A Master List Revisited

 I've been thinking about this 15 year old list, recently.

A couple of unrelated friends told me in close succession - in the way that such coincidences often feel existentially staged - that this list (and the blog at large) have had a positive influence in their lives in terms of expanding their taste and orienting their own quest through the vast world of metal. That's all one can hope for, right? But it did made me wonder, how much of the old list holds up to my own scrutiny in the present?

We must be hard on the things we love, I've always held this to be true and so this is an exercise in pulsing, throbbing hardness, presented with all humor in the present and humility towards the past. Or is it the present that must be humble and the past that was hilarious?

Anyway, I'm going to go through the list and offer a comment on every album and see if I still love it as much as I did when I said 'this is my top100' 15 years ago. Keep in mind the taste that shaped the original list is more like a gestation of my teenage years so more than 20-25 years ago. Quarter of a century is a good point to take stock. 

Some things have changed, some poses will be exposed but then again, some things will never change. I won't neglect to say that this exercise (as this text is written after I have gone through the list) fills me with a sense of gratitude to even still be alive and aligned with the vector of my own heart to the extent that I can have this internal conversation at all. As much as I have learned to love all art and indeed hold on to that feeling wherever I can find it in this burning world, I am not sitting here pretending to be an expert on japanese micro-tonal electronica or anything. No, I am still the same metalhead I ever was, I look like the picture on the blog, my hair is still really, really, long, just a bit more white in places. Silver with wisdom and the sadness of a hopeless hope, let's say. Ah, to write my stupid purple prose once more, it is a pleasure.

And for you to read it. To say, to have an opportunity to share this with you, dear reader, be you an old friend or someone who chanced upon this blog just now, completely unaware of the personal weight of this archive of growth and questing within the astral zones of the grand heavy metal constellations. Perhaps you'll find a new album to keep you company in this life, or you're gonna go 'fuck yeah' at the melancholy fragrance of a rarified recognition.


The 3rd and the Mortal - Painting on Glass ✅

If anything my appreciation of the back catalogue has deepened over the years, however I still return to this album most for the absolute pristine trip it is. It will never get out of rotation, the delicate sound design and the emotional sensitivity of the songs, the quiet craft on display here is forever.

Absu – Tara ❌

No support for cowards and transphobes. There's a wide world of metal out there and black/thrash is in abundance. One would think that as some sort of 'grandmaster alchemist wizard' that's all about transmutation one would be on board with a person's journey to find themselves but, nah, the grand wizard is lost in the closet of ignorance. Fuck Absu *King Diamond-esque high pitched squealing*

Agnes Vein - of Chaos & Law ✅

I love this demo as much today and on the first day I listened to it. Shit bangs. Epic doom battle metal is of the champion eternal. Will I succumb to the forces of Chaos or bend the knee to the authority of Law? Sailor on the seas of fate, in the mists you wonder...

Anacrusis - Manic Impressions ✅

Perhaps a broader appreciation of the catalogue makes 'which Anacrusis shall I listen to today?' more of a happy problem to have but I can never imagine my life without these Sad Thrash heroes.

Anathema - Pentecost III (did 'Serenades' instead) ✅

Ultimately, early Anathema are an inconsistent band, hence the 'is it Pentecost, is it Serenades?' concern, here. 20 years later it's also 'is it the demos?', I'm afraid. The best way to look at it is that there's a killer double Best Of from the Darren White years one can customize for themselves and that's how to make peace with this visionary but also inconsistent outfit.

Annihilator - Never Neverland ✅

I'm never gonna live a life where I don't listen to this flashy thrash masterpiece, it seems. No change, some riffs are eternal.

Atheist - Unquestionable Presence ✅

To be fair I don't listen to this more of then than once a year or a couple of years but I never have a bad time with it. I have noticed how much I find following the wobbly rhythm section more the focus over time and that means there's a lot of depth to the listening experience. Blah blah Cynic - Focus also needs to be here but I listen to it even less.

Atrox – Contentum ✅

If anything I love this more 20 years down the line. It's one of my favourite, visionary mixes of 'atmospheric metal' and 'progressive metal' as they occurred exactly at that era of release. One of the last crucial offerings of a heavy metal genre in decline.

Autopsy - Mental Funeral ❌

Yeah... I kind of never willingly go and listen to Autopsy anymore even though they come up on shuffle once in a while. The band is great, the style completely robust (though purposefully shambolic), the best early death metal band in my estimation, I just don't necessarily feel like rotten meat and weed potatoes when it comes to death metal, I like my shit weirder.

