This album has a great start and it reaches similarly impressive heights a few times. It's not the most cohesive as an LP but it's pretty enjoyable throughout.

This is an extraordinary album. It's heavy, for sure, devastatingly so, and unsettling, like trying to focus your eyes on the churning sea that inspires the concept. Still, and I can't explain it, the lingering feeling is of having been disoriented and then reoriented, torn apart and then healed. Doom metal's never quite achieved so much for me.

I saw Hamferð supporting Solstafir recently but would love to see a headline show.

This is one of those that probably comes down to sentiment, but it still sounds to me like the closest thing to perfection the Foos ever made. My 15-y.o. self sure as hell thought it was flawless upon release!

Ahead of its time, arguably - some really interesting writing, impactful and moody - with a couple of dialled-in duds like Isn't It Strange. It's a pity it was so coolly received and ended up as their last album.

Arresting and consoling when I first heard this a few years ago, it today draws wonder from me as well as affection. To me it's a genuine masterpiece, pretty much faultless: the songwriting of the originals, the gentle wit and reverence of the arrangements of old favourites, and that voice, glowing with the delicate sureness of starlight. There's also a magical flow to the album. I barely notice the transitions from an old favourite to an original or vice versa, even when he turns his ... read more

Metalcore isn't my usual go-to - it can be in turns a bit clinical or a bit flabby. But this is an almost perfect expression of the genre: taut, bludgeoning in its precision, but still 'alive' enough to feel tortured and visceral.

This one's an old friend. Some absolutely transcendent moments in this punctuated by dancehall gems. Takes me right back to Danny's record shop at the top of Dudley High Street, c. 1998!

Bracing, unsettling, and emotionally rich.

EDIT: 90 -> 93 - this album is too long to put on frequently, but each time I do it grows in beauty and gravitas.

Still sounds remarkably fresh, aggressive, witty. Relentlessly energetic, overflowing with ideas yet entirely cohesive. Brilliant really.

Stands out from the emo/screamo crowd for its combination of perfect hook-craft and a lead vocal that nowhere loses intensity between whisper and scream. Between them the songs and production impart just the right amount (lots) of artifice and theatre, and as with the best fairy tales the leaping shadows, sprites and frights are at once ridiculous and recognisable even in the 'burbs.

This might not be as intense as Surtur Rising etc., but I enjoyed this from start to finish - especially when the unmistakeable voice of Biff Byford arrives to defy the Vikings from a, yes, Saxon perspective. It all floated my boat as a metalhead and a very amateur medieval history nerd.

The gold standard in fully committed, unironic, virtuoso heavy-end prog rock. DT recorded some extraordinary stuff since but I don't think anything quite beats this.

Tepid and forced compared to the best of its emo peers.

It's not surprising that after the Black Album, and the long wait that followed, Load further alienated Metallica's erstwhile thrash metal base. But, on the principle that music should be judged for what it is, not what it isn't, Load is not a bad album. It's elemental hard rock, with the whiff of diesel, filth and bourbon in the air: hence the lavish virtuosity of earlier albums yields in particular to Hetfield's impressive, nasty vocals. Comparisons with earlier Metallica albums aren't likely ... read more

First CD I ever bought aged 13, and few since have bettered it. Punchy arrangements, legendary performances, 40 mins of pure fun.