from the slightly disappointing over-polished, overly-commercial previous album. This album leans back into the band’s heavier (in relative terms, its still catchy radio music, its not exactly Alter Of Plagues or something) side, with some deliberate Sabbath tribute, a sneaky death metal riff once hidden in there, a lot more up tempo moments and a lot less bland American-sounding radio rock. They also took some lessons in diversity and stole the best parts from the previous record, making it a sort of best-of-both-worlds situation.

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05. Rob Zombie – The Lunar Injection Kool Aid Eclipse Conspiracy – Probably his second or third best album to date, this record is fun, diverse, energised, eclectic, interesting and deeply memorable. They never lose the core sound, but there’s all sorts of fun diversion. Alright, there may be slightly too many interludes, but that’s always been a part of Rob Zombie, especially on the first two albums, and there’s still 11 real songs to sink your teeth into, from the catchy singles ‘King Freak & ‘Howling Man to the dance-able “Shake Your Ass, Smoke your Grass” and the unexpected country-tinged ‘Ghost Train.

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06. Powerwolf – Call Of The Wild – Speaking of fun, Powerful are back, and don’t disappoint. This album is such a big-smiles good time barrel of fun. Imagine Sabaton covering Helloween’s  Latin-language “Lavadete Dominum” & Type O Negative’s “I Don’t Wanna Be Me” at the same time and you’re somewhere in the ballpark. Now imagine they’re dressed up as monks and singing about Warewolves.

In terms of stacking up against the rest of their discography, the band are so fiercely consistent that this is as good as any album you care to name in the whole catalogue.

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07. Todd La Torre – Rejoice In The Suffering – Current Queensrÿche frontman (and sometimes drummer) releases a solo album with a childhood best friend on guitar, and the results are phenomenal. There’s a mixture of songs that could fit on recent ‘ryche albums, with branching out into more traditional metal territory, as well as branching out the other direction into heavier harsher realms. A brilliant debut from this act, and while I hope he never leaves, if ever Todd were to leave the ‘ryche I would dearly love him to continue releasing albums like this.

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08. Exodus – Persona Non Grata – A very strong album, I confess I may not have listened to this album enough to really honestly select the appropriate position on this list, but if its anything like the last three Exodus albums, the fine first impressions it has created in me will stay forever, and only grow more over time. Already the pre-released songs like “Clickbait” and “The Beatings Will Continue Until Morale Improves” are constantly stuck in my head and raise a huge smile in me whenever they come on, and “Lunatic Liar Lord” is so good it could have been on Tempo Of The Dammed. Last month I called this album “as good as, if not better than” any measure of expectation, and I’m sticking by that!

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09. Angelus Apatrida – Self Titled – A new band to me, but this is actually the Spanish Thrash-revivalist’s 7^th release. Bludgeoning, pummelling, furious… these are just some of the words to describe this beast of an album. There is also some serious groove on the album to break up the speed, but its thrash through and through. If you like bands like Evile, Dust Bolt or Power Trip, then you really need to get on board. Check out the opener “Indoctrinate” from this album for a Vulgar-Display’ album-cover style punch to the face (in musical form).

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10. Accept – Too Mean To Die – Much like Trivium, Accept are on a hot-streak right now (for about a decade this time, since their reformation and the introduction of Mark Tornillo on vocals… that’s Kreator-levels of hot streak!). They have a definite identifiable style and formula, which some people might feel is beginning to get a bit samey by now, but when the formula is this good, I can live with quite a few albums in that style. Alright, its not as good as my favourite, Stalingrad or its very strong follow-up Blind Rage, but I’ve listened to it a lot this year, and have enjoyed it every time.

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Honourable Mentions:

Salem – Salem II EP – Wasn’t included because it is an EP, not an album, but probably would have been number 2 or 3 on the list if it did count. Really great fun, super catchy, super memorable, and my go-to car record this year.

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Weezer – Van Weezer – I’ve only owned this a few days, so can’t objectively rate it against things I’ve had almost a whole year (eg. Todd La Torre and Accept), but I feel very positively towards it and just want to give it a little appreciative nod. Imagine if The Green Album had even better guitar solos and paid deliberate homage to some classic tracks like “Crazy Train,” “Girls Girls Girls” and “Panama.”

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And just in case you want it, here’s my list from last year. See you again next year!

Queensrÿche Albums Ranked.

Hate list features? Feel free to skip this article and others in this series.

Here I’ll be ranking the albums by certain bands in order from Best (actually my subjective favourite) to worst/least good (subjectively, in my opinion). Number 1 is obviously the best. The lowest number is my least favourite.

Queensrÿche:

01. Operation: Mindcrime (1988) – An album so good they have released a live album of it in its entirety not once, but twice, with an additional third version as a bonus live album with the anniversary edition. This is the one you see in all the magazines, all the best metal albums lists, all the website countdowns, and with good reason. Not overrated, this one actually lives up to the reputation. Man do I love this record. I keep a framed vinyl copy on my wall as decoration. A concept album that doesn’t sacrifice good structure, and brilliant music just for the story, while also not going too far the other way and just sounding like a disconnected bunch of random tunes that you can only tell is a story because you’re told so. No, this is concept album perfection. Musically, it is also perfection, a brilliant melding of Hard ‘80s Rock, Metal, little touches of Prog without getting overblown, staggering lead guitar work, memorable drumming, utterly world class singing from one of the world’s best Metal singers back in his prime, and an expansive production job too. Masterpiece. I have such fond memories of discovering this. I can still remember in vivid detail the bus ride into Oxford to get it, in the basement part of the HMV where the Metal, Prog and other non-pop music was kept, and the staff who always had the music up waaaay to high.

Standout tunes include: “The Needle Lies,” “Revolution Calling,” “Spreading The Disease” & “Suite Sister Mary.”  

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02. The Warning + Self-Titled EP (1984 + 1983) – Although Mindcrime is the better record, when I think of Queensryche, the thing that comes into my mind, is the first 30 seconds of the title track to Warning, that vocal on its own ringing out, which then crashes into a metallic but rocky riff, and those brilliant, awkward, impressive drums. Mindcrime impressed me and I knew it was a great record, but Warning and the EP were what made me really fall in love with them. There was a period in my life when I was getting really physically fit and I used to always go for long walks, and my go to record at the time was Warning, (or both Warning and The EP together). When I went to see the band live, songs from this were some of the ones that made me smile the most and sing along the hardest. On their Live Evolution DVD, the songs from this era are my favourite section of that DVD’s era-by-era style setlist. As the music here is earlier, there is a bit more influence on the sleeve, it is a bit more of its time (and as such, it is incredibly charming and makes the fuzzy metalhead spot in my heart buzz every time I hear it). The EP is great because it is a short, sharp, filler free blast that covers a range of styles and gives a brilliant first impression, and the album is great because it takes everything the EP did and expands it, fleshes it out and gives you more. They’re both so perfect in their own way that I find it hard to rank one above the other, hence the joint number 2 slot. Standout tracks include: “Warning,” “En Force,” “NM 156,” “Roads To Madness” and “The Lady Wore Black.”

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03. Rage For Order (1986) – This one took me a while to get into. I mean, I loved “Walk In The Shadows” the first time I heard it, I’m not a savage, but with the moody atmospheric tracks and semi-ballads, not to mention the weird cover song, and all the stuff in the CD’s linear notes about how the fans were turned off by their make up and fashion choices in this era, I don’t know, it just wasn’t as instant love at first listen as the other records. However, once I got into it, I really enjoy what they did here, it is a very clever sequel to the debut album, and shows that the band are no one trick pony. It really highlights their adventurous side, and is probably a bit more progressive than even Mindcrime although Queensryche always do it in a subtle way, it isn’t just writing 20 minute songs with lots of keyboard solos and ‘70s worship, they actually progress their metal by taking distinct and new approaches to it, (rather than actually regress to the golden age of Prog). Of the first five Queensryche albums, this is probably the most diverse, and the weird robotic production sound also makes it have this perfect oppressive atmosphere that suits the lyrical content. I’ve read a lot that this is a very “textured” album, and I think that is as good an explanation as any.