Bethlehem - Dictius Te Necare ❌

I listen to this very rarely to be honest. It's not a mood I want running around in my head. The music is beautiful. Still have it on my hard drive so it's not an X but I have to say it's hard to recommend this to anyone.

Black Sabbath - Black Sabbath ✅

The day I don't wanna listen to this album is the day they put me in the ground.

Blind Guardian - Somewhere Far Beyond ❌

Surprising development! I don't wanna listen to Blind Guardian. None of it, not the early speed stuff not the hobbitcore shit not the operatic stuff, I find them, somehow, deathly boring. Something about the songwriting is completely off for me, or the emotional content disconnects for me. I've taken them off my hard drive and don't miss them at all. For a kid that started with thrash and europower as my taste base I sure as hell don't listen to any europower (other than the couple of records in the rest of this list we'll be talking about below) which by itself says something about me, the subgenre or something in any case. Do you listen to Blind Guardian on the regular, dear reader?

Bolt Thrower - For Those Once Loyal ❌

If I'm totally honest. Bolt Thrower is something that only comes up on shuffle at this point, but I haven't deleted them and I have a few albums from them, I just, apparently, never feel like listening to a whole Bolt Thrower offering no matter how good the songs are so that disqualifies them from this exercise for sure.

Brocas Helm - Into Battle ✅

Flying colours, this will never change. I do tend to reach for this album only but I like the other ones too, they're just sitting there waiting for me to go 'time for me to really get into more Brocas'.

Burzum - Hvis Lyset Tar Oss ❌

Haven't listened to this moron in a decade, not on my hard drive, nowhere near my psyche. Doesn't matter to me how influential or well-written the album is, I can sense the motive behind it all and over the decades I've become more sensitive to not turning my soul towards such. Fuck Burzum, no excuse for fascist sympathy on any level. This man single-handedly has been the worse influence on our genre in total.

Candlemass - Epicus Doomicus Metallicus ✅

I have this skull tattooed on my flesh and it wards off evil. I'll be put in the ground with a sleeveless, moth-marked Watchtower t-shir and on one shoulder is the c-mass skull on the other is the priest trident. HEAVY METAL

Carnivore – Carnivore ❌

Long since deleted. After I found out Petrus Steele was once a mouthpiece for third way artsy nazis and rubbed shoulders with the types of Boyd Rice and wrote for those fucking zines they put out about how 'the Übermensch' it was over. I live in this World As It Is Today, and I don't have any patience for these fucking cretins. Moving on.

Cirith Ungol - King of the Dead ✅

If anything this feels like even more of a masterpiece than it did when I was a kid. Absolutely ageless, ancient masterpiece. Thank you for the metal, Cirith Ungol.

Confessor – Unravelled ✅

I will keep screaming in the streets about what a masterpiece this album is and perhaps my single-person campaign will make this band put out a third album. I listen to this, like, every couple of weeks! I needs it all the time! THE SECRET IS DEATH

Coroner - Punishment for Decadence ✅

But not Punishment! The real masterpiece era for Coroner is Mental Vortex / No More Colour / Grin. But I listen to Coroner all the time and and my appreciation has only deepened when it comes to this band. They are so far ahead of the curve they still sound like they come from the future.

Dark Quarterer - Dark Quarterer ✅

This rules, it still touches me as much as ever. Epic metal truth and wisdom. Rare emotions.

Deaf Dealer - Journey into Fear ❌

Although this album is great and I still have it on my hard drive, it's, in the end, a power metal Iron Maiden kind of derivative and there are, I think, more interesting and weird and unique offerings that should go on my master list.

Deathrow - Deception Ignored ✅

SUPERMARKETS SELL US THEIR SHIT. More poignant than ever. I do have a criticism of this album which is it needed a Neil Peart-y kind of drummer to reach critical mass but that doesn't mean I don't blast it every couple of months and get inspired. What inspires us? Truth inspires us. The angst of reflective recognition.

Demilich – Nespithe ✅

I ain't never getting rid of this, and there's always a time where I need to listen to this and only this. Irreplacable weird metal masterpiece.

Depressive Age - First Depression ✅

But barely. It's interesting, I very rarely seek out to listen to D-Age with full attention, full album mode anymore. It's not that I don't love this, and I do rarely go back, indeed. It's that the atmosphere is too heavy for my soul, in the end. There's a very deep sadness to this Sad Thrash offering and the situation doesn't get any better on following albums. I would still recommend this album without a second thought to people who haven't listened to it because immersing oneself in this offers, again, a direct line to a truth unavoidable. Then the relationship may become scarcer.

dISEMBOWELMENT - Transcendence into the Peripheral ✅

There is nothing else like this in the whole wide world of metal music. Nobody has come even close. The juxtaposition of the blistering intensity of the music (fast and slow sides both) with the dreamlike, revelatory meditation in the themes and lyrics is, in a word, sublime. We bow down in reverence before the mighty dIS.

Esoteric - Subconscious Dissolution into the Continuum ❌

I don't really listen to Esoteric anymore, and when I do I play Metamorphogenesis – Dissident to people to frighten the shit out of them. I think the spell was broken when I saw this band live and their music was cheapened by being reproduced on stage. Never recovered, always think of the guitar dude with a Michael Jackson mic on his face when I hear them now, it hasn't helped the band has dropped off in quality with subsequent releases as well, Maniacal Vale was their last solid offering (augmented by guitar pyro) but that, too, was overlong and overwrought. In the end, Esoteric are eaten up from an internal ambition to be 'more than any other metal band' and so they become a gimmick band in the strangest way possible. I was quite close to this experience as a more 'edgy' teen, now it feels like a morbid masturbation session, mostly due to the quite empty-feeling lyrics. If this band has a point, it is happily beyond my interest to fish out from between their contradictions.

Evereve – Seasons ✅

Gothic metal masterpiece, love every song, amazed at the robustness of this offering decades later. Don't think I'll ever get bored of this.

Forsaken – Dominaeon ✅

But barely. I still do listen to this, it's got a special place in the doom canon, but I am also sensing something off in this band, some attitude that doesn't belong in a redemptive offering. It may have to do with the gnostic themes and the whole 'is god good? What if god is BAD?' which, of course, I understand as an interesting theme for metal but it's also, I don't know, an inconclusive air to this endeavor that gets swallowed up by big, epic Candlemass riffs, you know, the whole enterprise of epic doom metal itself has overtaken up the purpose of a lot of bands of this style. I fear 'telling their truth' was never a priority for Forsaken.

Fleurety - Min tid Skal Komme ✅

The riffwriting and moods on this are still enchanting to me. One of my guitar inspirations and one of the few things even tangentially related to black metal I still allow to ring loudly around my soul.

Fates Warning - Spectre Within ✅
Fates Warning - Awaken the Guardian ✅

I'll go even further and say Perfect Symmetry is another addition. I'm not even gonna try to write about Fates in this way, in short, in passing, as I write about everything else on this list. I will either write a proper article (or series of articles) on them or just forever hold my peace. The best heavy metal music had or has to offer.

Gorguts – Obscura ✅

I very rarely listen to this but when I do I am inspired. It's a hard listen, is all. There's no way I would introduce someone to what heavy metal has to offer and what death metal became without playing them this, though.

Heir Apparent - Graceful Inheritance| ✅

Absolutely, and I would say One Small Voice is not far behind. Only internal tensions (obvious even on the recording) stops the latter album from being an eternal masterpiece.

Helloween - Walls of Jericho / Helloween EP ✅

My first real heavy metal experience aside from the Metallica openers, it hasn't fallen off for me even a little bit. The only thing we could even call europower that I regularily listen to besides Planet E by Heaven's Gate.

Horrified - In the Garden of the Unearthly Delights ✅

Though the album is a bit uneven, in the way, ironically, Septic Flesh are also uneven. There's just something to the guitar writing and playing on this album that's really beguiling to me, I love the deep death metal vocal too, they conjure this mystical atmosphere. Somehow, the demo era is just as strong. Great offering.

In the Woods... - HEart of the Ages ✅

Yeah I don't anticipate ever losing my taste for this album. A strong combination of the more interest atmospheres of an otherwise morally bankrupt style and the graces of atmospheric doom/death. Some songs wonder a little bit, but on the whole I seek out this experience often and I suspect I'll never stop needing to revisit HEart.. shame about what this band became post-reunion. 

Iron Maiden - Iron Maiden ❌

Who am I kidding? I rarely listen to Iron Maiden.

