i LOVE this album. i know it's a little more polarizing than a universally beloved release like master of puppets or slayer's reign in blood, but i genuinely prefer it to ride the lightning and kill 'em all (on most days, at least--sometimes kill 'em all slips past ...ajfa in the rankings because i <3 it so much). that's mostly because of shit i don't really have a problem with, like the production job and progressive musical direction. first of all, i get why the mixing bothers people...i ... read more

edit (4/11/23): ligma

edit (2/21/23): bumpin this from a 95 to a 96 just cuz i gotta. the stretch from horsemen to jump in the fire is one of the greatest 3 song stretches on any metal album of all time, seriously. those are some of my favorite songs the band ever wrote, PLUS hit the lights which is a banger, PLUS whiplash and no remorse and...and i got so much fuckin' NOSTALGIA for seek and destroy...yea,

ah yes, the charming and ever-lovable debut of metallica, kill 'em all. a ... read more

to many thrash diehards, ride the lightning is metallica's magnum opus. i can certainly see why: it destroys, plain and simple. as far as their thrash output goes, this is among their most wicked offerings. you have blitzing numbers like fight fire with fire and trapped under ice to thank for that. there are some relatively mid-tempo cuts here to prevent the tracklist from becoming monotonous, which is more of a luxury than a knock on the album. maybe you could argue that kill 'em all is more ... read more

METALLICA. one of the quintessential metal bands. as someone who tries to understand and capture the significance--whether widespread or incredibly niche--of the bands i review, i find it almost intimidating to attempt such a task with metallica. they became the face of metal at large in the 1980's, signalling the apex of extreme metal's boom in popularity. the degree of commercial success they achieved remains unprecedented, having become the most successful metal band in world history and ... read more

edit (6/5/23): sabotage is deceptive...there's always more to it than u think

original review (2/11/23): as a younger man this is where black sabbath kinda lost me. i never disliked sabotage but i never remembered it as equal to albums like vol. 4 or sabbath bloody sabbath, and this was during a time when those albums weren't even in the same STRATOSPHERE as paranoid and master of reality, so i was just wholly uninterested in this thing. looking back, though, im not certain why--im sure ... read more

known for its distinctly proggy flavor, sabbath bloody sabbath is an awesome record from sabbath's classic era. of course i love all of their first six albums so it's hard to compare them to each other, but i digress--on one hand it keeps things simple by sticking to a standard retro metal sound, but it adds so much more complexity with advanced songwriting and fantastic musicianship. seriously, this is some of the best instrumental tune-crafting you'll hear throughout the band's entire ... read more

black sabbath's fourth album is every bit as seminal as their previous three, and i'll tell ya why. it's pretty simple, actually, but sometimes in the context of a massive catalog like sabbath's we get carried away with other things, so it can be easy to forget. really, though, the reason vol. 4 kicks uber-ass is real simple: the songs are just fantastic. a lot of the band's best songs ever are here, y'all, and some of 'em get unjustly overlooked because for whatever reason, vol. 4 just doesn't ... read more

barely a year after they debuted and invented metal, black sabbath casually dropped master of reality and reinvented it. if the title track off their first album was a foreboding warning of things to come and paranoid was their doomy mission statement, master of reality was the realization of all their efforts. it's easily the heaviest record their classic lineup ever recorded together, with tony iommi downtuning his guitar to cultivate a low, rumbling sound--combine that with the thunderous ... read more

okay...NOW we're GETTIN places. black sabbath's debut was an astonishingly developed and trailblazing accomplishment that led to the solidification of heavy metal as we know it, but they might not be as universally revered as rock gods if they hadn't kept pushin...and lord did they push. FUCKIN PARANOID, YALL. just months after the self-titled LP shook shit up, paranoid came to not just rock the boat but tip the whole damn thing over. regardless of what your favorite black sabbath album may be, ... read more

as a metalhead, there are few records i feel more indebted to than this one right here.

black sabbath exist in a peculiar vacuum for me; i struggle to think of metal genres i dislike more than traditional heavy metal, the style which they set the framework for and would play for like a million years, yet they're one of the very few bands of that sound who i actually passionately enjoy (due in no small part to their doom metal inclinations, which i'll get to later). all my favorite work of ... read more