20 more Ice Cream Sundaes (10s)!
Part 2 because why not?
This usually wins a "best metal album of 1974" award, a) mainly because people don't like counting Kiss and Rush albums and b) Neither Led Zeppelin nor Black Sabbath released in album this year. But even if they did, this would given them a run for their money. This is definitely from a bygone era, very drenched in 70s trappings, but in a great way. It makes you wonder how awesome it would be to bonged out in someone's apartment or a park with this on the stereo. Especially when guitarist Tony Bourge goes into jam mode, and by jam I mean psychadelic insanity.
Giant chocolate chips: Zoom Club, In For The Kill, Living On Your Own
The pinnacle of Rush's outlandish epic-writing and Rush's metalness. There's only 4 songs here, each of varying length and different style, but they are all absolutely mint. So-called "prog metal" starts right here, moreso than 2112 (which as a whole, isn't as metal as you remember).
Giant chocolate chips: La Villa Strangiato, The Trees, Hemispheres (Cygnus X-1 Book II)
The most influential album on all rock music of the 80s. I am not exaggerating and this cannot be overstated (it's barely stated now, tbh). Everyone thinks it's Back In Black, and as great as Back in Black is, it doesn't come out until halfway through the year, by which most of the NWOBHM/classic metal albums/bands have set the decade in motion. AC/DC was clearly the big influence on things like British Steel, so it stands to reason this was AC/DC's most influential album of the following decade.
Giant chocolate chips: Girls Got Rhythm, Shot Down In Flames, Touch Too Much
Any of their first five albums could have been eligible for this list, so....I rolled a dice and this is what came up. No problem. Fun fact, legendary drummer Dave Lombardo is only using one kick drum here. Not that you can really tell because first album in and its already more vicious than Metallica. And for those of you who think Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman are lousy cat in a blender lead guitar players, on Show No Mercy they study much more from the Downing/Tipton Murray/Smith Sherman/Denner style of virtuosic lead playing. So they did dumb themselves down for the sake of the sound. But hey, so did Phil Anselmo.
Giant chocolate chips: Crionics, Metal Storm/Face The Slayer, Die By The Sword
My favorite album of all time. Peak speed metal. If Michael Kiske didn't establish himself as a god on Part 1, he certainly does here. Also worth noting the political leanings in most of the lyrics, reminding all the dumb Gen X soccer dads that no, this wasn't just mindless fantasy rock. Very general rather than specific instances ala Rage Against The Machine.
Giant chocolate chips: Save Us, March Of Time, Keeper Of the Seven Keys
Hey kids, remember when black metal was fucking scary? As in, forget the normies, you will probably shit your pants in fear when you hear this? This is an absolutely demented slice of 1.5 wave black metal. Remember that scene in Brian Azarello's Joker where The Joker slaps someone and they cuts all over them because he puts shards in his hands? It's like that. On top of that, it shreds! If Randy Rhoads was born a few years later and living in Hungary, this is what he would have made. Also, this is the most terrifying, harrowing vocal performance Attila Csihar has ever put to tape. Yes I am well aware of what else he's done.
Giant chocolate chips: Tormentor II, Beyond, Elizabeth Bathory (don't just listen to this song because Dissection covered it)
Made by Brazilian teenagers who were insanely disenfranchised as a result of their home country being a damn near, beyond the point of no return, shit-show of corruption, Beneath The Remains is a violent riff-o-rama of extremity that some still argue over which extreme sub-genre it is (thrash or death). But it's so good and so nasty you write it off as nitpicky semantics. And if you try to argue such a detail is more important than that, you will be silenced by the sharpest multi-directional mutilation you'd think you were being sliced up by a drug cartel.
Giant chocolate chips: Slaves Of Pain, Primitive Future, Beneath The Remains
An absolutely brutal complex maze of plated armor steel, labyrinthian arrangements, neck-wrecking grooves, and absolutely skin curdling lyrics than you can actually understand and be sickened by! Well, most of the time anyway. The best thing Michael Amott (and Bill Steer for that matter) was ever a part of. A very strong argument to be made for the greatest death metal album ever.
Giant chocolate chips: Corporal Jigsore Quandry, Inpropagation, Symposium of Sickness
The first album with Mikkey Dee, which, like it or not, turns Lemmy's outfit into a metal band here (sorry Lemmy, but too much double bass turns rock & roll into metal, normie rules). It's 1993, and racial social engineering demands metal must die. Well, Lemmy certainly isn't going down without a fight. This is the beginning of world-weary, had-enough-of-everyones-shit Lemmy as a lyricist. Providing enough speed and nastiness, but not forgetting the fun, Bastards is what a lot of these thrash bands trying to follow Metallica should have been making. Hell, Metallica would have done themselves a few favors making this themselves.
Giant chocolate chips: We Bring The Shake, I Am The Sword, Burner
The most fun outside of Venom, Bathory and Immortal one could possibly have listening to black metal. Isn't metal supposed to be scary? About chords and notes sequences that fill you to the brim with sexually deranged bloodlust and want to bite hot chicks with fangs while you fuck the shit out of them in the snow? Well that's what this is. Funnier is the fact that black metal elitist retards think this is is the more "sellout rock and roll album" of the first two, even though this has more blast-beats and longer more complex arrangements.
Giant chocolate chips: Thorns of Crimson Death, Where Dead Angels Lie, Night's Blood
90's power metal reached a peak here, and frankly it should have crossed into the American mainstream. There's more of a crossover between pop-punk and power metal than you'd think. On top of that, the series of albums Gamma Ray made starting with 1995's Land Of the Free, make an alternative case for what Metallica could have made post Metallica. Yes, its still fast, but it's speed metal rather than thrash, which means its much more melodic. Plus, "Short As Hell" were what they were shooting for on the Load's anyway. (I'd make a shooting load joke, but those albums suck so bad they don't deserve it). It also is worth mentioning that swords and dragons are promptly told to fuck off in favor of space travel. This is Kai Hansen's best work since Keeper Of the Seven Keys Part II, and it's such a wonderful thing to see him blossom as a vocalist.