Jag Panzer - The Fourth Judgment ✅

Though I suspect this may be a more nostalgic element to this choice than loudly proclaiming to the world 'THIS is the one you need to listen to'. Perhaps I should replace this with the Titan Force debut I listen to much more often and I get my Tyrant fix (and much more!). Perhaps Ample Destruction? The Panzer I return to the most is the first EP, for what that is worth.

Jester's March – Beyond❌

This is good and I like it but I don't think at this point I can find several other later finds to replace it on a list of my heavy metal essentials. Not every song rules on this album and for it to keep it place, they kind of need to, in this style.

John Arch - A Twist of Fate ✅

And I will add the rest of the Arch material that came out since, Sympathetic Resonance and the beautiful Winter Ethereal. Arch can do no wrong, seemingly and I'd even say in terms of what he offers in terms of voicecraft and composition he's stronger now than ever. It's only slight problems in the music itself (Matheos's purview) where I lay slight objections.

Judas Priest - Sad Wings of Destiny ✅

And of course to a lot of the Priest catalogue. The appreciation has only deepened.

Kinetic Dissent - I Will Fight No More Forever  ❌

Not really listening to this much anymore. I have it on the drive, but I don't think it needs to be on this list. Slightly more ambitious composition and a bit less Anthrax in the flavour would have done it. Their hearts definitely in the right place, though.

Kingsbane – Kingsbane ✅

And In the Name, the band they became, actually. Listen to this stuff often, love it, great songwriting, good motivation behind the music, rarified Fates-esque style that to this day sounds fresher than most metal music came to offer. One of the rare prog-band-to-grunge-inspired pipeline bands that actually made something good with the mix of inspirations, kind of like Last Crack or The Beyond.

Kruiz – Kruiz ❌

Rarely listen to this anymore. It's not that it's bad, it's actually very good.. it's that it's more of a curiosity that has an interesting story around it. Is it an eternal masterpiece? More for an obscurantist metal underground record collector, I fear.

Legend - From the Fjords ✅

Speaking of obscurantist metal... this album however sounds fresh and real to me every time I play it. I wouldn't part with it, no way.

Litany - Aphesis: The Sapience of Dying  ✅

I still spin this once a year or so and I headbang to it and single the (weird-ass) lyrics along with them, I love most of the songs, I think it's a great offering in a difficult style to do well and I absolutely would recommend them breathlessly to younger appreciators.

Lordian Guard - Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God ✅

Both Lordian Guard albums are undying masterpieces. In the time between the old list and now however William Tsamis has passed away and the music is released from his darker side, his chauvinistic and nationalistic proclivities. The Destroyer is dead, Long Live Lordian Guard.

Manilla Road - Crystal Logic ✅

There's good and there's evil and there's no in-between. We shall slay evil with crystal logic.

Master's Hammer – Ritual ❌

I don't listen to this. It's good, but it never feels like I want to listen to it anymore. So I have to be honest and strike it off my list, that's how it goes. I wouldn't be surprised if one autumn evening I am striken with cold sweat and run back to the blog to change this one back, though.

Maudlin of the Well - Bath / Leaving Your Body Map ✅

I have crystallized the core of my disaffection with Toby Driver music. I still love and listen to these two in any case. The mystery on offer is inspirational, it inspired me to shape my own music in a certain way so I can never pretend that it isn't close to my heart. The said core of disaffection is, by the way, Toby Driver's aura itself. There's a strangely self-involved thing going on here which becomes way more obvious the further down the discography of this – otherwise unique – composer one travels. Let's just say I don't want to listen to a lot of metal that doesn't accept itself as such but at the same time is obsessed with its own reflection in my regular rotation, it's a bad combo.

Mayfair – Behind ✅

And Die Flucht follows closely along, and the demo material. This is one of these bands that is very close to my sensibility and I still study them for inspiration.

Mayhem - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas ❌

Deleted etc... I have no interest in black metal, black metal is an embarrassment to heavy metal culture and it was a mistake to follow the trail of blood to such perilous cultural conclusion in the first place. When will we be ever rid of the black metal blood curse? Black-metal-first metalheads (a seemingly inexhaustible, self-replenishing blight) are the worst kind of metal hipster, anyone who listens to crap like this and can't feel a Judas Priest song in their heart is not part of my tribe, I have no interest in their ridiculous scene and the less breth wasted on this crap henceforth the better. If this offends you, dear reader, grow some real taste in metal and, also, get fucked.

