For the 250th anniversary of America, Last Rites is featuring 250 of the greatest American metal albums ever made, and here we are at Part III, already. Please note that these albums are not ranked or ordered in any way — just prime examples of kick-ass heavy metal made by American bands. Got any ideas what entries are still to come? Got any favorites that you’re sure we missed? (You’ll know by Friday, if we did.) Let us know in the comments!
Catch up on Part 1 & Part 2 here & here.
Elder – Reflections Of A Floating World
Helmet – Meantime
Between The Buried And Me – Colors
Skid Row – Slave To The Grind
Slave to the Grind was just a couple years away from being my favorite ‘80s album. Instead, we’ll just chalk it up as one of my favorite heavy metal albums ever.
From the badass intro “Monkey Business” to their magnum opus “Quicksand Jesus,” they were at the top of their game here. To this day, I’ll randomly find myself humming the bass line to “Psycho Love” or quoting the chorus to “Slave to the Grind” after a week of work. Speaking of which, the title track made way for one of heavy metal’s all-time great riffs that, for some reason, isn’t talked about enough.
Despite the beef between Sebastian Bach and Snake remaining unresolved, you just can’t take away from the band’s legacy and their spot as one of the best duos from that era. Slave to the Grind is the band’s best effort and an album I return to just as much as any. They captured magic on this one. And if we’re lucky enough to see the improbable reunion, I’ll donate one of my three wishes to hear this one played in full at some point. [BLIZZARD OF JOZZSH]
Sacred Reich – Ignorance
Saint Vitus – Saint Vitus (1984)
Crunch time with 3 seconds left on the clock, I’m hurling the 1984 debut from LA’s Saint Vitus as thee definitive US doom metal record (with a solemn bow to Trouble’s Psalm 9, just an inch behind) and praying for nothing but net. I just might nail it, too, because not only does this leveling S/T check all the boxes for doom’s most ideal framework—HUGE Iommic riffs that pull the listener into unconquerable quicksand, batshit psychedelia dripping from frenzied leads, redemptive howls from a penitent freak behind the mic, and drums fully destroyed by Conan the Barbarian’s mongrel doppelgänger—it also happens to underscore one of doom’s sneakiest tricksies better than most: PARIAHISM. Great doom has always (barely) endured as metal’s ugliest duckling haunting the fringes, and you simply cannot get more ‘outcast’ than Saint Vitus circa 1984 offering up these songs on a fucking punk rock label to fans that expected and hungered for speed, Speed, and more SPEED. Hey, guess what, this record is incredibly punk, just as much as it is classic American doom. [CAPTAIN]
Cobalt – Gin
Starkweather – Croatoan
In a logical world, this is what we would call deathcore. After all, Starkweather is rather unique in how they blend sludgy metalcore with the brutality and heft of death metal. With its combination of pounding (but nuanced) rhythms, nauseating grooves, uneasy melodies, progressive song structures, and perversely heavy riffs, Croatoan is designed to provide maximum punishment at all times. Add in the vocal performance of Rennie Resmini, who shifts from slithery singing and haggard screams to death growls, and you’ve got one harrowing record. More than that, even, as everything here comes together perfectly to make Croatoan one of the most intense listening experiences in extreme metal. Heavy, heavy stuff. [ZACH DUVALL]
Weakling – Dead As Dreams
Clutch – Robot Hive / Exodus
Warlord – Deliver Us
The Obsessed – The Obsessed
Manowar – Into Glory Ride
Pantera – Far Beyond Driven
Heathen – Breaking The Silence
Leeway – Born To Expire
Drawn And Quartered – Hail Infernal Darkness
Darkest Hour – Hidden Hands Of A Sadist Nation
Origin: Washington D.C.
Why it belongs: For better or worse (and I say better), melodic metal-core is one of the sub-genres truly indigenous to the United States and “Hidden Hands of a Sadist Nation” might be the best the style has to offer. While deeply and gratefully indebted to Scandinavian melo-death, it’s unique among its peers in its full embrace of hardcore’s rage. Plenty melodic, fast and free of frills, Darkest Hour’s sound is largely at odds with the most hardened metalhead’s perception of what metalcore was all about, which is all the more reason it deserves a closer listen.
