Most of metal’s biggest bands have made an outright stinker of an album. Metallica have St Anger, Iron Maiden have Virtual XI, Megadeth have Risk, and so on and so on. This is why it’s so impressive when, somehow, other artists defy the odds and sustain a career of nonstop sonic excellence. Although it’s a herculean feat, names from practically every subgenre and level of popularity you can picture have pulled it off. So, in celebration of the geniuses that stay musically perfect, Hammer’s compiled a top 20 of metal bands who’ve never once let their fans down.
Alexisonfire
Although Alexisonfire’s self-titled debut dragged the burgeoning screamo sound to the Great White North, they didn’t stick to the genre for long. The Ontario rabble have grown increasingly song-orientated over the past 20 years, with later albums becoming paragons of post-hardcore and, in the case of last year’s Otherness, dusty hard rock.
Amenra
Amenra’s 2005 debut, Mass II, built a wall of claustrophobic, blackened hardcore around the wails of frontman Colin H. Van Eeckhout. Since then, the Belgians have continued to emphasise their crushingly atmospheric potential, resulting in a collection of five hellish masterpieces. Also, their shows are among the most intense you’ll ever see.
Baroness
After crawling from the swampy backdrop of Savannah, Georgia, Baroness have increasingly added beauty to their sludge metal music. Purple – with its Grammy-nominated single, Shock Me – and the band’s two albums with singer/guitarist Gina Gleason announced louder than ever how well they balance metal’s heaviness with ethereal melody.
Cave In
Cave In emerged from the same metalcore scene as Converge, with their debut album Until Your Heart Stops being an unsung classic of the genre. Since then, the four-piece have smashed convention over their knee, dabbling in everything from radio-friendly post-grunge to expansive, progressive metal. And each of these adventures has yielded incredible results.
Death
Death shaped three genres of metal across their seven albums. Their debut, Scream Bloody Gore, was the first death metal album. Then, 1991’s Human was one of tech-death’s preeminent works, before Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic joined the burgeoning melodic death metal movement. Their brilliance made leader Chuck Schuldiner’s 2001 passing all the more heartbreaking.
The Dillinger Escape Plan
When The Dillinger Escape Plan shockingly split in 2017, guitarist Ben Weinman said they did it because they wanted to go out while they were still on top form. Mission accomplished! The American dynamos left behind six masterclasses in twitching, unpredictable mathcore when they went their separate ways after 20 years.
Emperor / Ihsahn
During a spectacular seven-year run, Emperor unloaded four albums of symphonic black metal sophistication. The band split all too early in 2001, but at least their leader, Ihsahn, has maintained that spotless form with his solo career. Eremita and Das Seelenbrechen especially are standouts in a stacked prog metal oeuvre.
Gojira
Gojira’s 2001 debut, Terra Incognita, introduced the French behemoth as a fusion of Machine Head grooves with Morbid Angel’s technical precision. Their following 2000s material added richer, progressive textures on top of that foundation, then 2016’s Magma started them down a more accessible path. At the end of it was well deserved arena status.
Isis
Most bands, even those with flawless discographies, have albums their fans broadly agree upon as standouts. However, there’s still no consensus on which of Isis’ five releases is the best. Whether it’s the post-metal classic Oceanic, progressive followup Panopticon or the intricately melodic swan song Wavering Radiant, everything makes a strong case for supremacy.
Katatonia
The saddest sons of the Stockholm scene, Katatonia began as a blackened, doomy option for death metal aficionados. Then, in 1998, singer Jonas Renkse was struggling to scream, so he charted the band down a goth rock route. Their music is still as morose 25 years on, albeit with extra prog on top.
Leprous
Leprous’ first two albums were showcases of elaborate yet exciting progressive metal. Later, from 2013’s Coal, the Norwegians switched to a more song-orientated standpoint, leading to infectious offerings like From The Flame and The Price. 10 years on, the band are still slinging out a series of impressively distinct anthems.
Mastodon
After Mastodon’s debut album, Remission, bludgeoned with an armada of ferocious riffs, the Atlantan band gradually grew more progressive. That direction peaked with the conceptual and psychedelic Crack The Skye, with followup The Hunter trimming their songs back to tightly wrought arena-metal. Every evolution has, impressively, been met with a rapturous response.
Rage Against The Machine
Rage Against The Machine only released a trilogy of albums, but it remains one of the most hallowed trinities in metal. Their self-titled debut both shaped nu metal and spawned the career-defining hit Killing In The Name. Then, its two followups continued the band’s incensed, rap-driven tirades against injustice.
Russian Circles
Since 2006, Russian Circles have perfected a formula for top-shelf post-metal. Despite the band only having three members, they use pedals to patiently build immense walls of sound. The result has been eight increasingly heavy albums – not to mention some of the most cacophonously loud gigs you’ll ever attend.
Soundgarden
Soundgarden’s Superunknown is rightfully celebrated as one of the best alt-metal albums ever, but there’s much more to their back-catalogue. From the raw noise of Ultramega OK to the refined yet bluesy riffing of finale King Animal, any dive into Chris Cornell and company’s history is guaranteed to be a good time.
Strapping Young Lad
Devin Townsend’s fury over how cynically L.A. bigwigs treat music inspired the raw fury of Strapping Young Lad. Between 1995 and 2006, Strapping released five albums of untempered, industrial-tinged wildness. It was a pentalogy so good that fans still clamour for the band’s reunion almost two decades on.
Sylosis
In 2008, metalcore was the dominant force in UK metal, and Sylosis’ debut stood against the trend. Conclusion Of An Age’s emphasis on standard tuning and zero breakdowns was refreshing to many, as was its more experimental successor Edge Of The Earth. Nowadays the band are tightening their songwriting, making death metal bangers like Deadwood.
System Of A Down
System Of A Down are frequently lumped into “nu metal”, but that descriptor undersells their vision. The Armenian-Americans’ five albums are all erratic displays, yet each of them also contains a plethora of well-honed songs. Chop Suey!, Spiders, Hypnotize – you can’t argue with so many hits from so few releases.
Tesseract
Tesseract’s debut, One, instantly announced the Brits as one of the freshest voices in prog. Acle Kahney’s contrast of muscular djent riffs against ambient, post-rock guitar leads made the band a fast standout. They’ve since remained relevant thanks to a diverse body of work, from the atmospheric Altered State to the razor-sharp Sonder.
Tool
Initially, with debut album Undertow, Tool introduced themselves as part of the nascent alt-metal sound. However, later albums demonstrated the true extent of their ambitions. The Californians’ music only escalated in scope and complexity, to the point that 2019’s Fear Inoculum was worth the 13-year wait. (But never take that long again, please.)