Megadeth - Rust in Peace ✅

Mustane's story is one of disappointment for sure. At this stage of the game he was an augmented human riding very high on the strengths of the rest of the outfit for sure and that's how this album survives the criticism that swallows all further material up to the point of total irrelevancy. This album rules though and I listen to it often, there's something very Brechtian-alienation to the Megadeth story that must be appreciated.

Mekong Delta - Dances of Death ✅

I ain't never stopping with the techno-thrash and this is such a good album by my estimation. Never has lost its luster, and there's literally nothing else out there that sounds like this. Fight-Fire-With-Stravinsky is quite the idea and we are indebted!

Memory Garden – Tides ✅

Yeah this album works on me as much as it ever did. I love this Solna style Power-Doom and wish there was a solid spiritual successor to this style because even Memory Garden themselves cannot do it. What a melancholic masterpiece. The only thing one could have hoped for was a little bit of a clearer voice in the lyric, but perhaps even a little bit of that swenglish flavour of it adds to the experience.

Mercury Rising - Building Rome ❌

I like this and I listen to Mercury Rising often to be honest with you but that's more the prog/power fanatic in me and in a serious list of the most influential-to-me and worth-listening-to-for-you albums I think this is not A team material.

Mercyful Fate – Melissa  ✅

Talking about A team. Talking about SSS++ tier immortal heavy metal masterpiece. One could listen to just this record only and be a 100% metalhead to me. No further comment.

Metallica - Ride the Lightning  ✅

Yeah, and sometimes Kill Em All, hah. It's that thing with people who started with Metallica where they tend to go earlier and earlier as they get older with the material of the band at hand. I do have to say though, it is Master of Puppets (the song) that is the immortal contribution, or even the Battery to Master 1-2 punch that opens that album that blew open a whole generation's mind about what is possible with metal music. But when I wanna listen to Metallica I listen to vinyl rip of Ride the Lightning so let's be real.

Moahni Moahna – Why ✅ lol

Morbid Angel - Blessed are the Sick ❌

For how visionary this is blah blah blah in my old age I will be absolutely truthful: Altars of Madness is the crucial contribution by the Vincent era and especially because it has zero Vincent 'flavour' to it. From there on I would much rather listen to Formulas Fatal to the Flesh than Blessed at this point. However all things being equal I could probably live without listening to Morbid Angel if it came to that because their influence has been so propagative in other outfits of note. Let's put it this way: if I didn't listen to them at all I would miss Altars.

Morgion – Solinari ✅

With a slight shock when I realized this this, one of my most favourite doom/death offerings is actually lyrically based on the Dragonlance series of books? WTF?! Definitely devalues the album slightly for me, I don't know if I can explain why to you if you don't immediately get it. I still can't live without listening to this a couple of times a year though, it's so good.

Mortuary Drape - Into the Drape ❌

Eeeh. I like Mortuary Drape but I don't reach for them. More a curiosity because of their extra-musical storyline and so on. They still sit on the hard drive, though. I thought when I was making this master list years ago I had a little bit more of a desire to be rounded in terms of genre representation than I do now. Without the evil goings on and the aura of mystery of the times, black metal of all sorts is not worth the canonization. Now imagine how it feels when those 'evil goings on' aren't even a cool edge to shape a personality around but an absolute embarrassment for metalheads now well into their 40s or 50s looking at a world succumbing to fascism.

Motorhead – Bomber ✅

I need at least some Motorhead in my life, the particular album from the first two decades doesn't matter that much, I just love the 'engine' of this band it doesn't even particularly matter what the riff or hook on offer is. Overkill is probably better but then again, Motorhead live were better than any other rock n' roll band ever, so there's that.

My Dying Bride – Trinity ✅ 

Let's be real, I will stop being a contrarian, the real choice is Turn Loose the Swans. Eternal masterpiece. It's just Symphonaire Infernus that holds a particular gravity for this listener and confuses the mind so.

Negura Bunget – Om  ✅

Yeah I listened to this again this year and it's still spellbinding. Naturmystic pagan metal of the mercifully atmospheric style without the stench of norsecore about it.

Neurosis - Times of Grace ❌

After recent revelations I have deleted this once important band to me from my hard drive and haven't looked back nor do I miss them, which I find honestly a bit shocking because Times of Grace was quite a unique and revelatory listen to me back in the day, when we didn't even know what hardcore is and we had dubbed this 'apocalyptic-sounding doom metal' in my friends group. Well, we all know how the whole post-metal story played out and what do we have to show for it? ISIS – Oceanic.

Nevermore - The Politics of Ecstasy ✅

I miss Wally every day and I do not want a Nevermore out there without him. This piece of futurist art is still sending us messages from the world to come.

Nigro Mantia - Poetry of Subculture ✅

I really like this demo still no matter how obscurantist-coded it is to put it on such a list. It's like putting Paul Chain's Alkahest on this list, which would be just as well to be honest. If you sue me you sue satan, it's not gonna work out well for you.

O.S.I. - Office of Strategic Influence ❌

Nah this ain't it. I still like this album a lot but it doesn't, in the end, cohere, it doesn't reward the depth of listening of decades.

Obituary - Cause of Death ❌

It's fun but it's uneven and it's a pretty meat and potatoes death metal album, in the end, with only James Murphy elevating it. More an artifact of my youth and it says a lot I don't have any Obituary on my hard drive anymore.

Omen – Battlecry ✅

But I'll be totally real with you. Something smells bad in Omen and I think it's JD's fault. There are some themes – I think it's best to actually refer to them in this case as 'fantasies' that are questionable to say the least and they drive the pathos of the music so it's not even a case of trying to separate shit from shit. I am well aware of this and there is an uncomfort about Omen I cannot shake, it's how I could have a Cirith Ungol tattoo or, indeed a Judas Priest tattoo but I wouldn't have an Omen one. There's just something that one has to be wary of in this fantasy of Omen.

All that said there are two crucial core experiences for me related to this band that I wouldn't be honest if I removed them from such a list. One is being 12 years old and being told by my metal elder that 'yeah when I wake up in the morning even though I'm hungry at school I don't buy lunch, I listen to DEATH RIDER and I eat the heavy metal instead, I save up my money to be able to afford another record!' which is as truthful as any statement as I've ever heard. The other is the fact that often in my mind it echoes when I have difficulties in life 'don't separate yourself from your dreams / do what you must to survive'. It is the credo I have lived my life armed with and I didn't hear it from my parents or peers or from reading a philosophy book, I heard it in a dumb Omen track. A dumb Omen track, at that, that's about anti-communism. This is very ironic, but that's heavy metal for you, those clashing contradictions. I carry that feeling that that bit of lyric and song gave me, regardless of the idiocies involved as a keepsake. It keeps me safe. So Omen stays with full knowledge of the shit.

Orphaned Land – Mabool ❌

Freedom to Palestine, the murderous regime must fall.

Paradise Lost – Icon ✅

Man, what a poser I am (was?). I almost never ever listen to Icon. It's Lost Paradise for me if anything. Here's a strange statement: Paradise Lost don't deserve to be on this list. Paradise Lost are a 'golden mediocrity' kind of band. Anything they did other bands did better, later. However. Paradise Lost absolutely deserve to be in this list. Anything other bands did they did because they listened to Paradise Lost and thought in their minds and felt in their hearts “I can do this better”. I am indebted to Paradise Lost.

Pik - The Heritage of Past Gods ❌

This is very good but it goes more in the obscurantist 'there's also this!' recommendation pile than on the immortal echelon, you know? I still find it very impressive and I listen to it once a year or so. It's interesting that such an album even exists.

Primordial - To the Nameless Dead ❌

Haven't listened to this since it came out and I don't think I want to listen to any Primordial ever again in my life. Fuck right off.

Psychotic Waltz - A Social Grace✅

Nothing has changed here, this isn't just top100 of metal it's top10, perhaps top5 for me. Enough said.

Queensryche - Rage for Order ✅

Similarily as above. This music still comes from the future. Nearly nothing I love in heavy metal would have happened the same without the influence of this album. I am in awe.

Riot – Thundersteel ✅

US Power metal with that melancholy edge of Mark Reale, sorely missed. Unfuckwithable, eternal heavy metal steel that destroys all pretenders.

Rosicrucian - No Cause for Celebration ✅

I remember the songs, here. I can sing hooks from this album on command. The solos are so erudite. But I almost never listen to it anymore. I reserve judgement, though as this feels like an album I'll just return to and fall in love with again later.

Rotting Christ - Passage to Arcturo ✅

If anything I love this even more than before. This collection of songs is so perfect I am sure even the band itself looks back and thinks 'how did we even do this?'. They had such limited means but somehow put this kind of enigmatic majesty together. Simply the best thing the greek scene has to offer in terms of the darker side of heavy metal that was emerging at the time. Calling this black metal in the Norwegian sense is ridiculous. 

Sabbat – Dreamweaver ✅

What am I gonna do, dethrone Dreamweaver from its place in metal history? It is as it ever was.

Sacrosanct - Tragic Intense ✅

Fuck yeah I still love this. Archetypal offering of the Sad Thrash category. Love the leads, love the lyrics, love the cover, love that this album exists.

Sanctuary - Into the Mirror Black ✅

Miss Wally every day. If I listened to this on vinyl I would be on my third copy by this point.

Savatage - Hall of the Mountain King ✅

I. FEEL. NO. PAAAAAAIIIINNN

Saviour Machine – I ✅

This album remains an absolutely unique offering combining the depth and melancholy of prime gothic rock with US Power lyricism and drive. It's a top20 album for me for sure and at times when I listen to it again alone in the dark of night and focus on the emotions and the lyrics it touches me as much as any art ever has.

Scald - Will of the Gods is Great Power ✅

This is still top3 epic doom metal artifacts, I listen to it often and I wonder what could have been.

Secrecy - Raging Romance ✅

Both Secrecy offerings and the demo material. A visionary and inspirational band to me. A picture of what heavy metal could have become. Waysided by their own complex ambitions and anguished relationship to truth.

Septic Flesh – Esoptron ❌

Eeeh, if anything, in the end it's probably Mystic Places but to be extra honest Septic Flesh are a double-cd Best Of band for me, all the way from the demos and up to Fallen Temple. What do I do with a band that hasn't put out even one completely consistent album and where I like all the songs equally, but at the same time has put out a song like 'The Eldest Cosmonaut' which I rate as highly as anything out there? In any case, this is a list of albums and not of songs, so Septic Flesh go in the 'consolidate your vision and try again' pile.

Shadow Gallery - Carved in Stone ✅

Talking about consolidated vision. I think Shadow Gallery are one of these bands for me that are 100% on the mark in terms of a playing a unique style I like (and one I didn't even think I would like as much, on paper!) and they go from strength to strength for, like, a 4 record span. Which puts them in a very high echelon of my interior pantheon. An impossibly good band. Another fallen metal warrior. We pay our respects.

Sieges Even - Life Cycles ✅

I fucking love this I bet in the whole wide globe I am the person that has listened to this album the most. That says it all. This album was made for me and my tastes and on a big part has shaped me so all I can do I say thank you.

Skepticism - Lead & Aether ✅

The time for Skepticism is not an often time, but when it is time for Skepticism it isn't the time for anyone else. A very personal & distant relationship. These are the life giving contradictions of heavy metal.

Slauter Xstroyes - Winter Kill ✅

Obscure as fuck and rightly rising above its station due to sheer quality. I love this and I will never stop listening to it.

Spiral Architect - A Skeptic's Universe ✅

Uneasy relationship with this one to be honest. On one had the quality is obvious. On the other, I don't wanna listen to this kind of thing by Norwegian overachievers that are slumming it between pay gigs for fucking Satyricon or whatever. On the other other hand an honest attempt has been made to push forward an envelope that felt like it would languish in abandonment at the time. On the other other other hand there's a Watchtower riff lift in here, so I don't know. I certainly won't ever delete this from the hard drive, for what that is worth.

Tiamat - Astral Sleep ✅

I have such a soft spot for Tiamat up to and including Wildhoney. Some of my appreciation is marred by a more mature understanding, over the decades, of what kind of personality is behind the lyrical drive of this band. There's this unpalatable essence of a heroin addict 'introducing' the dreamworld to like, female groupies in the mix here that makes me deeply sad but at the same time I can't pretend that I am not familiar with that longing for escapism (sans the drug) and how it talks to a core fascination of mythical and mystical heavy metal. How dark that story can be is once again, a matter of wrestling with contradictions. In any case on this era of Tiamat we aren't dealing with that subject matter, yet. The swedish extreme metal conception mixed with Mercyful Fate-isms for me a total winner and a big influence on me. I used to not like the vocal stylings in here but over the decades I could only wish more death metal vocalists had such unique personality.

Titan Force - Titan Force ✅

Ah, it is on the list! Well what is there to say? The classiest US Power offering on the list. A great roadtrip album, I break it out every summer.

Tyrant - Too Late to Pray ❌

Eh, it's cute but I think I was trying too hard, here.

