The Best Metal Albums of the '90s

Terry Date co-produced with Vinnie Paul at Pantego Sound in Texas, and the RIAA has since certified it double platinum. Walk is the whole argument in four minutes — a mid-tempo stomp in 12/8 that a generation of bands misread as permission to play slower and dumber. Dimebag Darrell's pinch harmonics do the sneering the lyrics only imply.

Fredrik Nordström recorded it at Studio Fredman in Gothenburg, and Andy LaRocque of King Diamond came in to play the guest solo on Cold. Blinded by Fear opens on the descending tremolo figure that melodic death metal and then metalcore spent fifteen years rewriting. Spotify's edition runs seventeen tracks, appending covers and 1995 demos after the original eleven.

Candlelight carried it, Pytten co-produced at the Grieg Hall in Bergen, and Kristian Wåhlin painted orcs marching on Minas Morgul for the sleeve. I Am the Black Wizards buries the keyboards underneath the guitars instead of in front of them, which is why the symphonic writing reads as weather rather than decoration. Spotify appends two covers after Inno a Satana.

David Bottrill co-produced with the band at Ocean Way in Hollywood, and the record is dedicated to Bill Hicks, drawn inside the sleeve as a healer above the words Another Dead Hero. Ænema took the 1998 Grammy for Best Metal Performance and rides a 5/8 pulse Danny Carey plays like it were nothing. Mind the spelling: the album is Ænima, the song Ænema.

Attila Csihar of Hungary's Tormentor sang it, Pytten engineered at the Grieg Hall, and Varg Vikernes played the uncredited bass Hellhammer declined to erase after Euronymous was murdered. Freezing Moon works because the tempo keeps sagging and then reasserting itself, with Csihar somewhere between a hiss and a recitation. Eight tracks on Spotify, no bonus material, no remaster tag.

Colin Richardson produced it at Parr Street in Liverpool for Earache, and the sculpture on the front is H. R. Giger's Life Support. Heartwork, the title track, swaps the grindcore of the early records for harmonised leads played dead straight. Michael Amott left after the sessions to start Spiritual Beggars. Europe got it in October 1993, America in January 1994.

Peaceville put it out in October 1999, cut at Studio Fredman with Fredrik Nordström, and it is the first Opeth album with Martín Méndez on bass. The Moor takes eleven minutes and spends the opening stretch on clean guitar before Mikael Åkerfeldt's growl arrives — a structure the band repeated until other people called it a genre. Concept record about a heretic executed for coming home.

Andy Wallace produced it at Rockfield in South Wales, and Kaiowas was taped live among the ruins of Chepstow Castle. Refuse/Resist opens on the heartbeat of Max Cavalera's then-unborn son Zyon before Igor's samba-reggae drumming takes the floor, which is where Brazilian percussion stopped being an ornament in this band. Spotify's edition tacks two live cuts onto the end.

Tomas Skogsberg recorded it at Sunlight Studio in Stockholm, where a cheap Boss HM-2 pedal turned all the way up gave Swedish death metal the buzzsaw guitar tone it has been borrowing ever since. Left Hand Path, the opener, drops into an interpolation of the theme from Phantasm around the 3:54 mark and lets it decay for the rest of the run time.

Four-track recorder, Fenriz's bedroom, a name for it — Necrohell — and Peaceville shipping the result in February 1994 with Varg Vikernes credited for four sets of lyrics. Transilvanian Hunger sets one tremolo riff against an unvarying blast beat and declines to develop either, which is the point. Spotify strips the Norwegian diacritics and renders track three as Skald Au Satans Sol.

Peter Steele and Josh Silver produced it themselves, and it became the first Roadrunner release certified gold, in November 1995, then platinum in December 2000. Black No. 1 (Little Miss Scare-All) runs past eleven minutes on a funeral organ and a joke about hair dye, played entirely deadpan. Spotify dates this edition 1994; Roadrunner issued it in 1993.

Post-metal starts about here. Relapse released it in April 1996, recorded at Brilliant and Coast in Oakland with Billy Anderson, and it is the first Neurosis album with Noah Landis on keyboards. Locust Star repeats a riff until the repetition becomes the argument, Scott Kelly and Steve Von Till shouting across each other. The title track alone runs 12:11.

Nuclear Blast issued it in May 1995, with Fredrik Thordendal writing most of the music and Tomas Haake splitting the lyrics with him. Future Breed Machine sets an odd-grouped riff against a straight 4/4 backbeat so the two only meet every few bars — the trick a thousand djent bands later copied and mostly ruined. Thordendal's solos come out of fusion, not metal.

Prog metal's commercial high-water mark, and the first Dream Theater record with James LaBrie, who got the job off an audition tape. David Prater produced; Atco released it in July 1992. Pull Me Under reached the Billboard mainstream rock top ten and then simply quits — no ending, no fade, the tape stops. Border case: prog first, metal second.

Three men, one amp setting, and a debt to Black Sabbath nobody in the band ever bothered to hide; Sleep produced it with Billy Anderson for Earache. Dragonaut pitches its riff between a groove and a dirge and then sits there, delighted. Sources disagree on the year: Europe in November 1992, the United States in March 1993, which is where Spotify's 1993 date comes from.