Heavy Metal Superfan Blog

(Above: Violator, #32 on the list.)

We're heading into the home stretch here, folks. Today, I present the first half of the Top 40 metal albums of the 2000s. Let's go!

40. Sunn O))), Monoliths & Dimensions - Sunn O))), whose earth-shaking downtuned riffs and gallons of dry ice make for one hell of a live experience, have only intermittently managed to convey the power of their vision on disc, mostly because of the volume limits on your average home stereo. But with this album, they radically expanded their instrumentation and compositional strategies to include choirs, horns, and more - in the process making an undeniable work of art with its roots in metal but its peaks extending much farther.

39. Behemoth, Evangelion - Behemoth has continued to evolve its blast-furnace take on death metal throughout the 2000s, and their most recent disc, released this year, is their best to date. Lyrically impressive and utterly ferocious on the musical front, it's an extended disquisition on the awesomeness of Satan, with stinging guitar leads and machine-gun drumming that'll pin you right to your chair.

38. Mayhem, Grand Declaration of War - Lots of black metal purists didn't know what to make of this album when it appeared in 2000. One of the genre's flagship bands had reappeared after years out of the studio, and what did they offer? Militaristic tempos, industrial-style vocal effects, whispered poetry, programmed electronic drums...this is a weird, ambitious album that proves Mayhem could get much smarter and weirder than they're sometimes credited with being.

37. Evile, Infected Nations - This UK retro thrash outfit were good but not great on their debut album. But this follow-up jumped them to near the front of the pack, as the songs got better, the performances improved dramatically. They're still cranking out 80s-style riffs, but they've got a modern sheen and the talent to potentially reshape metal in their image in the future.

36. Slipknot, Iowa - Slipknot's 1999 self-titled album exploded into the nü-metal scene like a fragmentation grenade; its first six tracks come at you fast, hard and low to the ground like a pack of feral dogs, tearing your guts out before you can even blink. On this disc, they decided to radically up the death metal content of their music, making this probably the only multi-platinum album to ever feature blast beats.

35. Rammstein, Mutter - A lot of people, even people who did well in high school German, don't get this band's sense of humor. Which is why this album is probably the perfect introduction to their music. It doesn't contain their sole U.S. hit "Du Hast," but it does feature tons of crushing riffs and an emotionalism that's easy to feel, even through a language barrier.

34. Napalm Death, Smear Campaign - Napalm Death is a lot like Motörhead; a bunch of lineup changes leading to a modern-day version that's the best one, plus they drop an album every couple of years that's never less than solid and sometimes great. This is one of the great ones - the songs are just a touch more furious and revved-up than on the albums before or after.

33. Machine Head, The Blackening - Machine Head spent a while in the wilderness, artistically speaking. After two brilliant records, they wallowed in nü-metal hell for two discs, then started to come back with the underrated Through the Ashes of Empires. This disc, their latest, is absolutely monstrous, a mix of epic power (two of its songs pass the 10-minute mark, and two others get close) and instrumental prowess. It may not grab you right away; there are no singles or real singalongs here. But after a few listens its impact becomes undeniable.

32. Violator, Chemical Assault - A retro-thrash band from Brazil who more than make up for a lack of artistic originality with blinding speed and total commitment. This album is just plain fun.

31. Disfear, Live the Storm - These Swedes blend D-beat hardcore with Motörhead-like biker-thrash and come up with an album like a steamroller speeding downhill, crushing everything in its path and leaving weeping victims behind. Hard to describe in terms of music; it's a visceral thing that's got to be experienced firsthand.

30. Slayer, Christ Illusion - The return of Dave Lombardo to the drum throne gave Slayer a burst of creative energy that few had expected after the comparatively slack God Hates Us All. They proved they could still be shocking with the suicide-bomber lyrics (and dissonant guitars) of "Jihad," and wound up winning a goddamn Grammy for "Eyes of the Insane." But awards from the industry mean nothing if real metal fans don't like the music, and I love this album.

29. System of a Down, Toxicity - They've been broken up for long enough, and their last three releases, the Mezmerize/Hypnotize duo in particular, sucked hard enough that their legacy's been forgotten or poisoned for many people, but this album was and is a terrific slab of art-metal that mixes profundity and nonsense, political rants and indecipherable jibber-jabber, and off-time riffs that'll make you want to bounce into the pit on a pogo stick. Plus "Aerials," which is really pretty beautiful.

28. Immortal, Sons of Northern Darkness - I don't remember this being announced as a farewell album at the time of its release; it was just the latest and greatest iteration of Immortal's epic black metal sound. And now that they're back, you can take it as just that. Frosty riffs, Popeye-like vocal croaks, hammering drums - everything Immortal ever did well is done best here.