Unholy - Second Ring of Power ✅

100% no doubt one of the more important, unique and challenging offerings in the atmospheric metal realm. Undying masterpiece, it will outlive any dissenting voice. We would be so lucky of more extreme metal had these priorities of startling individuality and depth as we see on display here. Sitting next to dIS in the thrones of power.

Varathron - Genesis of Apocryphal Desire✅

As mentioned in the case of Passage to Arcturo, this material to me is endlessly fascinating. Its circumstances of existence, the limitations it had to overcome to be what it is, the enveloping mood of the end result. In my mind perfect metal of the dark side.

Virgin Steele – Invictus ✅

Fuck yeah, Invictus! MIND!! BODY!! SPIRIT!! ALL ARE ONE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

The Vision Bleak – Carpathia ✅

This album is so entertaining and the rarified mix of gothy atmosphere with post-Metallica crunch, also deliciously coming from an Empyrium guy of all people? Endlessly catchy, fun King Diamond-esque fairytale about Carpathia, whose beauty is beyond compare!

Voivod – Nothingface ✅

And generally the Voivod catalogue has been the gift that keeps on giving for me over the years. Top10 album for me and it seems those retain their standing over the decades.

Warlord - Deliver Us ✅

As we said about Lordian, but Warlord are also even more significant because they're a foundational influence on nearly all the heavy metal bands that matter to the world – and on this list – that came after. From Psychotic Waltz to Mayfair to Xerxes, nothing else I love would be exactly what it is without Warlord carving the path. And as it often is with seminal bands, it's not just that they're influential, it's that the material is so filled with personality and unique vision often you feel like 'I need to listen to Warlord and nothing else'. The circus around the reunion of the band was unfortunate, but then a lot of the life choices of William Tsamis were unfortunate. As the Destroyer has passed, all glory goes to Warlord!

Warning - From a Distance  ❌

This is excellent and I would recommend it to anyone but I never listen to it. When it comes up on shuffle I skip it. The 'my gf left me' energy of this album is as real is it can be, but also in this way completely insufferable it turns out for this listener. One of the best albums I never want to listen to again.

Watchtower - Control and Resistance ✅

Obviously but I want to say that the recent remaster of Energetic Disassembly has allowed me to penetrate its mysteries and I listen to it like 2 times a week, sometimes back to back and my mind and heart explode with the promise of this futuristic metal. Top3 band for me and now burdened with the good problem of how to balance the fact that both of their albums are shoving their way into my top10. What more can I say about Watchtower? Perhaps without their influence my interest in heavy metal could have been passing, once. But with their challenging contribution they ascertained an eternal enthrallment in this listener, and many others. The promise of metal to come isn't to sound like Watchtower, it is to sound like no one else. If you cannot do it, STAY HOME AND PRACTICE. Practice what? The instrument? Perhaps. Or the mind. Or the soul. Practice poetry. Practice something else than whatever everyone else is practicing, you coward.

Windham Hell - Reflective Depths Imbibe ✅

Absolutely. Nothing else like this. W is such a strong letter in my list with just 3 bands. I wish Eric would have lived a longer and fruitful life and we could have seen this vision complete itself even more, but I cherish what we have in any case.

Xerxes - Falling Leaves ✅

And the first album and the demos. Xerxes are a perfect band for me, none of their shortcomings work against them. Their style is incorporated completely and their core is so touching to me. I feel like this band came to exist for just me in this world and that's a difficult feeling to ever find in this fallen world. I am indebted to them for every song they recorded.

Zephyrous - A Caress of War & Wisdom ✅

The funny thing is 'Towards...' is even better, in the end. The more I listen to it the more I love it. It's such an improbable thing to even exist, I love it so. Some of the best metal from Greece and some of the best atmospheric metal (???) ever made as well. One day the world will realize.

Zen - Gaze Into the Light ❌

It's not bad but there's no, say, Lemur Voice on this list and there's Zen? There's no Payne's Gray and there's Zen? There was much to learn for 20 yr old Helm and much has indeed been learned since. Let me tally up how many I've stricken out 

28 ❌! About a third of the list is off the list, isn't that something? Human beings are nothing if not a series of moods. The moods compound and what's left is bitterness, with a sideproduct of growth. I have in mind to do a future posting offering a few new favourites of the last 15 years but it'll take some sweaty time to narrow them down to ~30ish. 

As always I welcome your thoughts. I wonder who you are, and where you are. I wonder what you think and feel about this world. I wonder if we'll ever be free and I let my mind wander freely, this freedom will never be taken from us. Take care.