Quicksand – “Slip”
June 18, 2007 Andrew Bonazelli
Quicksand are as easy to classify as any band in our ever-expanding Hall of Fame: The New York quartet was post-hardcore in every sense of the term.
Obituary – “Cause of Death”
May 1, 2007 Decibel Magazine
Death metal had never sounded so guttural and primal before Obituary’s 1989 debut, Slowly We Rot, infected record stores.
Cryptic Slaughter – “Money Talks”
April 18, 2007 Anthony Bartkewicz
The word “metalcore” is so ingrained in modern extreme music, it seems unimaginable that there was a time when metal and hardcore were completely separate worlds.
Darkthrone – “A Blaze in the Northern Sky”
March 18, 2007 Decibel Magazine
When Darkthrone’s monumental epic, A Blaze in the Northern Sky, hit the shelves in 1991, it was an album of hesitant firsts: the first Norwegian black metal album (Mayhem’s Live in Leipzig came out earlier but with faulty distribution); the first major second-wave black metal album, globally (Czech group Master’s Hammer had released Ritual a year prior, but with less impact); the first truly blackened death metal album; and the first to chime DM’s death knell in popularity.
Celtic Frost – “Morbid Tales”
February 18, 2007 J. Bennett
Of all the classic albums thus far inducted into Decibel’s Hall of Fame, none has had a greater influence on the death metal and black metal that succeeded it than Celtic Frost’s Morbid Tales.
ONLY Living Witness – “Prone Mortal Form”
January 1, 2007 J. Bennett
They were the best band you never heard of. Unless you lived in the greater Boston area between 1989 and 1995, worked at Century Media, or happened to catch them on your local college radio station (or on their 1993 European tour with the Cro-Mags), Only Living Witness were virtual unknowns.
The Dillinger Escape Plan – “Calculating Infinity”
December 18, 2006 Kevin Stewart-Panko
This one’s a no-brainer. Regardless of what you think about Calculating Infinity, you can’t deny that the 11 tracks on this album revolutionized extreme music and raised the bar in terms of technicality, musicianship, speed, dynamics–even visual presentation, album photography, and design.
Meshuggah – “Destroy Erase Improve”
November 18, 2006 Kevin Stewart-Panko
Everyone remembers that one episode of The Osbournes some five years back where Ozzy’s ungrateful male sprog took it upon himself to use Meshuggah’s Destroy Erase Improve as a thrust and parry in the suburban war against his Beverly Hills neighbors.
Monster Magnet – Dopes to Infinity
October 18, 2006 J. Bennett
After Nirvana’s Nevermind tore the “alternative rock market” a seven-figure asshole, every major label with easy access to a couple of guitar-wielding longhairs was vying to shove its swollen corporate phallus into the proverbial money-ring of brown fire.
Rollins Band – “The End of Silence”
September 18, 2006 Albert Mudrian
It was October 1991 and Andy Wallace was getting richer by the day. The veteran producer/engineer was reaping the financial rewards of mastering Nirvana’s recently released (and completely unexpected) commercial juggernaut Nevermind.