THE ALBUMS THAT CHANGED MY LIFE AND BROKE MY BRAIN

1. Metallica - And Justice For All…

For some reason I want to say I heard this album for the first time at the age of 7 or 8 years old. I had a friend who lived on my street in Mississauga who had been severely handicapped at a young age by a serious illness. I was so young I can’t remember what it was but I remember it had put him in a wheelchair by the time he was 6. He died by the time I was 13 (I remember he had just turned 19 - old enough to order his first beer, which he did, before he passed). Eric was his name. On top of being wheelchair bound Eric struggled to speak but I remember Eric loved video games (the NES and the SNES) and Eric had wicked taste in music. That’s where I first heard Metallica and this album. The first album might have actually been Master of Puppets (the bands most celebrated release) and I keep doubting memories going back over 30 years as to whether it wasn’t the self-titled ‘Black’ album that was first. I DO remember having Ride the Lightning on an over-dubbed cassette tape back in those days and almost wearing that thing out…I’m digressing under caffeine fuelled neuroses again aren’t I…

Back to ‘Justice’. I remember thinking about the big hit off the album being ‘One’. Like 98% of metal fans will say it was the start-stop machine gun kick and snare patterns near the close of the song. The flying duelling guitar solos. The dynamic shift from being an almost melancholy near-acoustic piece to a blistering thrash track by its end that first grabbed me. It really is an epic song (in length, scope, theme, and ambition) that I think only 80’s era Metallica could truly pull off. But this was back in a time before streaming services where you could listen to just one track and simply ignore the rest of the album with ease (hell in this day and age it’s rounded out to most people ignoring the rest of the whole catalogue by an artist). This was back before many of us had CD players so track skipping wasn’t even a readily available option for lots of us. Nope. We had fast-forward and rewind and prescient knowledge that abusing those functions would break the tape and leave us $10-$12 poorer for it. So we listened to the album. Sometimes you had a favorite side (A or B) but you tended to hit play and push through. Now ‘One’ was Track 4 on Side A of ‘Justice’. Last track. So it was in repeat listens to the other songs (and then after a few spins of Side B - that side too) that I got closely acquainted with the rest of the album. From the lead in cry of guitar of opener ‘Blackened’ to the furious closer that was ‘Dyer’s Eve’ it was probably at age 11 on a solo (yes solo albeit cared for by relatives) trip to France’s Brittany region (must have summer of ‘93) that I really grasped this album and it stuck.

Metallica has admitted this was album where they realized they were getting too complex (tech death musicians laugh in 18/7 time I know). It was this album that once completed led them to simplify their approach (through lots of Bob Rick coaxing) on their self-titled album. This was Metallica (sadly for their first time without Cliff Burton) proving they could still be virtuosos one last time.

Now I know people in the know will now scream ‘WHERE’S THE BASS?!?!?!’ which is a legitimate critique of the production. Bass guitar is practically non-existent on this but, weirdly, that may be part of why it stuck. It was an album where there was no bottom end to round things out so those complex melody lines came through without any dilution. The drum patterns were all crystal clear. It helped me, the very unsophisticated child listener, to more easily pick up on what was going on. Almost like having the individually recorded tracks split out in studio. It was a way for me to foray into the music.

And ‘One’ did not remain my favorite track on ‘Justice’. I fell in love with the fast and heavy ‘Blackened’, ‘The Eye of the Beholder’, the oft forgotten ‘The Shortest Straw’, the Burton credited near instrumental ‘To Live Is To Die’, and of course the blasting closer ‘Dyer’s Eve’. Justice was front to back a great album and one that made sure that I would learn to love the fury and beauty that heavy metal had to offer it’s fans.

2. Megadeth - Countdown To Extinction

So here is another occasion where I won’t pick the seminal classic as the album that had its biggest impact on me. Most would argue Megadeth’s most inspired release would, like Metallica’s ‘Master of Puppets’ before ‘And Justice For All’, be ‘Rust In Peace’. But I guess I just got into it 1-2 years too late. I was already into Metallica and they’re more rounded out writing style. Megadeth felt…it’s hard to explain…more raw? It’s hard to explain because it’s so concretely wrong. But it’s how I, at age 10, felt. And that perhaps had to do with ‘Countdown’ itself. Lead singer and guitarists Dave Mustaine’s snarling singing style was certainly more of a reach for me at that point..

But damn it does Dave know how to write a catchy bloody riff. From the first single ‘Symphony of Destruction’ you knew the man knew exactly how to hook your ears. This was further evidenced on the STILL personally favourited track ‘Sweating Bullets’ - with its snarled spoken word verses to its wildly cool drum patterns. So many songs on ‘Countdown’ knew how to grab the audience. It was also an album that was clearly way more pissed off than Metallica. Metallica sang about madness and the horrors of war. Megadeth sang about the world of the moment - and how the vast majority of it was not to Dave Mustaine’s taste. Even 10-12 year old me picked up on that. Megadeth was angry. If only I knew then what I do now about musicians writing pissed off music…

Anyways there was so much on offer on ‘Countdown’ for my still virgin ears and again, some of the non-single songs were those I would look most forward to when running through the cassette on repeat. The very melodic ‘This Was My Life’ closing our Side A, the very cool bass lines on the title track ‘Countdown to Extinction’ that opened up Side B, the creepy robot samples closing ´High Speed Dirt’ and opening ´Psychotron’, send the always awesome spoken word opening to ‘Captive Honour’ featuring the famous quote by Jean Rostand “Kill one man and you’re a murderer, kill millions; you’re a conqueror, kill them all and you’re a God” - ‘Thoughts of a Biologist’. ‘Countdown To Extinction’ was packed with lyrical themes that were easy for a very young me to pick up on. But it was also PACKED with lots of melody and, while perhaps more stripped down than its predecessor ‘Rust In Peace’ it was still supremely evident that this a band of musicians playing music that the vast majority of pop-leaning radio friendly acts couldn’t hope to conceive, individually master, let alone play as a group and that fascinated me to no end (still does).

3. Nirvana - Nevermind

Now, finally, we’ll land on an album that should come to no surprise for anyone that was entering their fore formative years in 1991. Those looking back without having lived through the time itself would perhaps think that this album smacks of pop sensibilities compared to the albums I have previously mentioned. From a certain perspective they would be right but on must understand that in 1991 this album broke what the world thought of popular music. Metallica and Megadeth were dark acts compared to the hair rock acts that many mistook for ‘heavy metal’ back in those days. Bands like Whitesnake, Poison, and perhaps the best forgotten Mr. Big were on heavy rotation. Nirvana was none of these. 

While Nevermind was actually their second album it was the one that introduced the very niche genre of ‘grunge’ (or as it was sometimes called in those days ‘sub-pop’) to the world at large in a big way. It felt like the lead single ‘Smells Like Teen Spirit’ was inescapable for anyone with a working radio for a good two years (how prophetically and hauntingly true that would be for lead singer and guitarist Kurt Cobain who would commit suicide only 3 years later).

But while most dabbling listeners never got past the difficult to understand lyrics of that song the rest of the album is a front to back banger. I remember, as a kid always wanting whatever was fastest or ‘heaviest’, loving the tracks In Breed’ and ‘Territorial Pissings’. But I quickly also fell in love with the drumming on In Bloom and still love the melodies on ‘On A Plain’ and ‘Drain You’. ‘Nevermind’, while being stripped down and raw in its delivery, compared to the big acts of the day still had a lot of melody, a tone of hooks, and tons of goodies for the true listener.

It’s an album I remember being sad and melancholy while also being loud and aggressive. For my youthful mind this was something that spoke to ME (and millions of other boys and young men of the time of course) - it was statement against its own industry which felt dangerous and satisfying. It really is sad, looking back, how I couldn’t see that Nirvana’s meteoric and almost instantaneous rise to popularity would also be their frontman’s downfall. How the industry he had inadvertently disrupted so succinctly would ultimately grind him up. Kurt was never a man meant for mega stardom. I’m not trying to say that Kurt would have necessarily side-stepped his tragic end but I’m not sure it would have precipitated so quickly. You had to be there. Nirvana was all of a sudden everywhere. These are the realities when you are at the ‘right’ place at the ‘right’ time - although as I write this I’m putting the apostrophes around the ‘rights’ because I wonder how Kurt must have felt deep down about all the craziness suddenly in his life. Drummer and future ‘Foo Fighters’ founder and frontman Dave Grohl may have some choice words about my thoughts. Hmmmmmm.

4. Faith No More - Angel Dust

Here’s an album (and a band) that many talk about but not many remember as having the impact they did. But they did and doubly so for me. Angel Dust was an album I first heard, again, at my friend Eric’s house. I distinctly remember this kid Jay (the last name has escaped me for a couple of decades now) bringing the tape over for Eric to listen to. I just happened to be there.

What a WEIRD album I thought. 80’s synths and keyboards, funky bass lines, tribal drums, and (on many of the songs) heavy guitars; ‘Angel Dust’ really was a smorgasbord of music the like of which I had never heard before. It was all over the place. It was dark. In more recent “looking back” type interviews the band says they were warned by label execs and their own management that ‘Angel Dust’ was tantamount to commercial suicide.

Faith No More had been a band since the early 80’s you see. Their sound had begun to be typecast as ‘rap metal’ or ‘alternative metal’; especially after their runaway hit ‘Epic’ off the preceding album ‘The Real Thing’. While no one would ever classify a band called ‘Faith No More’ as writing happy-go-lucky pop anthems ‘Angel Dust’ ratcheted up (or perhaps down?) on the darkness.

From the opening volleys ‘Land of Sunshine’ and ‘Caffeine’ to the disturbingly rasped rhythms of ‘Midlife crisis’ to the disturbing concepts juxtaposed against the country swagger on ‘RV’. The poppy melancholy of (personal favourite) ‘Everything’s Ruined’, the near death metal deliveries on tracks ‘Malpractice’ and ‘Jizzlobber’ ‘Angel Dust’ goes from lounge singer swing to death metal scream. Yup it’s covers that wide a spectrum. Go read any other exposé on this album past or present. Broad is kind of the leading theme. It should fall over on itself or implode or any other manner of terrible thing but it somehow does it almost flawlessly. Frontman Mike Patton, while now kind of celebrated, will forever still be murderously underrated for the almost impossible range he presented on this (and many other of his musical projects) release. I say ‘almost’ because 1992 didn’t really have the digital wizardry tech to change a singer’s performance so much and if a portion of that technology did exist then it would have been reserved for acts with recording budgets that were bigger than Faith No More’s by unfair factors on exponential value.

I remember this album taught me that it didn’t have to be heavy to be dark. You could get pop-funk flavours while maintaining terrifying darkness. I know this wasn’t a new theme. Johnny Cash made a career of it. Queen sounded happy and anthemic while talking about shooting a dude. But ‘Angel Dust’ was the first time outside of young childhood where I allowed myself to listen to something that wasn’t just all sixteenth note power chords or relentless cymbal smashing. Faith No More presented something that was broad in its most easily recognizable and undeniable form.

It cannot be repeated enough. If you grew up with Korn or Limp Bizkit, System of a Down, or so many of the acts that would follow through the 90’s and early 2000’s then you are hearing something Faith No More had a hand in shaping. That’s how influential this was.

Interesting side note: one of modern rock’s most infamous concerts was the Montreal 1992 concert featuring co-headliners Metallica and Guns N Roses where Metallica’s James Hetfield almost got blown up by pyrotechnic mishap halfway through their set and Guns N Roses singer Axl Rose sang two songs then refused to continue. The whole fiasco led to a riot that trashed a swath of Montreal around its venue at the Olympic Stadium. My cousin was at that show:) What is often glossed over or mentioned in extreme passing was one band DID finish their set that night. The opener. Yup. Faith No More.

5. Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral

So here is another example where I was caught by the artist’s seminal classic and I was thrown into a new genre of music.

Nine Inch Nails, as most of you probably know, is a bit of a collective of recording and touring musicians rotating around one man who founded the act - Trent Reznor. They started pumping out records in the late late 1980’s with a razor-edged début called ‘Pretty Hate Machine’ but it wasn’t until ‘The Downward Spiral’ that I heard them beyond some rarely played music videos on Much Music. Nine Inch Nails are most easily classified as an industrial act. Industrial is electronic music (lots of keyboards, samples, and effects) mixed with really heavy guitars and other ‘heavy’ stylings. Nine Inch Nails weren’t the first act to do this. Bands like Skinny Puppy, the much heavier Ministry, and KMFDM were pretty well established in the genre but Nine Inch Nails was the one that broke through though and ‘The Downward Spiral’ was their cudgel upon the masses.

I, in my youthful willfulness, had set it in my tiny mind that anything electronic or (shudder) danceable couldn’t be heavy. At best it was gimmicky and I actually resented it for that reason. I resented it because it was using metal as its gimmick. I was no different that so many metal heads then and still today. I was an unapologetic gatekeeper. You stay on your side of the fence and I’ll stay on mine. Those rare times a ‘NIN’ video played I remember thinking that. This is corny and this is a fad and ‘how dare they’. 

But of a sudden sometime at age 12 or 13 (13 I think - I keep thinking on our Grade 8 class trip to New York City in early 1996) I heard this album. There were two singles in rotation of the album on the music TV stations - the very techno-tinged ‘Closer’ and the much more straightforward rock song ‘March of the Pigs’. It was the latter that drew me in. Those verse passages were just that menacing and loud. The drums were frenetic. And those parts were so suddenly yet somehow seamlessly interluded with short techno-tinged bridges and then standalone piano parts. It’s a song of dynamics for sure and the lyrics and vocal performance? Dark, self-destructive, tortured. I remembered in the music video seeing Trent continually throw the microphone on the ground or letting it fall just to have someone would run on camera and reset it for him before another vocal delivery was incoming. It caught me - but once I decided to give the whole CD a spin (yup this would be one of the first times I would get the CD and not the tape) it was then the I plumbed the real depth ‘The Downward Spiral’ had to offer.

Opening with with can only be described as a sound bite of sodomy on the aptly titled ‘Mr Self Destruct’ the samples kicked in and what immediately caught my ears as a metal head was the rapid palm muting on the guitars. By comparison to what my ear was somewhat attuned to from thrash metal this guitar playing was buried in the mix. I felt like it was supposed to be hinting at how visceral this song and this album as a statement was going to be. Then everything quickly explodes into distortion and Trent screaming and all hell broke loose. Quite the opener. On its heels came ‘Piggy’; a slow almost lounge-esque track with a meandering bass line. One of the coolest parts of the song to my mind was the big, abrasive overdubbed drums in the last half of third of the track. They drown out the vocals, the underlying drum track, and so much else but it was something I had never heard done in a song. Again, it caught my ear. It was different. The album would continue to bring aggression and rhythm throughout along with (especially on a song like ‘Closer’) some of the most explicit lyrics I had heard in my life to that point. Trent was mad - but not specifically at the systems of power like Dave Mustaine from Megadeth Trent was mad at everything including himself.

There were some obvious favourites for me because they were bloody heavy tracks: ‘Ruiner’, ‘The Becoming’, ‘Heresy’, ‘The Eraser’… but there were also some, I hate to use the word ‘lighter’ because nothing about ‘The Downward Spiral’ is light, but less ‘metal’ tracks that quickly became favorites ‘A Warm Place’ is a beautiful little ambient instrumental track interceding between the anthemic ‘Big Man With a Gun’ and the aforementioned ‘The Eraser’, ‘Piggy’ (see above), and the now much more famous album closer ‘Hurt’.

‘Hurt’, for you younger readers, is NOT one of Johnny Cash’s last songs…well it is…but it is not an original Johnny Cash piece. It was written and originally recorded by Nine Inch Nails on this album. It’s a hell of a closer. Trent has openly said Johnny could have the song after his rendition of it (it just as dark, well maybe darker, it’s just not as loud) but for early teenager me this song was on repeat during some late night homework sessions or when lying in bed.

‘The Downward Spiral’ was exactly that for me in terms of impact. It was electronic chaos and nihilism. It was taking everything that popular music used instrumentally and making it as dark and as dystopian as possible. It taught me that you could make dark, heavy, angry music without needing to play ‘metal’. This album turned me onto industrial music and opened my ears to ambient nuances that has stayed with me ever since.

6. Fear Factory - Demanufacture

Starting into my truly teenage years around the age of fifteen or so I started to religiously watch LOUD hosted by George Strombolopolous on Much Music (Canadian MTV but way better as it actually made a passing semblance on focusing on music videos and music promotion - even by this point way back in the late 90’s MTV was a network lost in its own side projects and ratings addiction). LOUD was an hour on about 11pm or 11:30pm and I think it was George’s first major TV gig. It was the metal hour.

It focused on all things metal and hard rock and basically was the only place I could see the music videos for the bands I wanted to see.

Again, for potentially younger readers, this was the mid-late 90’s. Internet was in its broad, all-humanity encompassing infancy for all intents and purposes. Napster was still a couple years off. YouTube a decade. Spotify almost 20 years ahead. We got our new music from limited sources. TV like Much Music, Radio, word of mouth, and (gasp) printed media. For metal heads word of mouth was the most regular way of hearing about new music. Europe had an established tape-trading underground but North America did not. An added difficulty for the local metal head was the fact that radio and tv would usually carpet-sweep all the music we were interested in onto some obscure niche program played at some obscure hour for the purposes of it not detracting from more popular music genres of the time who’s specialized programs for prime time of course. Metal is outsider music and it got outsider hours.

Oops - there I go digressing again. ANYWAYS, back in these dark early internet days I would watch these tv programs to hear about new metal. One such band that popped up was Fear Factory.

The song was ‘Replica’ off their (then) new album ‘Demanufacture’. And I hated it.

Why? Because this was too much for me. These programs had introduced me to bands like Cannibal Corpse, Morbid Angel, Death and other more extreme acts and I just could not hear past the “growled” harsh vocal style. Too much.

Metallica and Megadeth sang. Faith No More sang. Nine Inch Nails sang.

Well Fear Factory singer Burton C Bell growled. And the first few times their song came up on the program I would change channels or mute it but then one day I didn’t. And that day I found out that Burton C Bell didn’t just growl…he sang. And he sang pretty well too. And he would flip his “harsh” and “clean” styles from verse to chorus constantly.

This is a common trope in metal now. Very common. Arguably the whole genre is super saturated with dual style vocals even when they don’t make the most sense.

But back in 1995/96/97 Fear Factory were one of the first bands to do it and do it well. And they did it over a fusion of industrial music with death metal (which the press would call cyber metal or industrial metal for a while).

Burton would sing and growl over super precise machine gun guitar riffs by guitarist Dino Cazeras and double-bass kick patterns by drummer Raymond Herrera. All this happened in ‘Replica’ and the bug got in my ear. I had to hear more. It was so fast. Yes Cannibal Corpse were faster, Morbid Angel were faster, Death were faster, sometimes Slayer were faster - but they were all still too far off for me.

Fear Factory were the gateway. They had the industrial influence a la Nine Inch Nails i could relate to and the blasting guitar riffs. It was just there for me at that time in that place.

This quickly became my favorite album released. I listened to it front to back and back to front for years. Every track goes from ‘solid’ to ‘timeless’. This was Fear Factory’s second album and they really leaned into the industrial influence versus their debut ‘Soul Of A New Machine’ where they had the same formula but were still way deeper into pure death metal territory.

Opening with the title track ‘Demanufacture’ we’re brought in with samples of machine sounds quickly layered with Raymond Herrera’s signature start-stop double-bass patterns which are themselves quickly layered with Dino Cameras’ machine gun guitar riffs over top. What works so well on this whole album and starts right here in the first thirty seconds of the first song is that Dino mirrors the kick drums. This really brings that part of the percussion to the fore and makes the band sound like machinery or a weapon being fired. It’s super aggressive and super effective at conveying the man vs machine message the album is based around. This track really opens up the album and what you see is what you get on this one. There are no slouch tracks here. No filler. There are slower “melodic” songs like track six ‘Dog Day Sunrise’ that serve to keep the whole thing from being just a one speed, one trick pony. And there are moments of really great harmonies such as the the close of track two ‘Self-Bias Resistor’ or the close of track ten ‘Pisschrist’.

Fear Factory are (today) a pretty hit-miss band. They started to make some choices that I am sure were motivated more by record labels and mass appeal than purely the music from their next album ‘Obsolete’ until almost ten years later on their brilliant return to form release ‘Mechanize’ in 2009. Because of this on/off reception to releases many fans agree that Fear Factory probably peaked on ‘Demanufacture’. It was an album that just fired on all cylinders with a still young and hungry ensemble that hadn’t yet hit it big and were so worried about make music that had broad appeal.

And that honesty came through for me. And it is the album that would lead me to eventually listen to all those ‘unlistenable’ bands I mentioned above. The gateway. To something darker? Yes. Sure. But also to a music that was so much deeper. More musical in many ways despite being screamed on the vocal end. A music that was more honest because many of these artists knew they weee not going to be the guys making the radio heavy circulation. So why bother for mass appeal. This is the reward of being a metal head. Music that most won’t understand, but, if you have the patience, stamina, and capacity to listen for the melodies in the maelstrom of manic instrumentation you will be deeply rewarded. There is beauty in the Beast.

7. Strapping Young Lad - City

Oof. One review I read many years ago described this album as “sticking your head in the jet engine of a stealth bomber at full tilt from start to finish”. Yup. That pretty much sums it up. ‘Nuff said’ as they say.

Now let me wax nostalgic for you for 46 pages.

I remember hearing the song that got me into this album. Back in the heyday of music journalism; before the internet on which you are reading my own reminiscent connection to this LP infected every nanometer of our lives and woodland conservation was only for really special trees there existed real, printed, paper magazines in which news articles, op-eds, and reviews were written about music. Some were generalists but the generalists would not delve deep into any particular branch of that most auspicious of trees - the music tree. But there were some great ‘zines’ (as we used to call them) that delved deep into the depths of the branch they shimmied out on. One of those was a small Canadian zine called ‘Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles’. It was a monthly publication and back in those reckless days of the late 1990’s (would have had to be 1998?) Brave Words would have a little prize packed in with each issue. No, not a happy meal toy. A sampler CD. This was a disc packed with 15-20 tracks of new or recently released tunes from a myriad of bands.

I started to pick up Brave Words after I started (following my watershed moment with the aforementioned ‘Demanufacture’ by Fear Factory) to get into more extreme music. It was a time many a metal head can (I believe) relate to. A period where everything is new and there seems to be no depth too deep to find heavier, faster, crazier, more technical, more brutal…the list goes on.

I was in that period of my life in 1998. And this sampler CD in that issue of Brave Words hit exactly at the right moment. 

From my perspective of today writing this little blurb this sampler was just packed. There were so many amazing bands on here. On this CD I was introduced to Nasum, Old Man’s Child, Kataklysm, Crowbar, Samael, The Dillinger Escape Plan, Gorguts, and, most preeminently, Strapping Young Lad. I was such a newcomer to the genres of death metal, black metal, grindcore and the like that many of these acts were too unlistenable for me in 1998. I would not come back to them for years.

When I first heard Strapping’s contribution which was their gigantic track ‘All Hail The New Flesh’ I was captivated. Not enthralled. It was too fast. Too crazy. Too extreme. But the butcher’s hook was in. I was naive. I thought ‘this must be epic black metal’. It was off their 1998 live album follow up to ‘City’ called ‘No Sleep Till Bedtime’. I thought there were 100 guitars layered on this track. 4 synth players. A drummer from the depths of hell and a singer who was out of his mind.

Well it turned out it was Byron Stroud on bass, John Paul Morgan (I had to check the liner notes for him) standing in as the touring keyboards and samples man, Jed Simon playing one guitar, the monumental Gene Hoglan on drums (listing this dude’s discography and former bands would take an article - go Wikipedia him - suffice it to say many of the genre’s greatest drummers still hold Gene as a key influence and probably one of the greatest drummers in metal history), and finally Devin Townsend doing vocals, the other guitar and being the ultimate unhinged mastermind behind this whole sordid affair.

I kept coming back to this song. It was huge. Like I said - the sound of 100 guitars. It was Devin’s famous wall of sound. A tsunami of distortion. But underneath ‘All Hail The New Flesh’ had melody hidden in the furious maelstrom. It had groove. And Devin? Screamed and sang with equal intensity. On this track that intensity was…well…high. I had to hear more.

Blessedly thanks to 3/4 of the band was Canadian (minus Gene) and they had a big label (Century Media) backing them so they made a video that found air time on MuchMusic’s ‘LOUD’. This was for one of my absolute favorite tracks ‘Detox’. When I heard ‘Detox’ and all its triplet double bass, insane screams, mosh pit destroying mid track breakdown, and general insanity I knew I had to get this album.

I remember taking the trip to downtown Toronto to the flagship HMV (a long defunct record store where they sold music on, God forbid, physical media like your parents must have told you and you didn’t believe them… I know! How obtuse, archaic, and quaint!)  on Yonge Street where they had the best Metal section and where all the most obscure and extreme bands would be stocked. I proudly asked the attendant employee to purchase it and he looked and me and immediately grabbed another couple Devin albums ‘Ocean Machine’ and ‘Infinity’; you see Strapping Young Lad was a band but Devin Townsend treated it like a project - a topic for, again, a whole other article. Ocean Machine and Infinity are still heavy but they are stylistically the polar opposites of City.

I brought all three home and loved all three. Each had its own place and still has its own place in my heart. But City stood above the rest because of the moment of when it hit and how it hit.

This album really has zero filler. It is an absolute planet-burning firestorm from start to finish. A beast. A monolith. Go look at the reviews. The world agrees. This album is just phenomenal. It stands up today as a brilliant juggernaut even though it is 25 years old now. Jaws still drop when people hear ‘Detox’ or ‘Oh My Fucking God’. “Is that a real drummer?”, “Are those vocals real?”, “How many guitarists are there?” No matter how much music and musical ability evolves and how crazy, fast, and heavy metal will get it is my firm belief that ‘City’ will always seem insane. It’s that crazy and that good. Metal people love it, people on the fence about metal love it, non metal people are terrified and/or captivated regardless. Yes. THAT good. This was the album that put me in the Devin Townsend camp such that I would listen to his work for the next 25 years (and counting). The Strapping Young Lad logo ended up as part of tribute tattoo on my arm to a friend that passed not long after this time who had the logo on his back after I introduced him to this album. It goes that deep for me.

Musically ‘City’ hit me as being Fear Factory on cocaine, bath salts, and skipping the court mandated anger management classes. It was death metal infused with industrial elements through keyboards and samples. Lots of double bass work from Gene (along with lots of everything else work if you listen to the drumming closely enough). Jed and Devin just ripping insane guitar rhythms, and Byron holding the whole thing down from flying off into the cosmos who knows how. It had elements of black metal in its atmosphere (I thought), and thrash. It was a fusion that should have sounded like an ungodly mess 99% of the time. Strapping should have sounded like it was trying too hard to be too many things but the writing talent from Devin and the performance talent from all of them make that 1% probability shine through and remind us that lightning can be bottled if only rarely.

Devin has and still does prove to be a rare talent. But his exploration of insanely heavy music has (so far) apexed right here on ‘City’.

For fans of heavy music or not heavy music. It should be heard just to give you context on what’s possible in heavy music. How extreme it can get while still being melodic and atmospheric.

As an aside listen to ‘Ocean Machine’ as well. It’s slower, more melodic, more atmospheric in a way, and (dare I say) more accessible to the average music fan. The other 1997 Devin Townsend release that cemented it as his banner year. It’s a gorgeous piece of work too (that Devin is probably more connected to today) and should in no way be objectively sidelined by City. It’s just, for me, City checked off all the boxes I needed at that moment.

8. Isis - Panopticon

Wow. An album in my ‘most influential’ that came out after the turn of the millennium (released in 2004). This one came quite unexpectedly (that’s what she said). A slow burner from a band that quite simply got screwed in their choice of name soon after they played their last show (2010 - I was there).

This album was unexpected because it came from the opposite end of heavy than all the previous albums in my list would seem to indicate I was heading. It’s heavy - more so in some ways than many of the others but it’s a slow burner. I remember reading a review on it (years afterwards) that summed up the sound, energy, atmosphere, and subject matter in one word almost too well - ‘monolithic’. ‘Panopticon’ by ISIS is just that.

Their fourth proper release ‘Panopticon’ came on the heels of ISIS’ watershed album ‘Oceanic’ released in 2002. They had been building momentum in the underground scene for several years and had garnered glowing reviews for ‘Oceanic’ with many reviewer extolling that this would be their peak because there was little chance this Boston quintet would be able to top themselves. Well they did - and not by making a tight creative turn and going off in a new direction but by simply doubling down on what they did really well.

What ISIS did really well was using slow building dynamics and long song structures to get from ethereal lightness to mountain crushing heaviness without being jarring or even that surprising when listened to. Near acoustic single guitar notes to a triple guitar on full distortion chords in the space of three to four minutes. Seems weird but it works. And it worked on me - with an astounding impact.

This is emotional music and I remember some quiet weekend evenings (back in my more alcohol soaked university years and early working career) sitting on my computer with early iTunes in front of me, vodka cranberry in hand, listening to the sorrowful tones of ‘So Did We’, ‘Backlit’, and ‘In Fiction’ (the first three of only seven tracks on this LP). Those three songs would have a combined running time of almost twenty-five minutes alone… I remember that if I was down and drinking this album would hit like fresh romantic rejection. Probably not my smartest move (almost none of my choices made with the assistance of Mr. Smirnoff or Sir Absolut were particularly bright).

But I should not detract from how beautiful this record was and is and it launched me headfirst into the world of ‘post-metal’, ‘post-rock’, and ‘shoe gaze’. As a result of listening to this record I would travel to Boston for the first time to see ISIS play a tenth anniversary show on their home soil. I would almost obsessively listen and collect their studio release catalogue. I would be introduced to many bands that I still listen to quite regularly today: Neurosis, Cult Of Luna, Red Sparowes, Russian Circles to name a few. It softened my ear and opened my mind to how slow tempo did not equate to ‘not heavy’ - quite the opposite. Without exaggerating ‘Panopticon’ was almost weekly listen (front to back) for the better part of 5 years. I had burned copies of it on CD so I could listen to it while commuting to and from some of my more far-flung audit clients without interruption.

Music should not only be about astounding the listener with technical prowess (there is tons on display on ‘Panopticon’ but not in the traditional sense), speed, ‘dance-ability’, or imagery (lyrical or otherwise). It should have atmosphere and it should convey the emotions of the composer(s). ‘Panopticon’ does that with devastating effect.

I can not recommend this record highly enough. It’s is triumphant even if it drags you though cavernous, emotional depths before you see the peak of the mount. Dim the lights, sit back, get some really good headphones, and soak this in. You will find new corners over multiple listens.

This was a huge influence in the expansion of my tastes in the last fifteen or so years and while there are many, many gorgeous albums in this genre none will hit quite as hard as ‘Panopticon’ did for me - you never forget your first.

9. Amon Amarth - The Avenger

Back to “bands I heard for the first time due to a metal zines compilation CD”. Amon Amarth was featured on ‘Brave Words & Bloody Knuckles’ compilation CD ‘Knuckletracks XVI’ which was bundled in with one of the 1999 issues of the magazine. This particular compilation gave me my first non-music video introduction to Cannibal Corpse and my introductions to other bands like Satyricon and Control Denied amongst others. But the Amon Amarth track ‘North Sea Storm’ really stuck out for me.

I still was not too into death and black metal at this stage in my listening career but the Europeans - especially the Swedes - had pricked my ear. The vocals were more high-pitched fry screams rather than guttural growls (like Chris Barnes era Cannibal Corpse notably). There were melody lines and the guitars didn’t sound like backup basses to my ears. Not that that was what was happening in American death metal but at this early point as an extreme metal listener it was what it sounded like to me. The European flavour was more ‘guitar-driven’ if that makes sense.

I had heard the sound first is a sparsely played track on Much Music called ‘Roswell 47’ by Hypocrisy. The melody lines in that track a heavy and brutal sure but they’re also ethereal and even a bit melancholy.

‘North Sea Storm’ sounded like that to me. I mean it’s Amon Amarth and despite the Tolkienian name every song is about Vikings and Norse culture. So while the song is heavy and fast it also sounds sad or, more accurately, somewhat sorrowful. Which fits! The song (lyrically) is about dying in a fierce battle on the seas off the coast of Scandinavia. So a bit of sorrow adds dimension and depth to the song.

It piqued me enough to try the rest of the record and, while short, as the old adage goes: ‘all killer, no filler’. Opening with ‘Bleed For Ancient Gods’ Amon Amarth wastes no time in getting to the point. Here to rip. Couple of quick measures on the snare drum and then right to full Viking assault. Sets the tone for sure. But like I mentioned earlier while the whole album is heavy and there’s double kick all over the place Amon Amarth still writes killer guitar riffs with sorrowful melodies.

This album made me go back to bands like Hypocrisy, got me into the Swedish sound more fully with acts like In Flames, Dark Tranquility (if only briefly), and even a bit of Soilwork. It informed me that blistering heaviness coupled with speed could also emote beyond raw aggression. This was one of those critical steps in understanding extreme music and the musicians writing it.

It will never be considered Amon Amarth’s biggest album nor their watershed moment but it was a watershed moment for me.

10. Radiohead - OK Computer

Clichè. I know. This falls very much into the “no shit Sherlock” end of the pool with albums like Nirvana’s ‘Nevermind’ or even Nine Inch Nails’s ‘The Downward Spiral’ over the “Who?” end of Isis, Strapping Young Lad, or even Fear Factory. And on top of it being a cliché act this is absolutely the cliché album. The watershed for the band. A watershed in alternative and rock in fact.

And it was a risk. A large departure from their Brit Alt Rock beginnings. More ethereal. More acoustic. Dare I say way weirder than the first two albums. And at first? Didn’t care for it.

I had first heard Radiohead off their debut album ‘Pablo Honey’ with another #whiteguy classic ‘Creep’ (in my defence I first heard this track when I was 12). ‘Creep’ and ‘Pablo Honey’ in general was a different beast. My ear liked Creep because it was (for all intents and purposes at least to my ears) a grunge song. Melodramatic lyrics and a crunchy, heavy riff in the chorus. Perfect for a pre-teen turning teenager (hormones are a hell of a thing). I picked it up and would argue I liked their follow up sophomore effort ‘The Bends’ even more.

But when ‘OK Computer’ first dropped in 1997 it was my sister who first embraced the album with me, actually, deliberately avoiding it (RADIOHEAD SOLD OUT - 15yr old me trying to understand acoustic guitars). Now we are going back 25 years at this point but I think it took me at least a year to gain the musical (and emotional) maturity to open up to the lead single of the album ‘Paranoid Android’. Remember two sentences ago when I quoted my own inner monologue? “RADIOHEAD SOLD OUT”??? Remember that malarkey? Two sentences ago? Yeah. Me too. And embarrassingly stupid dismissal indeed. Sitting at well over six minutes in playtime and jumping quite a distance between schools of rock ‘Paranoid Android’ fell well outside of the three to four minute standard fare of rock radio in those days (or even these days). It dared and it took me at least a full lap of our orbit around the sun to see it.

The rest of the album is no less daring. There are dark pieces like ‘Exit Music For A Film’ which Is almost a dirge. There are airy pieces like ‘The Tourist’. There are full-on oddball pieces like ‘Fitter Happier’ where all the vocals are performed through a filter that sounds like if not actually is a Speech Plus Call/Text (the same kind of machine Stephen King used to communicate through). All in all nothing about ‘OK Computer’ was especially ‘radio-friendly’ when it came out. It was different. It marked a change in direction for the band and catapulted them into the annals of rock music history.

For my part it changed my appreciation for quiet music. It opened me up to weird songs with weird structures (for its genre) and weird instrumentation. This album isn’t heavy but it is dark. Very dark. Some of the lyrics would not be amiss in a metal song. I learned a lot with this one and my musical horizon was richer and more inclusive afterwards.

There is a reason this gets listed near the top of the “most important albums in rock history”. An absolute landmark that changed musicians and listeners. Not to be missed.