Revisiting Melvins’ Mid-1990s Makes Claim for Their Sheer Excellence
At the Stake: Complete Atlantic Recordings 1993-1996 gathers the three album run Melvins delivered during their short stint on a major label.
alternative metal
‘Judgment Night’ Soundtrack Merged Rock and Hip-Hop 30 Years Ago
The Judgment Night soundtrack blazed the path that led the evolution of rock and roll into nu-metal of the late 1990s and early 2000s.
Hair Metal Is Back in Style Like It’s Going Out Of Style
New albums by Extreme, Y&T and Filter show nothing falls out of fashion anymore. Hair metal is no longer a punchline but a cultural artifact to be appraised.
Ranking the Sum 41 Albums: From Pop-Punk to Thrash Metal
With eight records across a 27-year discography, each of Sum 41’s albums have ranged widely in style from pop-punk to thrash metal.
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Living Colour’s ‘Vivid’ Turns 35: An Interview with Vernon Reid
What better way to celebrate Living Colour’s landmark album Vivid on its 35th birthday than talking to the band’s guitarist and primary songwriter, Vernon Reid.
Tool’s Undertow, 1990s Culture Wars, and the Rehabilitation of Gen-X
After Tool whapped us upside the head with Undertow, you knew you’d never listen to that hairband boom-bap with a straight face ever again.
Linkin Park’s ‘Meteora’ at 20: Vulnerable Angst for the Nu-Millennium
With Meteora 20 years ago, Linkin Park perfected their genre-bending nu-metal sound and outfitted it with a relatable rage that won the world over.
Rage, Rage, Against the Dying of Rage Against the Machine
How were Rage Against the Machine so far ahead of their time, not just as political bellwethers but with a sound reaching past genres to create something entirely new?
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MetalMatters: The Best Metal Albums of August 2022
In this month’s best metal albums, experimental mystics Locrian re-awaken, sonic chameleons Boris revisit an outlier, and Bloodbox blur the lines between organic and synthetic.
The Beautiful Depravity of Faith No More’s Angel Dust 30 Years Later
Faith No More’s Angel Dust showed a band so hellbent on following their creative instincts that they were willing to risk alienating a half-million people.
Melvins Go Acoustic But Still Sound Somehow Like, Well, the Melvins
At its finest, Melvins’ Five-Legged Dog is downright transgressive, suggesting all sorts of alternate-history narratives for these Washington-bred weirdos.
Slipknot Transformed Modern Metal with ‘Iowa’ 20 Years Ago
Slipknot’s boundary-pushing second album Iowa changed the trajectory of heavy music 20 years ago. Its influence rings through many corners of the metal scene.