What’s the most American thing about Darkest Hour: I’m not totally a subscriber to the idea that “the people who complain about America the most are actually the most Patriotic.” In truth, some folks would really just rather live in a European style welfare state than in Uncle Sam’s freemarket Thunderdome. Me? I’m with American Modernist painter Georgia O’Keefe who, according to one of my very favorite fridge magnets, once said to create the Great American anything we must “feel America, like America, love America and then work.” Produced during the height of America’s Iraq War crack-up, Darkest Hour may not demonstrate much love for the Stars n’ Bars on “Hidden Hands” but there is definitely no indifference. The band felt America deeply, got to work and created The Great American Metalcore Album. [DAVID FONSECA]
Pyrrhon – What Passes For Survival
Exodus – Bonded By Blood
Atheist – Unquestionable Presence
Testament – The Legacy
Xasthur – Telepathic With The Deceased
Given the available audio evidence of solo black metal artists, the late 90s and early 2000s were apparently some of the bleakest times known to beast or man. Alongside Leviathan, Scott Conner’s Xasthur is one of the most important and prolific names in the carved-wrist niche of nihilistic, depressive black metal that bubbled up in those years (including fellow travelers such as Striborg, Crebain, Draugar, Nortt, Krohm, I Shalt Become, Endless Dismal Moan, Vrolok). Drawing inspiration both from the wellspring of early Burzum and America’s homegrown titan of solipsistic miserablism, Judas Iscariot, Xasthur turned up the woozy dissonance and transformed the blown-out lo-fi instrumentation into a mirror universe vision of neoclassical drone masquerading as black metal. Nearly everything Xasthur produced in the six-year span from A Gate through Bloodstained Mirrors through Subliminal Genocide is worthy, but Telepathic with the Deceased is the most fully-realized version of Conner’s idiosyncratically anhedonic vision. Bleary, hallucinatory missives from a world you don’t want to inhabit but from which you can’t look away. [DAN OBSTKRIEG]
Brutal Truth – Need To Control
Dream Theater – Images And Words
Tyrant – Too Late To Pray
Gridlink – Longhena
System Of A Down – System Of A Down
Toxicity, and “Chop Suey” in particular, launched this Armenian quartet into the stratosphere, but their self-titled debut remains one of the most enigmatic releases of the last 30 years. And, yes, I’ll be sticking with Armenian instead of American since the band being born and raised in California is a result of their entire people suffering a genocide and being pushed out of their homeland, but we are supposed to be a melting pot here, so I’m glad these chaps found a home on our west coast.
Heavy riffing, bizarre vocalization, and obtuse lyrics that don’t always seem to make sense are the name of the game on album one, and every part of it gels together perfectly. Whether it’s the stop-start angsty ranting of “Sugar,” the haunting ballad-esque “Spiders,” or the political hostility of “P.L.U.C.K.,” System Of A Down created an unpredictable and chaotic, yet incredibly memorable debut that they never replicated again. [SPENCER HOTZ]
D.R.I – Crossover
Rigor Mortis – Rigor Mortis
Artificial Brain – Labyrinth Constellation
Metal Church – Metal Church
The debut from Metal Church features one of the most iconic album covers in the history of the genre and the album earns it with every note. Something of a centerpoint for the Venn diagram of all heavy metal styles of the time, Metal Church brings traditional metal with early shades of power metal, speed metal, and thrash and delivers it all with a special kind of authenticity that justifies the grand stature suggested by the band name. Kurdt Vanderhoof’s guitar tone, riffs, and songwriting all reflect the band’s roots in 70s heavy metal and hard rock as much as they portend metal’s future. Likewise, David Wayne’s vocals are melodic and nuanced as often as they are evil and snarly, laying bricks in the pathway to thrash and other more extreme forms of metal. There’s a reason you’ll find Metal Church patches on the vests of metalheads across the spectrum and this is that album that started it all. [LONE WATIE]
Morpheus Descends – Ritual Of Infinity
Ares Kingdom – The Unburiable Dead
Holy Terror – Terror And Submission
Nevermore – This Godless Endeavor
Coming as late as it does in the Nevermore discography, This Godless Endeavor is — if you weren’t entirely familiar with said discography — almost an odd choice for peak Nevermore. Yet it is peak Nevermore: frenetic, anxious riffing, expressive solos, impassioned singing, heavy lyrics, and all.