27. The Black Dahlia Murder, Unhallowed - These Detroit boys mix Swedish melodic death metal with more technical riffing, plus they've got the terrific vocals of Trevor Strnad on their side. The first time you heard this band, you thought they had two singers, didn't you? Yeah, me too. His ability to switch, line by line, from a high-pitched black metal shriek to a guttural death metal growl will almost certainly ensure that he sounds like Miles Davis when he talks by age 35, but on this astonishing debut he was one of the most exciting new voices in extreme music.

26. Gojira, From Mars to Sirius - French metal? Haw haw haw. Yeah, except these guys are fantastic. Their combination of Meshuggah's technical precision and Tool's progressive wanderings, plus Joe Duplantier's unique guitar style, made this album one of 2005's must-hears, and while the environmental message of their lyrics isn't subtle, it is worth paying attention to - and welcome, in a too-frequently anti-intellectual genre.

25. Cryptopsy, Once Was Not - Canadian tech-death heroes Cryptopsy have had a lot of membership problems over the years. Their original lead vocalist, Lord Worm, returned for this album after several years away, but guitarist Jon Levasseur was absent. Still, it's a fierce, intricate, punishing album, with Flo Mounier's drums pushed way up in the mix and riffs flying at you from every direction at once. Like seemingly every Cryptopsy album, it's divisive. But I love it.

24. Cannibal Corpse, Kill - Cannibal Corpse were hugely important to the development of death metal as a music and an overall aesthetic. Their splatter lyrics and brutal riffing inspired hundreds of shittier bands. But by the mid-2000s, they hadn't released a genuinely essential album in quite a few years. Enter Erik Rutan, whose albums with his own band, Hate Eternal, leave me cold (note H.E.'s total absence from this list) but whose work as a producer is undeniable. He jacked the Corpse's energy level up several notches and squeezed out of them their best album since the mid '90s.

23. The Gates of Slumber, Conqueror - An Indianapolis-based band that works the biker-doom thing as well as any band not featuring Scott "Wino" Weinrich ever has, this disc has riffs for days and songs about heroism, war and butchery. It's pure metal. If you don't like it, you don't really like metal.

22. Converge, Axe to Fall - I think I've talked about this disc a fair bit already. Converge's noisy brand of hardcore is at full strength, but they also delve into lots of interesting experiments, with some guests from bands like Neurosis, Genghis Tron and Cave In along for the ride.

21. Pantera, Reinventing the Steel - A lot of people think Pantera peaked artistically with Far Beyond Driven. Me, I've only ever really liked a few songs on that album. "Becoming" is an immortal metal classic, but too much of the rest is noisy for the sake of being noisy. On Reinventing the Steel, Pantera rediscovered classic metal values - big riffs, anthemic choruses, and crowd-pleasing power. The unfortunate events that followed - the breakup, and Dimebag Darrell's murder - may overshadow the actual music on this album for a lot of people, and that's a shame. It's a really good record.

(Above: Spirit Caravan, #57 on the list.)

We're right at the midpoint of my personal list of the 100 best metal albums of the decade, so let's get right to it. Here are #s 60-41!

60. Behemoth, Demigod - Behemoth didn't start out amazing. Their early records were unexciting black/death metal. But with Demigod, they really seemed to come into their own as a unique, genuinely frightening musical experience. This album, which features a full choir on some tracks and a guest guitar solo by Karl Sanders of Nile, represents the flowering of frontman Nergal's artistic vision, and they've been killin' it ever since.

59. Psycroptic, Symbols of Failure - This is the kind of technical death metal album that divides fans. Some (like me) love its insane, inspired complexity, which occasionally sounds quite a bit like chaos; others are driven away for exactly the same reason. Oh, and it's not surprising they're from Tasmania, as the vocalist sounds more like the cartoon Tasmanian Devil than Cookie Monster.

58. Yakuza, Way of the Dead - A genuinely unique band from Chicago who mix crushing death metal, shrieking avant-garde jazz, psychedelic drones and Tibetan chanting. This was their second album, and while they've grown trippier and more organic over time, they've never really topped it.

57. Spirit Caravan, Elusive Truth - Scott "Wino" Weinrich, frontman for Saint Vitus, The Obsessed and The Hidden Hand, made two albums with this power trio that are among the best things in his entire catalog. Brooding biker-rock with acid-fried guitar leads and soulful vocals from Wino, it's like what you'd hear in the middle of a triangle formed by Jimi Hendrix, Black Sabbath and Motörhead.

56. Necrophagist, Epitaph - Turkish multi-instrumentalist Muhammed Suiçmez recorded Necrophagist's first album, Onset of Putrefaction, alone with a drum machine. This one features a real band, but is just as berserk, featuring spiraling, wildly arpeggiated guitar riffs, rhythms that turn on a dime, and squiggly guitar solos in the spirit of Yngwie Malmsteen. It's like a bebop- and modern classical-influenced version of technical death metal.

55. Neuraxis, Trilateral Progression - These French-Canadians play an entirely different type of technical death metal, mixing melody with an ultra-crisp and clean, almost robotic crunch. That's countered by the utter human-ness of then-vocalist Ian Campbell, who jumped around like a crazed ape live, and the lyrics, which are more concerned with philosophy and metaphysics than blood and gore.

