Just a handful of the big rock and metal albums reaching massive milestones this month…
How would you like to feel ancient? Sure, you might think you're a young, hip and happening go-getter, but nothing makes you feel like Methuselah's grandad quite like the anniversaries of your favourite albums. What do you mean, blink-182's Rock Show is now nearly old enough to drink in America?! And how on earth did Andy Biersack release an album 10 years ago while still having that jawline today? We're not here to get to the bottom of these questions, but here are a dozen albums celebrating important anniversaries (anything ending in a 5 or 0, natch) this month…
The debut album from The Runaways, the stomping LA punk rockers that featured legends Joan Jett and Lita Ford amongst their ranks. The blistering opener Cherry Bomb is worth the record price alone, which even if you don't think you know, you definitely know.
The first LP from the deviant gothic metallers, led my monolithic heartthrob Peter Steele, who would soon reveal himself to be one of the most enigmatic, enthralling frontmen metal has ever known. While not as accomplished as 1993's Bloody Kisses, this scrappier initial offering set the groundwork for an incredible legacy.
Ah, Load. Some people love it, some people hate it, but for all the naysaying, there are some underrated gems tucked away on Metallica's sixth studio album – Until It Sleeps and King Nothing in particular. Sure, it's not as thrashy as some fans wanted at the time, but it serves as a watershed moment in the history of heavy metal's biggest band.
Three years after their breakthrough album Sing The Sorrow, goth punks AFI signed to major label Interscope for Decemberunderground – the album that gave the world the mahoosive sing-along Miss Murder. Further evolving their hardcore-tinted sound, AFI's eighth full-length edged further toward a more ’80s new wave vibe, while still pumping out cacophonous choruses.
Another punkier signee to Interscope, albeit five years later, All Time Low received some flak from certain fans for 'selling out' and daring to want to achieve bigger things. The resulting album is often ignored, but with bangers like I Feel Like Dancin and Time-Bomb, it's definitely worth revisiting.
Swedish veterans Candlemass didn't just change the tone of heavy metal in 1986, they darkened the palette of all recorded music. Owing much to Sabbath (obviously), the reverberations from this pioneering expedition into doom metal can still be felt today. Embrace the pitch blackness.
What a silly album title, it almost sounds like... oh. blink-182 turned adolescence into an artform for their fourth album, chock-full with tales of first dates, divorce and falling in love with a girl at the rock show. It felt like everyone had this album in 2001, spending hours giggling at the bonus tracks Fuck A Dog and When You Fucked Grandpa, which are (somewhat understandably) not on streaming services.
Following their debut album We Stitch These Wounds, released one year prior, Set The World On Fire was BVB's reintroduction, with the band finding a more polished sound and a glam-rock look. More than that, it packed in some absolute tunes, including the Kerrang! Award-winning Rebel Love Song.
The middle part of The Wonder Years' trilogy (slotted between 2010's The Upsides and 2013's The Greatest Generation) is seen by many as their greatest album yet, receiving a full 5Ks on release. A world apart from the bubblegum pop-punk also doing the rounds at the time, this LP brims with fragility and sorrow, but most importantly, hope.
Gojira don't make bad albums, but their 2016 offering is undoubtedly one of their best. Leaning further into post-metal territory, the shimmering soundscapes created by France's greatest metal export are so deep and expansive that whales could live in them. The next time someone tells you that metal has grown stale, slap them with a copy of Magma and tell them they're an idiot.
Very much not post-metal, Nails' brawling third LP is nothing but sonic destruction. Clocking in at 21 minutes, it's a hellacious slobberknocker of a record that simply doesn't let up. A barbed-wire chokehold of all-out aggression, few albums come close to You Will Never Be One Of Us for sheer ferocity and unattainable fury.
It's hard to think of a time when Muse weren't one of the biggest bands in the UK, but it was here on their second album that they truly made a bid for the stratosphere. Forging that now unmistakable blend of progressive rock, alt.rock and stadium-sized everything, tracks like Plug In Baby and their cover of Feeling Good made Muse a household favourite seemingly overnight – and they've never looked back.
Read this next:
