30 metal albums turning 30 in 2025

Tad Doyle and company were moved from Giant Records to EastWest (both under the Warner Bros label) for their second and final major label release. Infrared Riding Hood saw the group playing a little more with melody (but still heavy). The group released a final live album, also in 1995, but called it quits not long after.

Stomp 442 is not a bad album, but how could Anthrax follow up the perfection of Sound of White Noise? Stomp 442 starts a downward slide for the band, as it was their last before being unceremoniously dropped from Elektra and kicked off several years of label changes, personal changes, and all-too-public drama. All the same, the songwriting is tight and the album features some memorable solos from Dimebag Darrell.

Faith No More were always a little too heavy for alt rock, and a little too weird for true metal heads. Coming off of their magnum opus, 1992's Angel Dust, they released King For a Day, Fool For a Lifetime with newly (and briefly) installed guitarist Trey Spruance from Mr.s Bungle. Gone were the layers and layers of soundscapes and what remained was a more stripped down (and largely heavier) sound. While it was seen as a disappointment in the year of its release, time has vindicated the record, with the band playing the album in its entirety in 2011 in a reunion with Spruance. To date, this is the only time Faith No More have played a complete album in a live setting.

After a failed attempt at retirement, Ozzy returned with Ozzmosis. In addition to rescuing Zakk Wylde from his swamp rock leanings, Ozzy enlisted Geezer Butler (Black Sabbath), Deen Castronovo (Journey), and Rick Wakeman (Yes). While almost no one would call this album "great', it did give Ozzy an excuse to tour, and that's really what it's all about.

Speaking of Geezer Butler, in 1995 he unleashed the debut album from his project GZR (or G//Z/R), entited Plastic Planet. Butler wrote all the music and all the lyrics... but didn't match them up. He left that up to newly enlisted vocalist Burton C. Bell (Fear Factory). The lyrics are occasionally silly (anything is silly under a powerful enough microscope), but the music is very heavy, and Plastic Planet is a hidden gem.

1995's Black shows former Runaway Lita Ford attempting to move away from hair metal, and starting to explore blues and grunge sounds. She assembled a band to include Larry Dennison (Dio) and Steve Reid (Supertramp), and enlisted the singers from Flogging Molly, Yngwie Malmsteen and Nitro (her then-husband) to sing back up. The album wasn't well received, and it would be 14 years before she released another album.

Former Slayer drummer Dave Lombardo formed Grip Inc. in 1993, and enlisted Waldemar Sorychta (Despair, Voodoocult), Jason VieBrooks (Heathen, Die Krupps) and Gus Chambers to fill out the lineup. The band released their debut, Power of Inner Strength, to mixed reception by critics, with some saying that they sounded too much Slayer, and others saying they didn't sound enough like Slayer. Whichever way you lean, there's plenty of crushing drums and riffs to explore.

Paradoxically, Skid Row both benefited and were hamstrung by their timing. Exploding onto the scene in the late '80s, they were able to make it big while hair metal was riding high. They went heavier, and punkier, but it was too late for them; they were already guilty by association. It's a shame, because on Subhuman Race they managed to bring in more punk and groove metal influences, even as the band fell apart. Critics were favorable, but the public at large were not.

After the career high of Cuatro, Flotsam and Jetsam floundered to sell a follow up. Drift shows the band exploring elements of industrial, alt metal, and groove metal, but pop culture had moved on from metal at large. It's a great album, but lack of sales caused MCA to drop the band. Flotsam and Jetsam have languished in obscurity for decades since, never giving up. It should be noted that they've quietly been releasing great thrash metal albums for the last fifteen years or so. Don't sleep on them.

1993's Fear Is the Mindkiller remix EP chose the path for Fear Factory going forward. Suddenly the band was a lot less death metal, and a lot more industrial, with more machine rhythms and songs about the machines taking over. Basically, they became Terminator: The Band. It's not necessarily a bad thing. With Demanufacture, instead of death metal growls, Burton C. Bell alternated his clean singing with hardcore-style shouts. 

Following Bruce Dickinson's departure to pursue a solo career, Iron Maiden enlisted Blaze Bayley from Wolfsbane to fill Dickinson's shoes. While The X Factor was their tenth consecutive top-10 album in the UK, it fell off the charts inside of four weeks. Reviews were unkind, but the album has undergone a bit of a critical reappraisal in recent years, stating that this album paved the way for what Maiden would be in the future.

Death's Symbolic is universally beloved in the technical death metal genre. With guitarist Bobby Koelble (Azrael), bassist Kelly Conlon (Monstrosity), and drummer Gene Hoglan (Testament, Fear Factory), leader Chuck Schuldiner recorded an album incorporating death metal with melody, and crafting something that was both brutal and accessible. Symbolic set the template for many bands to copy for years to come.

Having just broken through a few years earlier (thanks, Beavis & Butthead), and touring endlessly as a result, White Zombie released their final album Astro-Creep: 2000. A little less groove metal than La Sexorcisto and a little more industrial, the album was a smash hit that paved the way for Rob Zombie's solo career. It's too bad the band can't reconcile, but it's a hell of an album to end on.

Devin Townsend recorded Strapping Young Lad's debut in about a week, doing of of the instrumentation himself, with the help of future bandmate Jed Simon. Townsend has been uncomplimentary toward the album, seeming to talk trash about it at every turn. Despite his feelings, one can't deny that the album left its mark. Oh, and the title is pretty funny.

What if Black Sabbath were from the American South? You'd find the answer in NOLA, Down's first and best album. A supergroup featuring members of Pantera, Corrosion of Conformity, and Crowbar, the end result is heavy, doom-y, and swampy. In 2001, the band went from occasional distraction to full ongoing real band.

When New York's Life of Agony released their sophomore album, Ugly, fans were befuddled. Gone were the NYC hardcore-style gang shout vocals, replaced with more melodies, acoustic guitars, and synths... but the heavy riffing remained. Ugly was a complex and challenging record that rewarded the band's true fans while brushing off the fair-weather ones.

Gwar's 1995 offering, Ragnarok, is often seen as a mediocre effort after the success (and controversy) of their first three albums. That being said, this album shows the band exploring a lot of musical territory not seen before from them. Gwar use a lot of keyboards, surf guitar, and various different vocal stylings from multiple members of the group, which they hadn't done prior. While most of these songs have been forgotten as they aren't played live, there are some interesting bits here to check out.

I think that if people could have seen what the Deftones would become, a bigger label than Maverick would have scooped them up for their debut, Adrenaline. Ostensibly a nu metal band following in Korn's footsteps, Adrenaline is the sound of a young band mixing metal, punk, and post-punk and showing the promise of what the band would grow into after getting past their growing pains.

Rob Halford's post-Judas Priest group, Fight, released their second (and final) album A Small Deadly Space in April of 1995. Haflord was continuing to explore the groove metal sound popularized by Pantera and the resulting album was well received by fans and critics alike. Fight would split soon after, and Halford would explore industrial and trad metal sounds before ultimately returning to Judas Priest.

On Monster Magnet's third album, Dopes To Infinity, the band were well on their way to perfecting their stoner-meets-space rock sound. "Negasonic Teenage Warhead" was the band's first successful single. Subsequent singles from the album failed to make an impact, so the band would have to wait for their next album to make it big.

This Swedish extreme metal band's second album is often used as a template for djent, a sub-genre of progressiedwqdvcdv                                    ve metal. Destroy Erase Improve is the first release from the band that is an example of the Meshuggah sound, and is universally regarded as a high water mark for metal as a whole.``

After UFO's second reunion, they released their fourteenth album, Walk On Water. Even though the resulting tour flamed out after only four performances (walking off stage in mid-performance), the album was generally well received. Walk On Water illustrates what the band is best known for; driving rhythms and guitar pyrotechnics.

This is a bit of a cheat since it's a remix/compilation album, but for those of us in the United States in the pre-internet era, this was our first exposure to the band. Die Krupps had been flirting with heavy guitars, and even released A Tribute To Metallica, but Rings of Steel gathered all their best material remixed by members of KMFDM, Nine Inch Nails, Faith No More, Carcass, Biohazard and others. 222 

When Deicide isn't busy angering Christians, provoking animal rights activists, inspiring Europeans to bomb their concerts, and burning upside-down crosses into their foreheads, they occasionally make music. While their first two albums are the second- and third-best selling death metal albums in history, respectively, Once Upon the Cross didn't sell quite so well. Even so, the album is a slow., pummeling journey that was largely loved by critics.

Orange County's Fu Manchu are the end result of fusing skate-punk with '70s heavy music worship. They may have been "retro", but they were also ahead of the curve. The sound they were cultivating on Daredevil would be in vogue in a few short years when stoner rock became all the rage... or, as much of a "rage" as it could be.

Before the reality TV shows and the plastic surgery, Sugar Ray were a rock band. Starting with hardcore in the pre-record deal years, by the time they signed with Atlantic, they were nu metal. There's a certain charm in the primitiveness of Lemonade and Brownies, certainly more interesting than their pop-music phase, and absolutely more listenable than their current yacht rock incarnation.

British gothic metal band Paradise Lost released their landmark album, Draconian Times, to wide acclaim. With their Metallica-meets-Sisters of Mercy approach, the record was an oppressive mix of goth and metal that was the perfect distillation of their morbid lyrics. While the album didn't do much in the United States, it charted in nine European countries, often in the top 20. 

Cathedral's third album was their tightest and most focused to date when it was released in 1995. After attempting to make the leap to major label Columbia, the band returned to Earache with The Carnival Bizarre. They experimented with faster rhythms and '70s rock idolatry instead of just staying in their doom metal lane, and a boost with some guitar from Tony Iommi didn't hurt, either.

With their fourth album, Morbid Angel's Domination would be their last for Warner Bros. imprint Giant Records. The album is controversial among fans as it is slower, more melodic, and more atmospheric (with keyboards!) than prior albums. Even so, critics were favorable on the release.

Burnt Offerings is often considered Iced Earth's heaviest and darkest album. Fueled by frustrations with the music industry and complemented with lyrics about Dante's Inferno and Bram Stoker's Dracula, the album is a fan favorite.