54. Kill the Client, Cleptocracy - A ferocious Dallas-based grindcore outfit whose drummer also does time in Phobia and GridLink, KtC's second full-length is dirtier, meaner and uglier than its predecessor or their official debut, the Wage Slave EP. This is a brutally pummeling 23-minute assault.

53. Brain Drill, Apocalyptic Feasting - Brain Drill are almost the DragonForce of technical death metal. Their songs are astonishingly fast, horrifyingly complicated and technically almost impossible for a normal human to play, with ultra-squiggly solos flying in every direction. But while this album may sound like white noise at first, it'll grow on you to the point that some days, nothing else will do.

52. Obscura, Cosmogenesis - Boy, there sure is a lot of technical death metal on this list today, huh? Obscura are a German outfit formed by ex-members of Necrophagist and Pestilence, so you can pretty much figure out what they sound like - wiggly, brain-melting riffs and eight-armed drum patterns, plus sci-fi synths and robot voices a la Cynic's Focus. More melodic than many of the other tech-death acts on this list, and even oddly soothing at times.

51. Anaal Nathrakh, The Codex Necro - There is nothing soothing or relaxing about Anaal Nathrakh. Their music has its roots in black metal, grindcore and industrial, but combines all three of those things into an unholy mechanized roar that's like having your face torn off by a grizzly bear with a belt sander. This is one of the angriest, most sonically overwhelming records ever, and they've never topped it.

50. Coprofago, Unorthodox Creative Criteria - These four Chlieans make astonishingly complex tech-death, more in the spirit of Meshuggah than any of the bands cited earlier on this list, though they toss the occasional jazz breakdown in, just to make sure you're paying attention. And you should be.

49. Decrepit Birth, Diminishing Between Worlds - These Californians are more like a brutal death metal band than a tech-death outfit, but they combine aspects of each subgenre into a unique blend of melody, guttural croaking, blast beats everywhere you turn, and churning, downtuned/detuned guitar riffs. It's a thick slurry of sound that'll leave you feeling soiled.

48. Krisiun, Southern Storm - Krisiun have been around for so long, releasing variations on the same album, that it's easy to take them for granted and not notice when they put out a really good one. This is a really good one - fast as hell, old-school in its approach, and guaranteed to make you want to bang your head until it flies off your neck.

47. Merciless Death, Realm of Terror - Speaking of old-school, MD are one of the wave of "retro thrash" bands that arose toward this decade's end. But unlike Fueled By Fire, Bonded By Blood, Hatchet or any one of a dozen others, these guys weren't nearly as inspired by classic Metallica or Exodus records as they were by the harsh German bands - Sodom, Kreator and Destruction. Their primitive clatter and roar was a breath of semi-fresh air straight from a reopened coffin.

46. The Absence, From Your Grave - The first time you listen to these guys, you won't believe they're not from Sweden. They've got the Scandinavian melodic death metal sound down, but not in a pansy-ass way like In Flames or Dark Tranquillity - The Absence are a musclebound outfit whose work sits comfortably alongside Amon Amarth, Unleashed or At the Gates.

45. Deicide, The Stench of Redemption - This album is great for exactly two reasons: Jack Owen and Ralph Santolla. The two guitarists, from Cannibal Corpse and Death respectively, replaced the Hoffman brothers, whose whammy bar abuse had ruined many otherwise decent death metal songs. Owen and Santolla brought a new sense of melody to Deicide, which contrasted perfectly with frontman Glen Benton's Satanic rantings.

44. Dimmu Borgir, Death Cult Armageddon - This band made black metal arena-sized in scope, if not in actual material success (the biggest they got was midway down the main stage bill at Ozzfest). This album featured a full orchestra and choir, and songs that went beyond epic into straight-up pomposity. Hilarious in a way, but also quite impressive.

43. Lair of the Minotaur, The Ultimate Destroyer - This Chicago-based terror squad base their lyrics on ancient mythology and tales of war, but they're no Manowar. They back up their tales of combat and monsters with some of the most crushing, punk-thrash riffs you'll ever hear. They kinda tipped over the brink into cheesiness with their last album, War Metal Battle Master, but this one is perfect.

42. Demiricious, Two (Poverty) - These guys occasionally drop a Slayer riff so obvious it's amazing they haven't gotten a cease and desist letter in the mail, but most of the time, their redneck thrash is all their own, a sound like truck tires spinning in soupy mud while two drunks have a chainsaw fight by the roadside. This is a dirty, mean album that'll make you glad to be alive.

41. Khanate, Things Viral - Khanate, on the other hand, will make you sorry you were ever born. The four marathons of pain that make up their second full-length are long, slow and offer as many moments of silence as they do clanging, discordant guitar riffs. Meanwhile, the vocalist shrieks like a witch burning at the stake - his voice is one of the most goosebump-raising, queasiness-inspiring sounds in all of music. This is not a fun record, but it's unforgettable.

