When five unassuming, working-class dudes from Nassau County (Long Island, NY) released their debut full-length in 1991, it initially didn’t seem destined to have the atomic bomb of impact that it would eventually ascertain with the passage of time.

There is influence and under the influence. California’s Autopsy were both.

Dateline: Summer 2000. My former band has just finished our 30-minute spot on the rickety stage at New York City’s CBGB as one of eight opening acts for what is supposed to be grindcore experimentalists Discordance Axis’ last show.

By 1989, John McEntee was growing increasingly disenchanted with his membership in technical thrash band Revenant. With the aid of Revenant drummer Paul Ledney, McEntee set out to pursue his own brand of blackened death metal, christening it Incantation.

From a brief moment in 1986, bassist, songwriter and lyricist Leif Edling, almost by sheer willpower alone, managed to raise the leaden monolith of Candlemass from their murky depths and into an upright position.

Many will cry sacrilege, but we’re gonna say it anyway: …And Justice for All is Metallica’s finest hour.

Rolling from Los Angeles into the parched sandbox of the Mojave, anyone familiar with Welcome to Sky Valley will see almost all the relevant landmarks along the 10 East freeway.

News flash: Thrash metal didn’t begin or end with the release of Testament’s The Legacy, but just because the band’s 1987 debut didn’t defiantly construct genre bookends, it is still very much worthy of entry into Decibel’s hallowed hall.

As far as Hall of Fame inductees go, the making of Black Sabbath’s ninth album, their first with former Rainbow vocalist Ronnie James Dio, easily ranks as one of the most drama-filled.

It’s both Repulsion’s genre-sparking album and the way enlightened metal fans will look at you should you admit ignorance of the fact—which is very well possible, seeing as Repulsion has always been a band that your favorite bands worshipped, but were somehow otherwise criminally unheard of.