Standout tracks include: “Surgical Strike,” “Neue Regel,” “Screaming In Digital” & “Chemical Youth (We Are Rebellion).”

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04. Empire (1990) – The band’s biggest selling and most successful record, Empire is perhaps most famous for the big hit single “Silent Lucidity” which feels like the second coming of Pink Floyd’s “Comfortably Numb” (in a good way, not a derivative way). That song was so good, but also so easy on the ear, that I had it playing at my wedding while we cut the cake, and none of the relatives realised they were listening to a metal band. I know its not a love ballad lyrically, but it has that sort of sound musically at times, its not exactly “Queen Of The Reich” and so won’t scare off the elderly grandmas, aunts and uncles at the party. Mega hit aside; there is a lot more to the album, from the commercial Hard Rock bangers, to the moody emotional moments, to dark metallic tracks with political or socially conscious themes. There is a smattering of keyboards and an even bigger production than Mindcrime. Everything here is dialled up, the vocals, the guitar solos, the drum fills. It all just has so much “umph.” This album deserves its success.

Standout tracks include: “Empire,” “Jet City Woman,” “Silent Lucidity” & “Resistance.”

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05. Self-Titled Album (2013) – After a year or two of nasty mudslinging in the media, the infamous spitting and knife-threat incidents, long time singer Geoff Tate was out, and after a brief period of being called Rising West, Queensryche were back, this time with new singer Todd La Torre at the microphone. After a few of their least well received albums in a row, where Tate had allegedly been in control and stifled contributions from the other members, the rest of the band were ready to show off. This is a revitalised, refocused, reenergised album from a band re-evaluating their legacy and direction, and remembering what made them so good in the first place. Honestly, I almost had this album even higher in the list, but I’d fear being lynched if it was in front of any of the first four albums (being above the fifth album is still heresy enough!). Not unlike the EP, this album is short, sweet, succinct and shows off everything the new line-up would go on to do on the next albums here in one near-perfect little package. Take away the two intro tracks “X2” and “Midnight Lullabye” and it is just nine songs clocking in at just over half an hour. Every song has a unique flavour, every performance is noteworthy, there’s basically no fat on the bones. Next to the aforementioned Warning/EP era tracks, the parts of the live show I loved the most when I got to see them were tracks from this. When Todd sang “As Goooooood as my witness” both live and hearing it on record for the first time, it was straight up chills-in-the-spine stuff! When I make Queensryche playlists now, most of this record finds its way on there. When I fantasise about seeing them live again, it is always songs from this that I picture. I can still see Todd’s gesturing and facial expressions from that show in my mind’s eye every time I listen to the album.

Standout tracks include: “Where Dreams Go To Die,” “Redemption,” “Fallout” & “Vindication.”

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06. Promised Land (1994) – Less metallic than the previous albums, and more of a slow burn, Promised Land is one of the band’s proggier, more experimental records. I guess the financial success of Empire allowed the band a bit more creative freedom and confidence to just do what felt right at the time. There is a sense of freedom and exploration here, a sort of “anything goes” atmosphere. A lot of the things that characterise the band’s later work make their first appearance here, like touches of alternative, saxophone, a greater focus on hypnotic moods than in the face power, lower pitched vocals. In short, nobody is going to mistake any song on here for Judas Priest, I’ll tell you that much! However; While this album may have introduced some of the things that lead to Metal fans not liking their mid-late-90s/00s material, the delivery and songwriting is just so good here that it will really win you over if you give it the chance. What makes this album stylistically different from any of the albums that preceded it, is exactly what makes it such a rewarding and captivating listen, especially if you are in the right mood/headspace. Catch me on the right day and this may even be anywhere from one to three places higher in my rankings. Yes, it has some of the style that turns Metal fans off their post-’80s output, but the song writing is better, the mood is more interesting, the guitar work is more impressive, the emotion is more genuine, the saxophone is less intrusive and the Alternative feel is more natural than on any of the subsequent late-Tate-era albums that would follow. This is how it could and should be done.

Standout tracks include: “My Global Mind,” “Real World,” “I Am I” & “Bridge.”

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07. The Verdict (2019) – At the time of writing, this is the Rycher’s newest record, and boy is it a strong one. Ok, it isn’t as much of a revelation as the self-titled, and it doesn’t have all the media hype swirling around it, nor did I get to see them live on this cycle so don’t have all the personalised memories about it, and it is about 15 minutes longer so it is less succinct too, but I’d still say it is near as good. The main talking point about this record at the time was that long time drummer Scott Rockenfield was on paternity leave, so drums were handled by singer Todd La Torre instead. He does a good job making it feel like Queensryche (although I am an utter mark for Scott so I’d also say there is no real chance of being exactly right). Apart from Scott being on leave; the new line up was relatively stable, the new formula was established, the band had toured enough together to figure out what works and what could change, and turned in another superb set of songs. I feel like maybe this album doesn’t get as much praise as it deserves as it is kind of another version of the last two records, whereas Queensryche fans are used to massive leaps and changes all the time. This one was more like business as usual. But it’s a hell of business, and I’m glad they’re sticking with it and perfecting it rather than abandoning it too quickly without writing this set of songs.

Standout tracks include: “Launder The Conscience,” “Man The Machine,” “Bent” & “Propaganda Fashion.”

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08. Condition Human (2015) – I guess the band might have got a bit of criticism from reviewers about the self-titled being a bit short (I personally liked that about it; I’d call a succinct but great set of songs better value for money that a long album with some lesser tracks tacked on for padding) because this album is about 20 minutes longer than the previous one. Apart from the brilliant lead single “Arrow Of Time” which is just an all out rager and clearly meant to evoke feelings of being the modern day equivalent of “Queen Of The Reich” as their short fast bruiser, this album sees the band try and solidify and define their sound. The previous album was a no-two-songs-alike kind of affair and this record sees the band try and take all those ingredients and combine them together in various ways to make a more cohesive whole. What it lacks in impact, it makes up for in craft.  Easily half this album would make it into any ‘Ryche playlist or fantasy live set of mine, and just because I like the other Todd albums a bit more, doesn’t mean it isn’t one heck of a record.  

Standout tracks include: “Arrow Of Time,” “Selfish Lives,” “Hellfire” & “Bullet Proof.”

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09. Tribe (2003) – Now we get to the more controversial period of the band’s history. This album came out when the band’s fanbase was shrinking, when Geoff was taking a bigger part in the song-writing, when Chris was out of the band (save guest appearances) and when the media cared less about the band in general. Some people dismiss this whole period entirely. Nowadays the band don’t play anything from this period live at all, and many amazon reviewers may urge you to steer away from this period altogether. Not me though, apart from Chris (and on this album he still makes an appearance) the rest of the band are still the same great musicians/singer as on all the classic albums, and if you are the kind of person who listens to Nu Metal, Grunge or Alternative Rock anyway, the flavours won’t be too off-putting. Queenryche were never exactly Possessed or Morbid Saint anyway, and you can’t expect them to be all metal, all the time. Of all the late-Tate period record, Tribe is my favourite. Whereas the two records before this were a bit too samey and lacking in the song writing department, Tribe really feels like the true sequel to Promised Land (hey even then album art is a bit similar). This album still has a lot of the energy, inspiration and passion that the best albums had and the least favourable albums lacked. If you keep an open mind, there are simply some very strong songs here. The drumming is particularly impactful at times, and Tate’s vocals are explorative and diverse. Don’t miss out on this one just because the common consensus dismisses everything between 1997-2013.

Standout tracks include: “The Art Of Life,” “Rhythm Of Hope,” “Great Divide” & “Tribe.”