That's it for today. Tomorrow, we begin the Top Forty.

(Above: Iron Maiden, #73 on the list.)

Hope you're enjoying my list of the 100 best metal albums of the decade that's currently staggering to its end. Here are #s 80-61.

80. Malignancy, Inhuman Grotesqueries - This album is gentle and pretty...for about ten seconds. Then it becomes one of the most absurdly over-the-top brutal death metal records ever, with every riff seeming to end in a squeal and the drums battering at your skull like secret police coming in the door at three A.M. Fortunately, it's over in less than a half hour.

79. Strapping Young Lad, SYL - This was SYL frontman Devin Townsend's response to 9/11, as well as some other stuff, and it's his most furious album. Booming with compression, operatic and bilious at once, it's cyber-industrial death with a truly beautiful side amid all the anger and hate. You kinda wanna hug the guy after he's done with his tantrum, but the tantrum itself is awesome to witness.

78. Witchcraft, The Alchemist - A bunch of Swedes who really, really like the psychedelic hard rock of the early '70s. If you like Free, the first Black Sabbath album, and/or the Swedish band November, you'll dig this.

77. Confessor, Unraveled - This disc is hard to get a grip on. Confessor put out one album of complex, progressive doom (with one of the most love-him-or-hate-him vocalists in metal history) in 1991, then vanished for 14 years. When they came back in 2005, they were even heavier, their rhythms more stuttering and off-kilter, and their riffs even more hypnotic. If you can imagine a cross between Alice In Chains, Opeth and The Obsessed, this is it.

76. Martyr, Feeding the Abscess - There are a lot of insanely talented technical death metal bands in the French-speaking part of Canada. Martyr is probably the most talented, and the most insane, mixing jazz fusion, progressive rock and scorching metal into a sonic stew that will make fans of Atheist, Cynic and peak-period Death very, very happy.

75. Lost Soul, Chaostream - Poland is another place that seems to make awesome death metal bands its primary export. Lost Soul are second-tier, behind old-school kings Vader and upstarts Decapitated, but this disc has all the crunch and roar you could ever want. Morbid Angel fans in particular take note of these guys.

74. Motörhead, Hammered - Every Motörhead album has three to five killer songs and six to eight decent but semi-forgettable ones. Lemmy must have gotten a particularly good batch of meth before the sessions for this one, though. Songs like "Brave New World" and "Voices from the War" have a grinding power and biting lyrics that put them among the best work by Motörhead's best lineup (yeah, I said it).

73. Iron Maiden, A Matter of Life and Death - This album is sometimes dismissed as self-indulgent in retrospect, but I suspect that's partly due to the band's misguided decision to play the whole thing front to back on tour. In fact, it's a terrific record, with a live, six-guys-in-a-room sound and some of their most progressive, hard-rocking songs since the '80s, especially the nearly nine-minute "Brighter Than a Thousand Suns."

72. GridLink, Amber Gray - This album flies by in less time than it takes to listen to two songs from A Matter of Life and Death. Vocalist Jon Chang formed two new groups post-Discordance Axis: the hyper-thrash group Hayaino Daisuki, and this ultra-compressed, shrieking grindcore squad. Eleven songs in just under twelve minutes, each one a blistering assault that'll leave you with "wind tunnel face."

71. Resistant Culture, All One Struggle - Resistant Culture are a politically minded crust/grind punk-metal band from L.A. who've got good reason to be pissed off: all their members are Native American. This, their third album, features their trademark blend of Discharge/Napalm Death rage and Native sounds and instruments (wooden flutes, leather drums, chanting), plus a powerful lyrical message best summed up as "ecologically-minded anarchism." Righteous in multiple senses of that word.

70. Early Man, Closing In - Talk about your "hipster metal"; these guys were signed to Matador Records, a label that previously hadn't supported a band metalheads could like since Unsane. But their primitivist thrash really lived up to the band's name, with rhythms that could have been bashed out on rocks and ham-fisted riffing that made Hellhammer sound like tech-death.

69. Skeletonwitch, Breathing the Fire - This band is just a hell of a lot of fun. Killer riffs that hark back to classic '80s thrash, with just a tinge of black metal around the edges, and solos for days. Their full-length debut, Beyond the Permafrost, was strong, but this one jumps the whole operation up a notch.

68. Trivium, The Crusade - On which the Florida hate-magnets continue to try really, really hard to be Metallica, but also throw in the arena-metal shoutalong "Anthem (We are the Fire)," bitch out Internet haters on "To the Rats" and close with an eight-minute instrumental.

67. Marduk, Wormwood - This ultra-Satanic black metal squad spent years pounding out lightning-fast albums that all basically sounded the same, before bringing in new vocalist Daniel "Mortuus" Rosten, who forced them to up their creative game quite a bit. Wormwood, their third Rosten-fronted album, is as close as Marduk is likely to get to the avant-garde, philosophically rigorous black metal of French acts like Deathspell Omega, and considering where they started, it's impressive as hell.