By the way, that cover was made by Derek Riggs. Yes, THAT Derek Riggs.
Giant chocolate chips: Razorblade Sigh, Strangers In The Night, It's A Sin [Pet Shop Boys cover]
Black Label Society- Stronger Than Death
This will always be my favorite BLS, and my favorite non-Ozzy album from Zakk. Part of it is nostalgia, part of it is the fact that it's the first time he got his shit together with no filler (Sonic Brew is great, but it really wavers after the first half). Filled to the brim with fuck nu metal and fuck modernity while being not quite like anything it is before. Sort of sets a stage for trad metal ideas under sludgy conditions (i.e. High On Fire & Baroness). Of course a whole bunch of hair metal pussies complained he was cosplaying like a biker instead of cosplaying like them. Fuck you faggots, metal's been about biker cosplay since 1978.
Giant chocolate chips: Counterfeit God, Love Reign Down, All For You
Iowa? lol (mUh bLaStBeAtS) Toxicity? lolol ItS dEaTh MeTaL. NO ITS NOT. Destruction were a reliable German thrash force in the 80s, albeit plagued by inconsistent production. Well in the year of our Lemmy 2001, with producer extraordinaire Peter Tagtren at the helm, The Antichrist is where Destruction lead the charge and proclaim ENOUGH IS ENOUGH STOP KEEPING THRASH DOWN. The Antichrist is brutal, and it don't need to whine about fucking any wounds to do so.
Giant chocolate chips: Nailed to the Cross, Bullets From Hell, Godfather of Slander
Baroness has been one of my favorite pieces of 00s ammo when core losers try to claim I'm a boomer or stuck in the 80s. No, you losers were so obsessed with "forward movement" that you didn't see where you were going and drove off a cliff! The sludge/stoner/trad movement of the 00s felt like the last bastion of classic metal's evolution trying to get to the mainstream, only for it to peter out. To me, this album, moreso than anyone from that decade (even if I like High On Fire and Mastodon more) is the best gateway for trying to introduce someone to it. Some extreme metal elitist retards will try to claim this isn't metal, rather indie rock with too much distortion (not helped by the follow up, Yellow & Green, leaning into that). Ignore them.
Giant chocolate chips: War Wisdom & Rhyme, A Horse Called Golgotha, The Sweetest Curse
BuT kAi! IrOnBoUnD iS BeTtEr BeCaUsE ThAt sOnG hAs tHaT mEtTaLiCa rIfF! First of all, it's a Diamond Head riff. Second of all, yeah I liked Ironbound too, but it's patchier than you remember. I like this more. Sue me.
Giant chocolate chips: Save Yourself, Drop The Hammer Down, 21st Century Man
Nice to know classic songwriting can still actually get acclaim from people in power and make it to arena status. With the help of spooooky costumes of course, but hey, same deal with KISS, right?
Giant chocolate chips: Mummy Dust, Absolution, Cirice
Yeah that's right you NWOTHM weirdos, Conqueror's Oath smokes The Revenant King. The songs are better written, more to the point, more diverse, and just a better, more exciting experience overall. It makes me extremely sad this band was on Metal Blade and ultimately barely made a peep beyond magazines. Bet if Tiktok had e-girls in biker shorts getting white girl wasted in Utah trad metal would have kept the white starfishes and chocolate ponies and the rest of those chumps forgotten (and at more affordable ticket prices, just to really drive the knife to you nu-metal revivalists who think you have some sort of advantage on me. Also if you hate typical classic metal high vocals, Jake Rogers is the closest thing this generation is gonna get to a Glen Danzig.
Giant chocolate chips: Steel & Silver, Salt City, Blades In The Night
The most egregious omission from the first batch of ice cream sundaes was no Lovebites. Particularly since my most popular blogpost is where I rank every one of their songs from best to worst. Even stranger, this is my favorite album of the 2020s thus far. But I couldn't quite jog the writing noggin for it that time. Nonetheless, here's the proper description:
Imagine if Rust In Peace-era Megadeth fell into a worm hole where they changed genres, genders, and nationality. They were also told the only way they could return to their time period was to record something just as good for the Japanese power metal sub-genre. The twist is, they succeed! The wormhole opens back up, but they just can't quite jump back through it because "They feel pretty, oh so pretty, they feel pretty and witty its meeeeeeeeee!"
Giant chocolate chips: When Destinies Align, A Frozen Serenade, Set The World On Fire
Technically and thematically speaking, there have been female singers that broken the mold of the Tarja/Amy Lee symphonic mall goth. But none of them have shattered it and given a reliving sense of "finally, masculine feminine rocker frontwomen are fucking back!" like Sarabeth Linden has. And this demented, varying batch of well crafted heavy songs from the likes of James Danzo and Zak Penley don't hurt either.
Giant chocolate chips: Blood Moon, In Dreams, Lay Down The Law
Blackened-thrash metal is the only "extreme metal" I give a shit about these days. A whole bunch of bands that don't care about stimming fantano-hipster autism, but rather to see who can out-Motorhead each other with slithering black metal vocals. This is the best one thus far. Because yes, metal is supposed to be, dark, violent, and antisocial, but its supposed to be FUN GODDAMMIT!
Giant chocolate chips: The Cursed Carrion Crown, The Hissing Marshes, The Nuckelavee
If I do this a third time don't expect anything after 1999, tis slim pickins lol
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