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10. Operation: Mindcrime 2 (2006) – Well, how many late career concept album sequels do you know that people like better than the original? Are King Diamond fans more inclined to listen to Abigail 2 than Abigail? Do most Jethro Tull fans prefer Tick As A Brick 2 to the original? No, creating a sequel to a beloved album from your early days is almost never met with universal acclaim, it is an almost guaranteed instant backlash-generator that draws unfavourable comparison with your best work and creative halcyon days, rather than where you are up to lately, and it can almost never stand on its own without the built in criticism that it fails to live up to its predecessor (and also draws out a very vocal minority of haters who claim you are making a cash grab and spitting on your legacy).
Mindcrime 2 is no exception. Go online, have a few cursory searches, and you will most likely be met with a pretty red hot stream of hate for this record. I don’t think its that bad, I quite like a lot of it actually. Now, as you can tell by my rankings, it is not close to the original… but it is also not in the bottom third either. There’s a lot of good things going for this album, the production is strong, the concept helps inject some interesting drama into the lyrics, there’s a guest vocal from the late great Ronnie James Dio, and the bass gets to be the star a lot of the time. There are certainly some positives going for the record to be sure.

Now for the negatives; first of all, it is just too long, 17 songs is just too many to hold the listener’s interest when you aren’t in your prime anymore. Secondly, it is pretty front loaded, and all of the best material is over by track 11 and 12, which makes the conclusion to the story hard to follow for me as my mind tunes out over the final six songs. Thirdly, and perhaps worst of all the record sacrifices structure, cohesion and a band-feel in favour of serving the concept (the opposite of what made the first Mindcrime so great), in places this feels a bit more like a musical than a killer album, and much of it works as a whole, but little of it stands up on its own. Of all the albums in the list so far, while I do still like it and respect the attempt, this one is the one I would want to see the least from live, or expect to see the least from on a compilation, or that I put the least from (percentage wise and just straight up numerically) into any playlist. If you are not a devoted fan, you would probably be better off skipping this one unfortunately. It is not as bad as everyone says, not even close, but it is missing something, in need of an editor and definitely not the first Queensryche album you should try out if you are a new fan.

Standout tracks include: “I’m American,” “Murderer?,” “Hostage” & “The Change.”

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11. Hear In The Now Frontier (1997) – Now we are really getting to the material I like the least. I find myself listening to the following albums the least. I hesitate to call them bad, but when your other material is as good as Queenryche’s best material, this does sort of pale in comparison. As I’ve shown in my Tribe and Promised Land comments, I still like when the band do less metallic and more alternative music, the issue with this album is not the stylistic direction, and Chris DeGarmo is still here, so it isn’t the lack of Chris (which people tend to attribute the cause of band’s later work not being as good to), its just that it is a bit samey, forgettable and basically not captivating. There is no single song I can single out and go “This is bad” about, I just don’t remember most of it later. Since Queensryche have written some of the most memorable songs I’ve ever heard on my whole life on other albums, “Not actually bad, but just forgettable” may be a pretty damning form of faint praise even if I am trying to be nice about it.   

Standout tracks include: “Spool,” “Hit The Black,” & “Sign Of The Times.” (The bonus track “Chasing Blue Sky” is arguably better than anything on the record though).

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12. American Soldier (2009) – This album deserves an A for the idea, A for effort, but maybe something lower for the execution. It is very well designed with an elaborate concept about how being a soldier can effect someone (and their family) mentally, physically, emotionally and socially. It was designed by visiting veterans and hearing their stories. A whole lot of care and attention went into the planning, concept and lyrics. I really respect what Tate was trying to do here. Just a shame about the music. Again, there’s nothing wrong with it, there’s no “yuck, what a disaster” moment (well, some people say Geoff doing a duet with his daughter is that moment, but I liked the spirit of that), but again, most of it is totally forgettable, samey and interchangeable. I think this is one of the controversial ones where Tate and management allegedly stifled the rest of the band from being energetic, proggy, metallic or in any way impressive, in favour of safe, bland, beige radio rock. If that is indeed the case, you can really tell. If not, the music certainly gives creedance to the rumor.

Its all as my dad would  say, “much of a muchness,” but just to finish out my formula, the closest thing to standout tracks include: “Hundred Mile State,” “Middle Of Hell,” & “Man Down!”

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13. Frequency Unknown (2013) – At the time of this album, Geoff Tate released an album under the name Queensryche, but it was a bit of a Chinese Democracy situation with most of the key members missing, several line up changes around the release, different members on record to live, and the other key members in a different band with a new singer (Velvet Revolver in this weak analogy). Unlike Chinese Democracy though, it was infamously rushed out quickly. Some people, due to the ugly things said in the media got very divisive and chose one side or the other. I was a bit too impartial and gave them both a fair shake, but lets be honest, one of the two Queenrcyhe albums from 2013 is near the top of my list, and one is near the bottom. A lot of people complain about the production, to the point it was rereleased later with better production, but to be honest it isn’t all that egregious. A lot of people hate the stylistic direction, but other bands have done this kind of thing fine. Some people say it is utterly unlistenable but I think that is a bit harsh; it is better than some things the band or Geoff solo have released. The only real flaw here, is that a lot of the songs could be better. I mean, you’d really think an album with Chris Poland, Paul Bostaph, KK Downing and Rudy Sarso on it would be much better. It just isn’t good enough.

Standout tracks include: “The Weight Of The World,” “Running Backwards,” & “Cold.”

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14. Q2K (1999) – Sometimes I feel a bit defensive about this album. “Hey, its not that bad” I always seem to find myself thinking. However, when it comes down to it, when I go listen to a Queensryche album, it is not this one. I think everything I said about Hear In The Now Frontier also applies here too, except the material is even blander and even more forgettable. I guess it doesn’t help that for the first time, I don’t particularly dig this musical direction, it is a bit too U2 for my own personal tastes, but usually I can get into any stylistic change if the songs are good enough. I guess barring a few standouts, they just perhaps weren’t good enough this time. I want to like it more than I actually seem to.

Standout tracks include: “Liquid Sky,” “The Right Side Of My Mind,” & “Breakdown.”

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15. Dedicated To Chaos (2011) – I like to try and say that Queensryche have no bad albums. I try to say that even when I like one album better that just means the one is better not that the other one is worse. I try to say that when they try a new style, that its all valid and that they are good to try new things, and that it is impressive they don’t just repeat themselves. I try to defend thier less popular work and I try to tell people to keep an open mind, that they always make something worth listening to in the end. The one album where this all falls apart though is Dedicated To Chaos, I just do not like it. I just can’t think of anything nice to say about it. As my mother always said, when you can’t think of something nice to say, its probably best to blog another few paragraphs about it to explain yourself…

I think it may simply be a genuinely bad album, and I almost never say that. I remember being in a band, and how much work it is to write, record, and play material live on even an amateur level, and can extrapolate how much harder that must be for the professionals. I don’t like to make light of people’s hard work and effort but this is just a bad album, plain and simple, no getting around it. I remember reviews at the time comparing this to Rage For Order, but all I can think of is that they must have been listening to a different record, this sounds and feels about as much like Rage For Order as Lulu feels like Ride The Lightning.

I don’t want to drag this out any more than I have to, so that’s all I’ll say on the matter. I won’t do multiple standout tracks for this, because there’s none I’d want to see live, add to a greatest hits compilation, or even discuss enthusiastically on a blog. I recon the only song I really like is “At The Edge” but even then, they’ve done variations on that kind of thing better already on American Soldier, Operation Mindcrime 2, and even Frequency Unknown.

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If you were to use this list as a buyer’s guide, 1-6 are utter must haves, 7-9 are next up once you’ve got into the band, 10-14 are optional if you are obsessed with the band and have already bought all the best stuff, and 15 is really only for the most ardent collectors.

Metal-Nerd Blog 2020 Round UP and AOTY list, part 2:

I know, I know, it is probably two weeks too early, but I’m in the middle of moving home and working 65 hours a week on top of that, so may as well get it in while I have the chance. It’s the tenth year of this blog, and I’d hate to miss out on what is now a yearly tradition.

Last week in part 1, I wrote a round-up of what I’d been buying and listening to this year, and links to reviews of the concerts I had been to prior to lockdown.

Next up;

Here are my most-listened-to artists of the past 12 months according to LastFM:

Quite a mix there; Classic Metal, Classic Rock, Metalcore, Thrash, Prog, Hair, Power, Groove, Death, even a bit of indie. Old favourites, new discoveries. Nicely balanced, didn’t even mean to.