66. Born of Osiris, A Higher Place - This sextet is a flagship act in the not-really-a-genre known as "Sumeriancore"; they're one of several bands signed to Sumerian Records, all of whom play ultra-complex, noisy, nerd-rage-fueled technical metalcore with occasional dashes of psychedelia, electronics, and other weirdness. Born of Osiris, along with The Faceless and Veil of Maya, are carving a future path for death metal.

65. The Faceless, Planetary Duality - What was I just saying? The Faceless are possibly even more compositionally ambitious and technically skilled than Born of Osiris, and less interested in writing songs appreciable by a human being who wasn't raised in an isolation tank with nothing but Necrophagist and Malignancy records pumped in 24/7. They're so young, the challenge is to not want to kill them as you listen. But as William Gibson wrote, "You can't let the little pricks generation-gap you."

64. Job for a Cowboy, Ruination - Remember when MySpace was a vital tool in breaking new bands? These Arizonans sure do - they got signed based on their massive number of online friends, and were relentlessly shit on by undergrounder-than-thou types for it. But this follow-up to 2007's Genesis is a leap forward in every way, demonstrating genuine evolution on the songwriting and playing fronts, plus showing off a killin' new drummer.

63. Bloodbath, Resurrection Through Carnage - These dudes, on the other hand, remember when tape trading by mail was a vital tool in making a band's name. Members of Opeth and Katatonia teamed up to pay tribute to the ultra-grimy, gore-besotted Swedish death metal of the early 1990s. If you like Grave, Entombed, Dismember, etc., this album will put a big nostalgic grin on your face.

62. Grave, Back From the Grave - And speaking of Grave, they reunited after a six-year absence to release this powerful slab of flesh-ripping grooves, chainsaw guitars and gut-churning vocals. Their fundamental sound hadn't changed a bit since their classic debut, 1991's Into the Grave, but the songs were better than they'd been since that landmark release, and some of the records they've released since, particularly 2008's Dominion VIII, have demonstrated a continued vitality.

61. Rob Zombie, Educated Horses - Rob Zombie's flair for imagery hasn't always been backed up by good songs. White Zombie produced some great singles, but after their acrimonious implosion, his first few solo discs wallowed in a somewhat cheesy industrial-dance-metal sound. With Educated Horses, though, he worked hard to get back to being a rock act, appearing un-made-up on the cover and mounting a stripped-down stint on Ozzfest's second stage that was all about the music. And the music was more solid than it had been since White Zombie's Astro-Creep, with songs like "American Witch" and "Let It All Bleed Out" reminding folks why they liked him in the first place.

That's all for today. See you tomorrow for #s 60-41!

(Above: DragonForce - #86 on the list.)

I admit it: the tone of my journey through Decibel's list of the 100 best metal albums of the 2000s might have gotten somewhat testy 'n' negative at times. Consequently, and because some folks I know asked me if I was going to, I have chosen to counter them with a list of my own. This is not at all scientific, because nobody voted but me - it's based entirely on stuff I like enough to keep in my 160GB iPod, which goes everywhere I go. So here are my personal choices for the 100 Best Metal Albums Of The 2000s, #s 100-81.

100. Annihilation Time, Annihilation Time III: Tales of the Ancient Age - A blazing mix of Thin Lizzy-esque dual guitar leads and Black Flag-style rawness and fury. This was released in 2008 and could have come out at any time in the mid '80s; it has the basement recording values of the best hardcore, with the crushing riffs of great thrash.

99. Intronaut, Prehistoricisms - Technically proficient, progressive metal that combines slablike doom riffs with dissonant, arty guitar noise, psychedelic adventurousness and occasional bursts of melody to boot. Impossible to pin down to one subgenre, but heavy and impressive as hell.

98. Spawn of Possession, Cabinet - This Swedish band's 2003 debut disc managed to mix head-spinning technical skills with a surprisingly human feel. It was easy to picture four dudes in a room making this music, even if the idea of even trying to emulate their achievement would probably make most aspiring guitarists or drummers weep with frustrated rage.

97. Wolf, Black Wings - Another Swedish act, this one devoted to the NWOBHM sound of the early '80s. If you like the first couple of Iron Maiden albums, you're gonna get a huge kick out of Wolf.

96. Dir en Grey, Uroboros - These Japanese freaks are a little bit Goth, a little bit screamo, a little bit noise-rock, a whole lotta arty, and phenomenal live. This is their most recent album, and the result of what they've been building to for about a decade. Emotionally raw, musically complex, and cathartically powerful.

95. Cavalera Conspiracy, Inflikted - Max and Igor Cavalera, the brothers who co-founded Brazilian death metal legends Sepultura, hadn't spoken in over a decade when, seemingly out of the blue, they re-teamed for this bottom-heavy, grinding thrash album that was better than anything Sepultura had done since Max's departure, or anything Soulfly had ever done, period.