After the muddied delivery of the also great but undercooked Enemies of Reality, This Godless Endeavor felt like — and was — the breath of fresh air the band, and fans, needed. Warrel Dane’s singing here is so acidic that it somehow cuts right through the almost shockingly heavy Loomis riffing. And that’s really what makes this album peak Nevermore; the confluence of those two elements, meeting as they do, feeding off each other. That, and “Born” blows your top off in zero seconds flat. [CHRIS C]
Massacre – From Beyond
Winter – Into Darkness
Cacophony – Speed Metal Symphony
Obituary – Cause Of Death
Cause of Death finds Obituary making some changes, including a lower tuning, a new and quite accomplished lead guitarist in James Murphy, and with this album, John Tardy started singing actual lyrics. The overall approach, however, didn’t change, and hasn’t ever really changed too much: simple, heavy riffs with a gnarly guitar tone, and songs mostly about dying horribly. It’s a winning formula and the aforementioned changes only seem to enhance it. Sure “EWWWWWAAAAARRRRRGH” Is a brilliantly poetic lyric, but “Chopped In Half, Feel the Blood Spill From Your Mouth” does paint a more vivid picture. [JEREMY MORSE]
Autopsy – Mental Funeral
Kyuss – Welcome To Sky Valley
Psychotic Waltz – A Social Grace
Discordance Axis – The Inalienable Dreamless
The third and final studio album from bass-less Jersey grinders Discordance Axis upped the ante not only for the band, but for grindcore on the whole, seamlessly blending the band’s signature ferocity with stouter production values than they’d had earlier, plus more accomplished musicianship (some of Rob Marton’s skronkier riffs are just *chef’s kiss*), and deeper lyrical themes that were inspired by Jon Chang’s love of anime. Coming off a two-year hiatus in the wake of Marton’s first departure, The Inalienable Dreamless was not born easily, it seems, but when the result is not only one of the best American grindcore albums ever made, but also one of the best grindcore albums ever made by anyone, anywhere… well, that’s a pretty big deal. An absolutely mandatory listen for anyone interested in pure unbridled aggression of the more cerebral variety. [ANDREW EDMUNDS]
Forbidden – Twisted Into Form
Possessed – Seven Churches
Sleep – Dopesmoker
Immolation – Close To A World Below
There’s a line in Karl Willets’s recounting of the legendary “NJ Riot” that I think about a lot: “We met with the guys from Immolation, top blokes… off their tits on PCP, the load-in was amusing… I’d had a bit of crystal meth that night, which may have added to the overall weirdness of the night.” Willets says later that “a more together Immolation” aided in Bolt Thrower’s escape, and it’s like… I’m sorry, they were off their tits on PCP, but more together? Immolation has ADHD, confirmed. Anyway, as I’m not Walter White, I obviously don’t advocate for the life-wrecking effects of meth. Still, the apocalyptic insanity of the rhythmically ingenious Close to a World Below is like “Faces of Meth” counterprogramming, and, uh, almost makes you wish these Yonkers gods could get back to the weirdness of the night. “Father, You’re Not a Father” is also the best Father’s Day song for people who like riffs. [SETH BUTTNAM]
While Heaven Wept – Vast Oceans Lachrymose
Anthrax – Among The Living
THE THIRD 50
Elder – Reflections Of A Floating World
Helmet – Meantime
Between The Buried And Me – Colors
Skid Row – Slave To The Grind
Sacred Reich – Ignorance
Saint Vitus – Saint Vitus
Cobalt – Gin
Starkweather – Croatoan
Weakling – Dead As Dreams
Clutch – Robot Hive / Exodus
Warlord – Deliver Us
The Obsessed – The Obsessed
Manowar – Into Glory Ride
Pantera – Far Beyond Driven
Heathen – Breaking The Silence
Leeway – Born To Expire
Drawn And Quartered – Hail Infernal Darkness
Darkest Hour – Hidden Hands Of A Sadist Nation
Pyrrhon – What Passes For Survival
Exodus – Bonded By Blood
Atheist – Unquestionable Presence
Testament – The Legacy
Xasthur – Telepathic With The Deceased
Brutal Truth – Need To Control
Dream Theater – Images And Words
Tyrant – Too Late To Pray
Gridlink – Longhena
System Of A Down – System Of A Down
D.R.I. – Crossover
Rigor Mortis – Rigor Mortis
Artificial Brain – Labyrinth Constellation
Metal Church – Metal Church
Morpheus Descends – Ritual Of Infinity
Ares Kingdom – The Unburiable Dead
Holy Terror – Terror And Submission
Nevermore – This Godless Endeavor
Massacre – From Beyond
Winter – Into Darkness
Cacophony – Speed Metal Symphony
Obituary – Cause Of Death
Autopsy – Mental Funeral
Kyuss – Welcome To Sky Valley
Psychotic Waltz – A Social Grace
Discordance Axis – The Inalienable Dreamless
Forbidden – Twisted Into Form
Possessed – Seven Churches
Sleep – Dopesmoker
Immolation – Close To A World Below
While Heaven Wept – Vast Oceans Lachrymose
Anthrax – Among The Living