And finally; since it is December now, here is the Metal-Nerd Blog Album Of The Year List, 2020:

Honourable Mention: Salem – S/T EP. – Creeper went from being a fun pop-punk band with some Halloweeny lyrics to a ‘90s Britrock band tapping into older American sounds. Afterwards, their singer has a side project basically making a fun pop-punk band with Halloweeny lyrics. Highly recommended to fans of early Creeper (or Alkaline Trio).

10. BMTH – Post Human Survival Horror – Review here.

09. Five Finger Death Punch – F8 – Review here.

08. Annihilator – Ballistic, Sadistic – Review here.

07. Creeper – Sex, Death & The Infinite Void – Review here.

06. Haken – Virus  – (Rhymes with Bacon, not Kraken) British prog metal wizards release a captivating sequel to their previous album and continue to escape comparisons to other bands and forge their own identity. Might have even been higher, but I came to it late and haven’t even fully unpacked all its hidden glories yet.

05. Lamb Of God – S/T – Review here.

04. Testament – Titans Of Creation – Review here.

03. Protest The Hero – Palimpsest – Review here.

02. Trivium – What The Dead Men Say – Review here.

01. Sepultura – Quadra – Review here.

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Metal-Nerd Blog 2020 Round UP and AOTY list, part 1:

Leaving aside any talk of the pandemic (you’ve read enough about that this year, this is a light-hearted site, I barely even post bad reviews) 2020 has been an interesting year musically and personally. On a personal level my first and only child celebrated his first ever birthday and my wife and I have just finally bought our first home. I also had a nice break at work at the start of the year where they moved me to an easier job for two months, which was a welcome if brief change. I also managed to loose one stone in weight recently after having put on too much around the pregnancy and new-fatherhood stage.

Musically, before the world turned upside down, I got to go to some fabulous concerts, in the form of Slipknot (childhood favourite but hadn’t seen since I was a teen, wearing the tour t-shirt as I write this), Five Finger Death Punch (better than you’d expect, and Megadeth supported!) and finally Testament, Exodus and Death Angel together (Dream come true line-up, shame a load of the band members and crew caught the virus from this tour).

In terms of new music, some icons like Ozzy released a new album, lots of bands have been releasing short one-off singles or mini-EPs (like Machine Head), some of my favourite bands released albums which obviously made it to my Top-10 list, and some other less-obvious bands surprised me.

In terms of old music; I’ve spent a hell of a lot of the year listening to Def Leppard, (expanding my knowledge of the band beyond just the early NWOBHM days), discovering Danzig, as well as expanding my Motorhead collection. That and as per most years, listening to a bunch of Thrash Metal (just got into Canada’s Sacrifice and LA’s Agent Steel recently, and Hirax earleir this year, there’s always more Thrash to explore).

I’ve also been reading band biographies and music books where I can find the time between work, exercise, parenting and trying to get a house. Max Cavelera and Dee Snider’s books were particularly good. I read Fiver Finger Death Punch’s drummer’s book too, but it’s a bit too simplistic Sex, Drugs and Rock and Roll for me, or I should really say erectile dysfunction, alcoholism and metal (if you’ve read the book, you’ll know what I mean).

Due to all my Def Leppard listening, I’ve just finished Phil Collen’s book (which is a real easy read, very smoothly written). Most recently I’ve just started fellow blogger 80s Metal Man’s simi-fiction, semi-history of Metal/Rock coming of age novel Rock N Roll Children, and obviously if you’re reading this blog, you should read that book, I’ve not finished it yet but its compelling so far so can still recommend it.

I like a good audiobook too, and have listened to autobiographies on audible by the likes of Sammy Hagar, Phil Collins, Rick Wakeman, Rob Halford, Alice Cooper and Steve Tyler, all of which I’d recommend, (except maybe the Steve Tyler one as it is a bit too lyrical and overwritten at times, but still good a lot of the time).

So that’s the introduction, a round up of the year. Part two will see a list of my most-listened-to artists of the past 12 months and of course the actual AOTY list (gotta be December before I post that, I haven’t even put up the Christmas tree yet!). Stay tuned.

Bullet For My Valentine Albums Ranked

Hate list features? Feel free to skip this article and others in this series.

Here I’ll be ranking the albums by certain bands in order from Best (actually my subjective favourite) to worst/least good (subjectively, in my opinion). Number 1 is obviously the best. The lowest number is my least favourite.

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It’s a weird trait of the metal community that we all got into a competition to claim to like the most extreme thing and forgot the reason why we got into it in the first place – catchy bands that wrote good songs. Everyone cursing out this band for being sissies or that band for being kiddy music and don’t seem to understand that the bands they curse out are sometimes faster and harder than AC/DC and Led Zeppelin or all the bands we all love at the same time as our favourite extreme bands with names like Skull Fucker, Maggot Bastards and Peadophile-Juggernaut. I mean, I like Deicide and Morbid Angel as much as the next guy, I like Mastodon and Tool a fair bit too, but I can still understand that music doesn’t always have to be super heavy, or super complex. I spent most of the last week listening to Def Leppard’s Hysteria album and loving it. Melody and poppy hooks do not always mean ‘bad.’

Even among fans who don’t just hate everything released after 1989, there seems to be a lot of hate reserved for Bullet For My Valentine. Half the people complaining that this band aren’t heavy enough and are therefore ‘not metal’ probably don’t realise that this band sounds closer to Priest and Maiden than any necro black metal or soul sapping drone metal band they praise actually does. Melodic vocals and melodic dual guitar all across this band’s discography sounds pretty metal to me. Listen to the start of ‘Skin’ on here, and tell me if it sounds more like the original sound of metal than Necophagist or Peste Noire do. If we all love Dio and Yngwie Malmsteen why do new bands have to be unlistenably heavy? Strange cognitive dissonance.

I myself definitely saw them as too girly, too watered down, too slick and too commercial when they were new. Imagine how Thrash Metal fans in the ‘80s viewed Poison, that’s the kind of suspicion I had at the time Bullet’ were on the cover of all the magazines. Even when I eventually did get over the prejudice this still is a band I would never wear a t-shirt of, or add a patch of to my jacket to sit alongside Exodus and Testament patches.  Luckily, the podcast I listened to most around 2010-2015 kept defending them and telling people like me to keep an open mind that I was receptive to giving them a fair shot when I was in university during part of that time and my friend kept pushing me on them and exposing me to them to the point I couldn’t hate them any longer. That and the fact that all the other people I knew who liked rock or metal but were five years younger than me were all madly in love with this band’s debut album. I remember being at a party and someone switched Appetite For Destruction off and put this band on instead and they all sang along to it. I was taken aback. But fair play, it was good for shaking me out of my anti-Bullet mindset.

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BULLET FOR MY VALENTINE:

01. The Poison (2005) – The original, the heaviest, the public’s favourite and arguably still the best. This album is a classic to a certain generation of British Metal fans. When it first came out, I was incredibly sceptical of this band and didn’t give it a fair chance. I saw them as too girly, too watered down, too slick and too commercial. Hey, after the opening intro, the first three songs were all absolute ragers. This wasn’t too wet or too wimpy at all! What had I been thinking all those years?! I don’t see how you could like Killswitch or Trivium but say this is a step too far. I wonder where I even got that prejudice from? Maybe it was just the times, in a word of ‘punch an emo kid day’ maybe anything with flowers in the logo was just too much for the parts of the metal community I was most into at the time (I was neck deep in discovering as much Thrash Metal as I could at the time, after leaving school and realising there was much more than Nu Metal out there).

Anyway; this is a strong album, and a heck of a lot heavier than I initially would have expected. I’m glad I did get into the band after all, even if it was a bit after their prime. I was lucky enough to later catch them live a few years ago, when they decided to play the album in full, and had a great night.  Even caught a drumstick, the first time I ever did so! There’s a great DVD from that tour which would be a great intro to the band in addition to this album.

Best songs: ‘Four Words To Choke Upon,’ ‘Her Voice Resides’ & ‘Cries In Vain.’