94. Bolt Thrower, Those Once Loyal - British death-grind institution Bolt Thrower's last album (so far) didn't break any new ground - all the songs had bass-heavy, savage riffs and lyrics about war - but it was them doing their thing at the top of their form, and that's more than enough.

93. Megadeth, Endgame - Dave Mustaine's newest band is his best since the early '90s, and the album he put out this very year is his strongest in over a decade. Packed with shredding guitars, high-tech riffing and his usual clenched-teeth vocal snarl, it's a Megadeth album for the ages, the first (and we hope not the last) of this millennium.

92. Blessed by a Broken Heart, Pedal to the Metal - A bunch of kids with goofy haircuts and goofier clothes make an album packed with metalcore riffs, bellowing hardcore vocals, '80s rock radio synths, disco beats, and more fun per second than almost anyone else on this list. Half these songs sound like the ideal soundtrack to a training montage in a Sylvester Stallone movie, and that's not a bad thing.

91. Nervecell, Preaching Venom - Were you expecting a kick-ass death metal band to come from Dubai? Me either, but Nervecell rose out of the desert like a sandstorm in 2008 (with guest drumming from Psycroptic's David Haley) and tossed one of the most brutal tech-death discs of the year into the laps of the decadent West.

90. Enslaved, Isa - I think I talked about this album when digging into the Decibel list. Their psychedelic, progressive version of black metal (with Viking metal lyrics) is pretty much unique in the world, and this is their best album.

89. Suffocation, Blood Oath - This Long Island, NY-based death metal institution are, astonishingly, making music now that's as good as they ever were - Blood Oath more than holds its own against classic earlier titles like Pierced From Within and Effigy of the Forgotten.

88. The Ocean, Precambrian - "Ambitious" isn't even the word. This oversized German ensemble released this double CD in 2007, and the music spans everything from orchestral instruments and delicate piano to bulldozing, Neurosis-style riffs, plus a mind-boggling array of guest vocalists.

87. Antigama, Resonance - A Polish grindcore outfit with the skills and desire to blow their chosen genre's boundaries wide open, encompassing everything from drum solos to jazz-funk interludes. Brain-twisting one second, lung-poppingly brutal the next, this is eclecticism that actually kicks ass instead of just being a demonstration of the bandmembers' satisfaction with themselves.

86. DragonForce, Inhuman Rampage - I shouldn't have to defend my enjoyment of this album, but I probably do. Look, their lyrics are nonsense, their "songs" are a string of solos with the bare minimum of structure pasting them together - I get all that. And nobody needs more than one DragonForce album. But this one's a fucking blast.

85. Prostitute Disfigurement, Descendants of Depravity - Bare-bones (no pun intended) death metal. I first heard about this album when I read one of the greatest music reviews ever written by anyone, and it totally lives up to that hype.

84. Slayer, World Painted Blood - I've talked a lot about this album already. It rules and you know it.

83. Halford, Crucible - A lot of people were so glad to see Rob Halford back with Judas Priest that they put his in-between projects out of mind, but both Fight and Halford released some good, headbanging songs, and this album is jammed with 'em. Somewhere between Priest and Pantera, Halford was a seriously heavy power metal band worth your attention.

82. Insect Warfare, World Extermination - Originally released on the tiny label 625 Grind in 2007, and reissued by Earache last year, this is the only full-length (and at 20 tracks in 22 1/2 minutes, it's barely that) release by one of the noisiest, most hate-filled grindcore bands ever.

81. Sunn O))), Oracle - a limited-edition EP that sets the stage for their awesome 2009 release Monoliths & Dimensions, Oracle combines Sunn O)))'s usual ultra-downtuned waves of guitar with actual jackhammers. If you're into the industrial/junkyard music of Einstürzende Neubauten, you'll like this a lot.

That's all for today! Back tomorrow with #s 80-61!

(Above: Lamb of God, who did not make the list.)

And so at last we come to the end. Today we discuss the 20 albums Decibel magazine considers the best of the decade (the special issue containing their whole list is available here). And it's a very problematic 20. Shall we?

20. Agalloch, Ashes Against the Grain - The word "atmospheric" describes Agalloch perfectly, for good and ill. Sometimes their music conjures a very strong mood - an atmosphere, if you will - of wandering in barren woods at night; other times, it drifts past you, making no impression - like the atmosphere itself.

19. Melt-Banana, CellScape - Another non-metal band. Melt-Banana are good, but they're not metal. If you've never heard them, they're a spasmodic Japanese art-hardcore band (think early Boredoms, or John Zorn's Naked City project without the genre-hopping virtuosity) with a shrieking female vocalist. They do have a connection to metal, in that Dave Witte of Burnt By The Sun and Discordance Axis drums for them. But they don't belong here.

18. Neurosis, A Sun That Never Sets - It's a toss-up whether this or The Eye of Every Storm is the most boring album by this intensely boring, overwrought and overrated band.