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02. Venom (2015) – This album is a massive return to form. It’s a shame it wasn’t a financial and critical success on a scale of the debut as it deserves to be. After the major career derailment that their fourth album was, this fifth effort absolutely nails everything. The guitars are more impressive. The choruses are great. Even the lyrics are less cringey than before. There are at least 5 songs on this record that I would put in any best-of playlist and more still that I would love to see live. It has arguably the best production job of their career, sounding both professional but also not overproduced. It is arguably the most energetic and vital sounding record they have made to date. It’s a real must-have for any fan of the band. Its hard to believe it wasn’t bigger. If this hadn’t come out directly after such a divisive and fanbase losing record it would have been much more successful.

Best songs: ‘Army Of Noise,’ ‘You Want A Battle (Here’s A War)’ & ‘No Way Out.’

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03. Fever (2010) – This album is slicker, rockier and a lot less raw than the debut, and its slower and less thrashy than the sophomore album, but the Welsh band’s third album makes up for not being stylistically what I’d usually favour with pure song-writing skill. These are just some great, easily digestible, entertaining and memorable tunes. Very much the ‘Black Album’ or ‘Countdown To Extinction’ attempt of this band’s career. Make a fun, brief, well-crafted Hard Rock version of their old style and take a stab at the big time. Festival ready songs for a band that were at this stage being called ‘’the biggest British Metal band since Iron Maiden’’ on a regular basis.

The debut may be the one that people remember the most fondly, but this is a very close second in my opinion. If you told me it was your favourite, I’d totally understand why.

I’d probably have it higher too, but some cringey lyrics make it lose a bit of shine. (Come here you naughty girl you’re such a tease /
You look so beautiful down on your knees / Keep on those high heel shoes rip off all your clothes / You smell so fucking good it makes me lose control!). Its not 1987 and this is not the sunset strip guys. I like Ratt and Motley Crue as much as the next guy, but a modern British band just can’t pull off the womanising lyrics in the way an ’80s Califonian can. Lyrics aside however, this is definitely the best of the band’s various attempts to get bigger.

Best songs: ‘Your Betrayal,’ ‘The Last Fight’ & ‘Pleasure & Pain.’

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04. Scream Aim Fire (2008) – A fine album, a fair follow-up to the debut, and features several of their best-known songs. The only problem is that there’s a bit of filler, and that they’ve simply written better albums. For people who have a bit of a prejudice about the ‘core’ side of metalcore, this one has a bit less of that. I mean, the title track with its ‘over the top, over the top’ gang chants has an almost Bay Area feel to it at times. The band were definitely keen to loose the sniffy attitude metal fans were having to them and so filled the record with much more classic metal and Thrash Metal moments, driving them much more into a Trivium or Shadows Fall side of Metalcore and less of a Killswitch side of the spectrum.

Don’t get me wrong, you won’t mistake this for the new Death Angel or Tankard album, but for people who think this is a bad Emo band for 14-year-old girls only, you may be very surprised if you actually give it a listen.

That all being said, there are a few moments on here that may drive away the Gumby die-hard Metal fans. ‘Forever & Always’ is a power ballad, that sounds like a mixture of Coheed & Cambria’s ‘From Here To Mars’ with vocal patterns from Green Day’s Kerplunk. They make up for it by following it up with the fastest and heaviest song on the album though (the only one with blast beats), so assuming you didn’t throw the disc out the window, crush a beer can on your head, and listen to Reign In Blood instead, it can still pull you back. (Although now that I joke about it, that sounds quite fun to be honest).

Best songs: ‘Scream Aim Fire,’ ‘Waking The Demon’ & ‘End Of Days.’

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05. S/T EP. (2004) – Basically, this is the same musical direction and type of material as is present on their debut full length studio album (heck, one song appears on both), just one year before, and shorter. If you like The Poison (and considering it’s a gold record, in the era when people don’t buy CDs anymore, quite a few people do) then you should absolutely pick this up. More of the same. Obviously, not quite as good as its shorter and a bit rawer in the production, but ostensibly the same ballpark and highly recommended.

I wouldn’t make it your first purchase, definitely go for one of the proper full-length studio albums, but if you are already a fan, its not worth overlooking either.

Best songs: ‘Hand Of Blood’ & ‘Cries In Vain.’

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06. Gravity (2018) – The band’s newest album has certainly divided opinion. On the one hand, it is a brave new move, a shift in style and a willingness to try new things. On the other hand, it is a cynical sell out or a confused identity crisis after their previous intentional return to form album didn’t quite return their momentum and status as highly as it should have and deserved to, so now they are forced to try something else.

I caught the band live during Download Festival 2018 when they were promoting this album, and the material did come across quite well in a live setting, but I’d be lying if I said I’d rather hear songs off this than songs off of Venom. I know a lot of people hated this album for the pop-music and electronic influence that it presented, seeing it as trying too late to ride Bring Me The Horizon’s coat tails into crossover mainstream success, but as I discussed in my review of Amo, I don’t actually mind someone trying something poppy if there are good songs that can entertain me enough.

This album is fine and I have no abject hatred of it. It’s a decent enough set of songs, in a style that isn’t my favourite, but that isn’t necessarily a deal-breaker. If it had been bad, it might have been a bigger misstep. As it stands its still ok, just not the best thing they’ve done.

Best songs: ‘No Way Out,’ ‘Leap Of Faith’ & ‘Letting You Go.’

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07. Temper, Temper (2013) – Well, this album was pretty much universally critically panned, panned by fans, sold more poorly than their previous records, irrevocably dented the band’s momentum, status and public relations and when it was new, all the people five years younger than me who used to love the band wouldn’t shut up about what a car crash it was. If you have made it all the way through that overlong comma filled sentence without getting seasick, you will therefore be able to extrapolate that this is considered their worst album, and should certainly either be avoided or at least the last one you buy.

I kind of agree with the public consensus on that it is the least good thing the band have released. I may be a bit less harsh on what a massive car crash it is. I mean, the band are taking the Black Album-ening a bit too far, making it too slick, too Rock and basically turning a bit more into an American Radio Rock version of themselves than I’d like. But its not some hideous collection of unlistenable filth. Its just slightly uninspired and a bit boring and a little underdeveloped compared to their best work.

Maybe its worse to be damned with faint praise, I don’t know, but I can see merit in this. I mean, not if you have an Hellhammer tattoo and think Metallica’s ‘Fade To Black’ was an unforgivable sell out. But if you were a bullet fan before, I don’t see why the whole thing needs to go in the bin.  If I had all of the band’s material on shuffle, I wouldn’t violently pull out the earphones and chuck the player into the sea just because a track from this came on.

Best songs: ‘Leech’ ‘Saints & Sinners’ & ‘Breaking Point.’

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Machine Head Albums Ranked:

Hate list features? Feel free to skip this article and others in this series.

Here I’ll be ranking the albums by certain bands in order from Best (actually my subjective favourite) to worst/least good (subjectively, in my opinion). Number 1 is obviously the best. The lowest number is my least favourite.

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MACHINE HEAD:

01. Unto The Locust (2011): This album in my opinion is their finest hour, the best balance of aggressive and melodic, the best balance of fast and slow, the most tasteful lyrics and vocals of their career, one of the best production jobs in their career (that guitar tone is killer!).  This album is their most focused and succinct outing to date, seven songs and absolutely no filler, not even flab on indivdual songs (the only thing I would lose is the children’s choir in the intro of the album closer, but that’s just a couple of bars anyway).

‘Locust takes the formula set up over the past two albums and utterly perfects it. There is not one song on here I don’t want to see live. (When I have seen them live, songs from it have invariably been highlights of the whole night!). I’ve had a locust poster on my wall for most years since this albums release. I still have the keychain that came with it on my keys to this day. This may not be the one that gets all the magazine coverage and list features, but it is my personal favourite.

Best songs: ‘Locust,’ ‘Darkness Within’ & ‘Who We Are.’