17. Converge, Axe to Fall - An excellent album by a band that's already been extensively discussed in previous entries.

16. The Red Chord, Clients - These guys make intricate, highly technical metalcore with arty, conceptual lyrics. I don't like 'em, but lots of other people do, and there's no denying their metal-ness.

15. Pelican, The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon the Thaw - Pelican seemed promising at first on their self-titled EP and Australasia. But their heavy instrumental rock doesn't change enough from album to album, and frankly they're long past the time when they should have broken up.

14. Napalm Death, Enemy of the Music Business - Another example of "great band, wrong album." Enemy is a decent record, but its successor, Order of the Leech, was better, and like I mentioned earlier, their 2006 disc Smear Campaign absolutely belongs on this list.

13. Baroness, Blue Record - I like this album a whole lot. It's gonna wind up right near the top of my 2009 list. No complaints.

12. Discordance Axis, The Inalienable Dreamless - This is a surprising but very, very welcome pick. Discordance Axis were one of the greatest grindcore bands ever, and this, their third and final full-length album, is their masterpiece.

11. Torche, Meanderthal - I don't really like these guys. They play melodic stoner-rock in the spirit of Queens of the Stone Age, and they're good at it. But it doesn't really hold my attention. So whatever.

10. Electric Wizard, Dopethrone - I have long maintained that this album is revered as much for its cover art (a painting of Satan doing bonghits) than its musical content, which is admittedly pretty awesome but, for me, falls short of its predecessor, Come My Fanatics.... But enough people have been worshipping it for long enough that I accept that mine is a minority opinion.

9. Pig Destroyer, Phantom Limb - Another good album, but I would have preferred to see Terrifyer here, and this one down at the bottom.

8. Iron Maiden, Brave New World - Iron Maiden have only ever released two really bad albums, and both of those came out right before this one. Brave New World, which features Bruce Dickinson's return to the vocal spot, is a very good record. I might prefer the sprawling, musically expansive A Matter of Life and Death, but I can't argue with seeing Maiden this high on the list.

7. Queens of the Stone Age, Songs for the Deaf - I thought the Queens' debut disc was okay; it was about as good as Kyuss's half-assed farewell, ...And the Circus Leaves Town. But everything they've done since has left me cold, and this album is no exception.

6. Katatonia, Last Fair Deal Gone Down - These guys do an arty, moody doom thing with tinges of electronic music here and there, and many more clean vocals than death growls, which is a very good thing in my book. If you haven't heard these guys, and you like Opeth's gentler moments, you should by all means check them out.

5. Mastodon, Remission - Mastodon's first full-length is more of a hint that great things are on the way than a truly great album. This and Leviathan should have had their positions switched.

4. Isis, Oceanic - Okay, this is deserved placement. Their second and best full-length, it expands their sound (which was originally kind of a Godflesh knock-off) into something unique that truly lives up to the album's title. This is an album you could sink into and float away.

3. Opeth, Blackwater Park - This was the album that kinda broke Opeth to a wider audience than they'd reached before. It's a really strong combination of the progressive death metal they'd been playing all along and psychedelic melodies (some credit for this was probably due to the influence of producer Steven Wilson of UK prog-psych act Porcupine Tree). I still think their 2008 release Watershed belonged on this list somewhere, but Blackwater Park deserves honor.

2. Cave In, Jupiter - Cave In were a metal band on their first two releases, Beyond Hypothermia and Until Your Heart Stops. With this disc, they moved in the direction of progressive hard rock a la Rush, and after this, they were never even remotely metal-related again. I like this album; I think it's their best work, and the dropoff in quality after it has been steep. But is it the second-best metal album of the 2000s? You've gotta be kidding me.

1. Converge, Jane Doe - Speaking of "you've gotta be kidding me"... Every single album Converge released in the last decade made this list. That's absurd. On pure artistic merit, this album is not even Converge's best, to my ear - Axe to Fall is. But this is the one everybody seems to love. Is it good? Absolutely. Does it deserve this spot? I don't even think the members of the band would make that claim.

I must confess great disappointment with this list. It was the product of a select pool of voters, but based on these results, that's a pool that should obviously have been expanded quite a bit. No power metal, no thrash to speak of, barely any doom or industrial...this is an extremely parochial and painfully underground-centric view of metal in the 2000s. And that's without even discussing the vast numbers of hardcore and non-metal releases. The weird thing is, I don't think this even provides an accurate representation of the range of music Decibel covers. This was a good idea, extremely poorly executed.

(Above: Judas Priest, who did not make the list.)

We're entering the home stretch of our journey through Decibel's Top 100 Greatest Metal Albums Of The Decade now (buy your copy of the special issue here), and there are some albums in this next set of 20 that I love to death. There are also a few that make me more frustrated with the whole project than any we've encountered so far. So let's get to dissectin'!