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02. The Blackening (2007): A truly classic album and one of the best heavy metal albums of the decade.  This album has been called the Master Of Puppets of this generation. While that is a big statement and will likely shock and appal some people, it was absolutely beloved here in the UK and will be the highpoint against which all future records will be judged. There was such a swell of buzz and hype around this album cycle and the band were at their most respected and critically acclaimed since their debut. It also helped that they absolutely nailed the imagery, artwork and music videos. Everything just gelled.

The quality of the song writing is near peerless and it does feature some of the best guitar solos and most fired-up performances of their whole career. This album is the high water mark for the Demmel/Flynn guitar trade off.

There is really no denying the sheer energy and enthusiasm on display throughout the record. Everything just bursts out of the speakers. For example the level of musical, vocal and lyrical venom/anger in the Dimebag-honouring, troll-shaming anthem ‘Aesthetics Of Hate’ is almost breathtaking.

I may prefer Locust more personally, but the majority of fans and critics will opt for this one, and the band have featured huge doses of it in every live set since its release. If you only buy one Machine Head album, it should probably be this one.

Best songs: ‘Clenching The Fists Of Dissent,’ ‘Aesthetics Of Hate’ & ‘Wolves.’

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03. Burn My Eyes (1994): The original classic album. When this was new it was the fastest selling debut album Roadrunner Records ever had at that point. This is a definitive metal album of the 1990s. Its up there with Vulgar Display, Demanufacture & Chaos AD in the most important and influential metal albums of my youth (and to some extent the 1990s in general). Like The Blackening it is a cannonised stone cold classic album, widely respected and prominently featured in many list features and retrospectives.

This album is really the definition of Groove Metal for me. There were traces of this sort of music developing one riff at a time over the late ‘80s and early ‘90s in various Thrash Metal and Hardcore Punk albums, but it truly comes together into something new, fresh and exciting here. Up until they released The Blackening, it seemed as though they would never be able to follow up this iconic record. So many live favourites. Such a perfect gelling of art, videos, music, productino and performance. A real complete package.

If you are new to the band and didn’t grow up in the ’90s, its worth pointing out that this album is a lot rawer, harder and dirtier than their later work, with a lot less melody, but what it lacks in fineness it makes up for it attitude and sheer umph.

Best songs: ‘Davidian’ ‘The Rage To Overcome’ & ‘Blood For Blood.’

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04. Bloodstone & Diamonds (2014): I view the three album run of The Blackening through to this album as the pinnacle of the band’s career. This album would be higher if only their debut wasn’t so great. I really love this record, the strings and keys add an extra dimension of variety to the formula of the last two albums, it’s a bit more varied and there is a lot more light and shade than even before.

This was their first album without bassist Adam Duce, who was always one of the most important band members and the ying to frontman Rob Flynn’s yang (very much the David Ellefson of this band), so it was hard to imagine how they would sound without him. It is a real testament to the band that they carried on so strongly given the circumstances.

I caught the band live on this album cycle, and material from this record stood toe to toe with the very best of their back catalogue and was not found wanting.

Best songs: ‘Killers & Kings’ ‘Game Over’, ‘Eyes Of The Dead’ & ‘Night Of The Long Knives.’

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05. The More Things Change (1997): The first album with Sacred Reich drummer Dave McClain who really helped the band define their sound. This album had the unenviable task of having to follow up such an iconic debut, and as such it is often a bit overlooked when people think of definitive metal albums of the ‘90s, definitive Groove Metal albums or even the best Machine Head albums, but it is essential listening for any fan of the band.

In some ways it is a continuation of the style of Burn My Eyes, certainly on the first half, but the second half showcase the band being a bit darker, slower and creepier. It does most of the same things that made the debut so enjoyable and adds its own dimensions into the mix too.

I feel almost guilty not having this higher on the list. If you had it higher on your list I’d totally understand why.

Best songs: ‘Ten Ton Hammer’ ‘Take My Scars’ & ‘Struck A Nerve.’

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06. Through The Ashes Of Empires (2003): This record was something of a comeback. The band were an absolute punching bag in the media before this, they got dropped from their record label, people were starting to go off the band. This record was the path to redemption.

It wasn’t a rehash of the early days, or a continuation of the Nu Metal years, but its own new thing. There was still a bit of the distasteful lyrics, a bit of the string scratching and reverby noises and some of the vocal deliveries were still a bit rapped and rhythmic. However; The riffs were starting to be heavier. The songs were starting to be longer and broader. The band were starting to head in a new direction. I guess there’s just a little less technicality, a little less Thrash influence and the addition of guitarist Phil Demmel into the line up came too late to affect the song writing and recording.

This fit perfectly alongside the new bands gaining ground at the time such as Killswitch, Chimaira and Shadows Fall, bringing back guitar solos, traditional metal fashion but not just rehashing the past. It learned lessons of melody from the previous records but delivered it in a new way, covering more ground.

In hindsight it was sort of a stepping stone towards their real comeback The Blackening (kind of like how Aerosmith’s Done With Mirrors gave way to Pump).

However, that is not to detract from this album’s quality. The definitive track ‘Imperium’ will never not be in the Machine Head setlist ever again.

Best songs: ‘Imperium’ ‘All Falls Down’ & ‘Vim.’ (& ‘Seasons Wither’ if you buy the best edition).

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07. Catharsis (2018): This album got an absolute critical lambasting when it was released.

Between some people hating Rob Flynn’s politics on the anti-trump anthem ‘Bastards’ and some other people hating the swearing, sex-and-drug fuelled lyrics, and indeed some other people hating the band both allowing a little bit of Nu Metal to creep back into the sound while simultaneously following some fashionable modern trends like electronics and autotuners… it seemed like every fan, critic and casual bystander seemed to have something rub them up the wrong way about this record, and let the world know about it online.

In the age of the internet it got absolutely slaughtered up and down blogs, websites and comments sections in every relevent corner of the web. Phil Demmel and Dave McClain quitting soon after really didn’t help the album’s reputation either.

The thing that people tend to overlook however, is that the things people dislike about this record are a relatively small part of the album. Most of the album is the same groovy thrashy guitar tone as before, the same distinctive drum style as before, the same vocal style as before. Most of the best parts of the last four albums are still here.

People who don’t like the politics obviously never listened to ‘Slanderous’ on The Blackening, or ‘A Nation On Fire’ on the debut, or ‘In Comes The Flood’ on the previous album. The band have always been political.

People who don’t like the addition of modern touches are forgetting that from their very ’90s debut to their Nu Metal period to their guitar and metal focused renaisance period happening at the same time as the Thrash revival and melodic metalcore being popular, the band have always tried to stay modern and relevent.

People who don’t like the lyrics are overlooking lines like ”Fuck you you cocksucker, fuck you you whore” on Through The Ashes Of Empires.

If you see the millions of negative reviews out there, you may want to skip this album entirely. I’d advise you treat it with caution, but don’t just skip it altogether. This is not the train wreck it was made out to be. A little different, yes. A bit unpalatable, yes. Misguided. Certainly. But rubbish? Not even close.  

Best songs: ‘Volatile’ ‘Heavy Lies The Crown’ & ‘Hope Begets Hope.’

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08. The Burning Red (1999): This album has a bit of a mixed legacy. Fans who were there in 1994 often cite this as a horrendous stain on the band’s legacy.

Ross Robinson’s production and the music videos for this do clearly show a band getting involved in the popular trends of the day and many people called this record a sell out. Fans who got into the album after Nu Metal broke but before Through The Ashes Of Empires however tend to have a really high opinion of it.

For me, I sit somewhere in the middle. As you can guess, given how low down this is on the list, this is not my favourite Machine Head record. That being said I can still appreciate the good moments, and I do have a soft spot for it. I guess it helps that I grew up in the Nu Metal era, and can forgive its trapping a lot more than someone who grew up in the Thrash Metal or NWOBHM eras usually can. The tracks from it are a lot better live, such as on the Hellalive album or Elegies DVD.   

Also, in hindsight, you can see how the melody, slow moments and variety on here would give way for future ideas on Through The Ashes Of Empires, which was in turn the begining of the band’s best run of albums, so this was an essential lesson the band needed to learn in order to have a long career instead of just burning out as a one trick pony and never taking risks.

Best songs: ‘Nothing Left’ ‘Exhale The Vile’ & ‘The Blood, The Sweat, The Tears.’

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09. Supercharger (2001): Its weird, but while this album features one of the best songs in their whole career (live favourite ‘Bulldozer’) most fans seem to utterly hate this record. While previous album The Burning Red has a mixed legacy, this album has pretty much always been viewed as the absolute nadir of the band’s career. I don’t think you’ll find anyone call this their favourite Machine Head album.

The production is a lot better than on The Burning Red but unfortunately the performance is a bit more mechanical and the lyrics are quite unpalatable. Most of all though, outside of a few notable exceptions listed below, the songs are either unmemorable (I can’t remember how ‘Nausea’ ‘Blank Generation’ or ‘Deafening Silence’ go off the top of my head, and I’ve listened to this album dozens and dozens of times) or conversely memorable for the wrong reasons (‘American High’ is the lyrical template for all the cringey bits on Catharsis, and also comes with an amusing David Draiman-meets-Tarzan style vocal intro that people love to make fun of).

Once again, songs from this album come across a lot better live. Lead single ‘Crashing Around You’ in particular is great on the Hellalive live album.

While I have always been a bit defensive about supercharger, and have at times called it underrated, there is no denying that the other albums in the list are better.

Best songs: ‘Bulldozer’ ‘Trephination’ & ‘Supercharger.’

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DevilDriver Albums Ranked

Hate list features? Feel free to skip this article and others in this series.

Here I’ll be ranking the albums by certain bands in order from Best (actually my subjective favourite) to worst/least good (subjectively, in my opinion). Number 1 is obviously the best. The lowest number is my least favourite.

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DAY 7 – DEVILDRIVER:

01. Pray For Villains (2009) – When Devildriver first came on the scene, they were looked at with unparalleled scepticism due to singer Dez Fafara’s history in the Nu Metal band Coal Chamber. Over the years with relentless touring, incendiary live performances at major festivals and sheer word of mouth, they worked their way up bills, up end of year albums lists and up in the public’s estimation to become a really well regarded act. This album was arguably their peek both in terms of public perception of the band as a whole and also in actual quality of the individual album. This has some of their most distinct and catchy tunes, and leans heavier on the Groove Metal aspect of their sound than any previous or subsequent album. Its still very much Devildriver but with extra flavour, its got kind of a more Pantera, Machine Head and at times even White Zombie vibe than their usual formula.

Best songs: ‘Back With A Vengeance,’ ‘I’ve Been Sober’ & ‘Another Night In London.’

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02. The Last Kind Words (2007) – The best album in the typical Devildriver format, this is simply the best written collection of songs in their usual style, less generic and repetitive than the later albums and more fully-fleshed out than the early works, it is a damn fine record and if you called it your favourite I’d fully understand why. The vocals are memorable, the heavy parts are pounding, and the rare clean moments are shimmering and add good variety to the proceedings. I reckon this would be the best starting point for a new fan, even if the next album is my personal favourite, it’s a close race, and this one is more representative of the band.

Best songs: ‘Clouds Over California,’ ‘The Axe Shall Fall’ & ‘Monsters Of The Deep.’

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03. The Fury Of Our Maker’s Hands (2005) – This album features some of the band’s live favourite songs, there were tracks that got good rotation on music TV channels, one of the songs was in an episode of Scrubs. Basically, this album is when the momentum really started rolling, when the music festival crowds fell in love with the band and their big pits, and when the critics started finding it harder to keep up their scepticism. It was the first album with the classic line up, as Mike Spreitzer replaced Evan Pitts. Although it doesn’t have any one song as catchy as ‘I Could Care Less’ from the debut, it makes up for it by being more consistent and having more of a cohesive vision all the way through.  

Best songs: ‘The Fury Of Our Maker’s Hand,’ ‘Sin & Sacrifice’ & ‘Hold Back The Day.’

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04. DevilDriver (2003) – I remember before this album came out, Metal Hammer magazine said Dez was in a heavy new band called Death Ride. Then when the album came out it was called Devildriver. Seemed like a silly variation on the driving theme, but it turns out Devildriver was actually an old Italian superstition to drive away demons and bad spirits that Dez’s grandmother believed in, a story oddly reminiscent of how Dio popularized the horns.

When the album came out it was a breath of fresh air. There were two short super aggressive songs with slightly Black Metal influenced screams, there was the mega catchy lead single (although that is not really representative of the overall sound of the band or the album) and for most of the album, a whole host of fat and groovy modern metal songs with Melodeath, Groove and Thrash influences that at the time sounded quite futuristic when blended together.

I got on board with this album from the get go, but always had a hard time convincing people in my peer group to give them a chance due to Dez’s past. I’m glad the band proved everyone wrong in the end. Over the next two album cycles most of my friends ended up even bigger fans than me!

Best songs: ‘I Could Care Less,’ ‘Cry For Me Sky’ & ‘Swinging The Dead.’

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05. Beast (2011) – The last album with the classic line up, Beast is a fine album, but in some ways, it was the beginning of the end. It may not be quite up to the same high standards as the previous four albums. Every song is good here, and this is another solid collection of typical Devildriver tunes in the classic formula. If you like the band, it’s a good addition to your collection. I wouldn’t make it your first album, but if you like them I wouldn’t skip it either. It is however, a bit of a worry when the best song on any album is a cover song.

Best songs: ‘Shitlist,’ ‘Bring The Fight (To The Floor)’ & ‘Black Soul Choir.’

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06. Winter Kills (2013) – Their first and only album with new bassist Chris Towning, and the last album with Jeff Kendrick & John Boecklin who were really key to making the band sound the way it did. I always liked them both on record, and they seemed like good guys on the band’s You May Recognise Us From The Stage documentary.

It has quite a good cover of that ‘Sail’ song by a band called Awolnation, although I admit, I was so out of the loop at the time I didn’t hear the original until after I’d heard this. I wouldn’t have known it was a cover for at least a year if I hadn’t read about it on the press for this album cycle.

The rest of the album is ok. Its basically a continuation of Beast, but the songs aren’t just as memorable. There’s nothing wrong with the album in the moment when you are listening to it, but its kind of a step down in quality and it’s the first record I would describe as skippable.

Best songs: ‘Tripping Over Tombstones,’ ‘Winter Kills’ & ‘Gutted.’

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07. Trust No One (2016) – This album sees a major line up change, with new guitarist, bassist and drummer. It’s a bit livelier and more aggressive than Winter Kills, but similarly skippable. Maybe the new line up just needed time to gel, maybe the Coal Chamber reunion that preceded it somehow diverted attention, maybe the band has just been heading down one particular direction for too long, I don’t know exactly what it is.

While there is nothing massively wrong here, I can barely remember anything about it after I’ve listened to it, and I’d certainly call this one for fans only. Hopefully the next album (which is apparently a double album) sees the band reverse their current slightly downward trajectory.

Best songs: ‘For What Its Worth,’ ‘This Deception’ & ‘Trust No One.’

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Avenged Sevenfold Albums Ranked

Hate list features? Feel free to skip this article and others in this series.

Here I’ll be ranking the albums by certain bands in order from Best (actually my subjective favourite) to worst/least good (subjectively, in my opinion). Number 1 is obviously the best. The lowest number is my least favourite.

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DAY 6 – AVENGED SEVENFOLD:

Its strange, but Avenged Sevenfold are a band I feel kind of embarrassed to like. I don’t know why, but I would never wear an Avenged Sevenfold t-shirt or list them in a list of my favourite bands. I probably would give a non-committal answer and look at the floor if someone asked me if I was a fan. I have no idea why, other than I associate them with people I disliked in high school and an ex-girlfriend I’d rather forget. I mean, it can’t be because of how they look or act, because I will happily call myself a fan of Limp Bizkit or Twisted Sister or many others who don’t fit the exact metal sound or look respectively. That being said, after years of sticking my fingers in my ears and hoping they would go away, I eventually got into them through sheer force of recommendation from various friends, magazines and podcasts until I couldn’t justify ignoring them anymore. I slowly picked up all their albums, and I’ve seen them live twice, and they were excellent both times. I really have to work on whatever mental block makes me reticent to give in fully to being a fan.

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01. Avenged Sevenfold (2007) – It is kind of hard to imagine the same band recorded this album and the debut. I’ve heard people call this an experimental album, which I can kind of see as there’s an 8-minute comedy track about necrophilia with Danny Elfman sounding bits and a guest vocal from Randy Blythe. There’s a song with vocoder. There’s some political lyrics which you wouldn’t really expect from this band. It ends with an overly earnest country-tinged ballad.

 That being said, I would actually consider this one of their more normal albums. I mean, it’s a mess of different tempos, styles and tones, but then all of their albums are.

The real thing that elevates this album above the rest (except perhaps confidence) is simply good song writing. No prototypes of things to come. No good ideas lost amongst confusion. The songs here just work. The songs are memorable, the majority of the album is catchy and well balanced, it flows relatively well and doesn’t seem choppy.

Best songs: ‘Critical Acclaim,’ ‘Scream’ & ‘A Little Piece Of Heaven.’

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02. City Of Evil (2005) – This album is most fan’s favourite. Its definitely the most likely to make it into a Top 100 albums list. There’s a few things that rub me the wrong way, like the artwork and music videos, (and while we’re at it the bands pseudonyms have always seemed silly to me, but by this point they should have outgrown it) but after getting into the band I’d be crazy to have it any lower on the list than this.  

There’s a reason its popular with guitar fans. I feel like this was the record where Synyster Gates really stepped up and transcended the subgenre to become this generation’s guitar hero. Speaking of which, I feel like songs from this album are always popular in Guitar Hero video games.

What separates this album and the two which preceded it (apart from presumably budget) is a humongous influx of colour, fun and character. No one, not even massive skeptics could call this one samey. No one could call it boring. It’s a big hyperactive child running in four different directions wearing a propeller-hat showing off all the things it learned. I’ve never heard a song sound like a spring break beach party, a redneck sweaty metal show and a beard stroking prog metal track in one go before I heard this. I’ve never heard anyone combine Guns N’ Roses vocal patterns with Helloween lead guitar and NoFX drumming before. There is a basic framework of melodic metalcore, but they flip-flop through so many ideas it can be a bit dizzying. Its not always to my taste, but no one can deny the talent involved.

Best songs: ‘Beast & The Harlot,’ ‘Trashed & Scattered’ & ‘M.I.A.’

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03. Hail To The King (2013) – This album got a lot of grief in the press for so shamelessly ripping off riffs from Megadeth’s ‘Symphony Of Destruction’ and Metallica’s ‘Sad But True’ – check out ‘Heretic’ and ‘This Means War’ if you missed all the internet fury. But there’s a lot more to this record that the questionable choice to pinch other band’s iconic music (ok, it does sound pretty bad when I say it like that).

Besides the above taking wearing your influences on your sleeves too far, this album is a damn fine stompy, simplified, arena ready version of the Avenged style. Its Avenged made for pyro and inflatable 20 foot skeletons and it does a superb job of it.

That’s not to say it is dumbed down or unentertaining. The stompier pace allows for even better guitar solos, the first two songs are so catchy they cancel out the bad taste of the thievery and the album gets interesting and bombastic towards the end, foreshadowing a bit of the sounds that they would go into on the next record. Overall, it’s a hell of a lot better than its given credit for if you can overlook the fact that its been ‘cancelled’ by the internet.

Best songs: ‘Shepherd Of Fire,’ ‘Planets’  & ‘Hail To The King.’

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04. Nightmare (2010) – This was my first Avenged album and as such, I have slightly more regard for it that some of the fanbase. I remember I was absolutely opposed to the idea of even listening to one of their songs all the way through, but a friend who was a drummer turned me on to it with his seal of approval and the news that Mike Portnoy played drums for them.

Some people don’t like this album, thinking it is either too dark or too sappy, and not fun enough (but hey, it was finished by a bereaved group who’d just lost their childhood friend). If I was being super critical I’d say it’s a bit uneven. Even though there aren’t, due to the way the record is sequenced and the way some of the songs are structured it feels like there’s way too many ballads.

It does however have two of their absolute best songs to date on it, the title track and the fan favourite ‘Buried Alive’ are absolute classics at this stage and I don’t want to hear any playlist or see any concert without them ever again. Even when I watch their live DVD filmed on the album cycle prior to this, I still feel like it could use those two songs. If anyone wanted to know if this band was for them, those are the two songs I’d give them to try out.

Best songs: ‘God Hates Us,’ ‘Save Me,’ ‘Nightmare’ & ‘Buried Alive.’

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05. The Stage (2016) – Their newest album. Surprise released. Third album in a row to have a different drummer. Loose existential/space/religious themes.

The music on here is a lot more progressive and expansive than anything they’ve done prior. They’ve always been eclectic and diverse, they’ve always had medium to long songs, and they clearly like Prog if Mike Portnoy of Dream Theater drummed on one of their albums, but this is another step further than they’ve ever taken before. I guess the previous album was making things more simple and straightforward, so when that wasn’t as critically acclaimed as usual, they went completely the other direction and made it bigger, grander and broader.

Its got a very thick satisfying production with superb sounding drums which is always a plus for me. The vocals are a bit more tasteful. There’s a slight Soundgarden influence to it at times that doesn’t get talked about enough. Quite a strong album, I’m quite fond of it. Maybe a bit long, and not what people where expecting at the time of release, but it’s a grower and I think it will be looked upon kindly by the history books.  

Best songs: ‘God Damn,’ ‘Creating God,’ ‘Sunny Disposition’ & ‘Fermi Paradox.’

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06. Waking The Fallen (2003) – Some people think of this as the definitive Avenged album. I like it ok, but just not quite so much as all the others. I almost feel bad not liking it more, like somehow I’m doing it wrong. Imagine listening to Killswitch but not liking Alive Or Just Breathing. Doesn’t sound acceptable somehow, even though enjoyment of music is subjective.

This album probably has their most Pantera-influenced material to date on it, and the least clean vocals. It sounds kind of silly to say about a band as famously eclectic and diverse as Avenged Sevenfold, but the album sounds a bit samey to my ears. There’s usually the In Flames & At The Gates influenced sections, there’s usually the hardcore influenced sections, there’s usually twin guitar, then there’s usually a big clean catchy bit, and the transitions are usually a bit jagged which makes it sound kind of technical, and several times they used a mixture of harmonised guitars and clean vocals to create a bit of a Tim Burton flavour here and there. I wouldn’t go as far as to say it was formulaic, but compared to other Avenged albums its closer to formulaic than it should be.

I think any one or two songs off the album are good in isolation and am happy to hear any of them on shuffle or live, but sometimes listening to the whole record just makes my eyes glaze over a bit. Especially in the early days of owning it, before I got more familiar with it and put the time in. The thin sounding production doesn’t help either.

There’s loads of memorable bits, but I often find myself thinking ‘what song was that bit I like in?’ and I can’t really tell them apart too well apart from my favourites. Although for a while it was ‘’that one with the power metal verse’’ or ‘’the one with the Spanish guitar and Axl Rose voice’’ and ‘’that one with the Pantera ending.’’

I’m very much in the minority here though. People go nuts for this record.

Best songs: ‘Eternal Rest,’ ‘Chapter Four’ & ‘I Won’t See You Tonight Part 2.’

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07. Sounding The Seventh Trumpet (2001) – I know, I know, I’m boring. The least favourite album is once again the weird demo-ish debut album from before they got famous, which isn’t terrible, but I wouldn’t recommend as your starting point, yadda yadda yadda, it’s a recurring theme with me at this point. I definitely listen to this album the least of anything they’ve ever recorded. I even listen to the B-sides collection which came free with their live DVD more than this.

Best songs: ‘Streets,’ Warmness Of The Soul’ & ‘Turn The Other Way.’

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