40. Deathspell Omega, Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum - Deathspell Omega are one of the most important and interesting bands on the black metal scene right now, and this is a terrific album. Some might argue that Kenôse or Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice are the true dark heart of their discography, but every album is a philosophical treatise on evil backed up with crushing rhythms and awesomely bizarre guitar work, so any one will do.

39. Converge, You Fail Me - One thing you're gonna notice today is a lot of names repeating from earlier in the list. This was Converge's follow-up to Jane Doe, the album that broke them to a wider public and signaled a stylistic shift from relatively straightforward hardcore to the brainy noise-rock they make now, and I like it a lot, so I'm not gonna argue about this placement.

38. Pig Destroyer, Prowler in the Yard - This, on the other hand, seems like it's only here because Decibel loves Pig Destroyer to an almost unreasonable degree. While it's a good record, it's nowhere near the artistic level of Terrifyer. Had the two albums' positions been reversed on the chart, maybe. But honestly I don't think Prowler belongs here at all.

37. Killswitch Engage, Alive or Just Breathing - Their second album, and the last one with their original vocalist, Jesse Leach. Helped establish the Boston metalcore sound in a big way. No arguing with its impact.

36. Witchcraft, Witchcraft - A surprising choice. Witchcraft are an extremely retro-minded (and retro-sounding) Swedish hard rock band. If you like groups like Free, Humble Pie, and the like (there's an excellent early '70s Swedish band, November, who do this sort of heavy blues-rock thing, too), you'll love Witchcraft, as they plow their grooves old-school, with vintage equipment and analog recording techniques. I like 'em a lot. I'm surprised the Decibel voters do.

35. Shellac, 1000 Hurts - Really? Really? Look, I like Steve Albini. I interviewed him once; he's a terrific guy. But Shellac is not metal. Albini's Travis Bean guitar is made of metal - that's as close as they get. This is an absurd choice.

34. Anaal Nathrakh, The Codex Necro - Man, do I love Anaal Nathrakh. Industrial black metal, and on this album (their full-length debut), they made some of the most evil, hate-filled, overdriven sounds I've ever heard. This leaves everyone from Ministry to Atari Teenage Riot to Mayhem choking in foul graveyard dust. An essential record that probably could have placed in the Top 30.

33. Isis, Panopticon - Nope. I like Isis, but this was a watered-down sequel to their best album, Oceanic. I defy you to remember one song from this album after it's done playing. Totally yawnsome.

32. Craft, Fuck the Universe - A totally stripped-down, bare-bones black metal album. I like it, but it's not even their best effort (Terror Propaganda was). This might have gotten on the list just because it was on the Southern Lord label, which meant it got better distribution than their better efforts. That's the only reason a black metal band like Craft, who did nothing to advance their genre an inch, would be ranked this high.

31. Mastodon, Leviathan - Only #31? I'm shocked by this placement. I thought this album would be in the Top 10 or Top 20 at least. This is Mastodon's best album to date (much as I love Crack the Skye, Leviathan still beats it) and the album that first brought them to the attention of the larger world. Maybe that's why it's down where it is - it got them too popular for some of the cred-heads' taste.

30. Andrew W.K., I Get Wet - Okay, you have got to be kidding me. I'm just gonna move on, because there's really nothing I can say about the inclusion of Mr. white jeans, Mr. Party Hard, Mr. fake nosebleed album cover, on a metal list. Yes, fine, two members of Obituary were in his backing band. But does that justify this? It does not. Moving on.

29. The Dillinger Escape Plan, Miss Machine - A decent album. Ire Works was better, and placed lower on the list.

28. Dimmu Borgir, Death Cult Armageddon - This is one of two Dimmu Borgir albums I like, the other being its predecessor Puritanical Euphoric Misanthropia. On this disc, they went big, hiring a full orchestra and choir, and it sounds like it. If Hollywood soundtrack composer John Williams had a black metal band, they'd sound like Dimmu Borgir - pomptastically bloated and consumed with big unsubtle gestures. I like 'em.

27. High On Fire, Surrounded by Thieves - As has been previously established, I have nothing bad to say about High On Fire. This is a good album, not as good as Blessed Black Wings but damn good nonetheless. Crank it up loud and hope your face doesn't fly right off your skull.

26. Jesu, Silver - My dislike of and boredom with Jesu has been established previously. Moving on.

25. Celtic Frost, Monotheist - This album rules. Heavy as a planet, it's also lyrically terrific and was the source of one of the best metal videos of the 2000s. In fact, I'm gonna interrupt this list just so you can watch the video for Celtic Frost's "A Dying God Coming Into Human Flesh," because that will say more than I ever could about the awesomeness of this record. Here you go.



24. Mare, Mare - This is only a four-song EP, so I'll keep it short: These guys combine doom and non-metal music in a way that doesn't really appeal to me.

23. Fugazi, The Argument - Yeah, I know. I'm kinda rubbing my eyes too. Even if this was Fugazi's heaviest album (which it might well be), get the hell out of here with trying to convince me, or anyone with ears, that it's metal. Fugazi are anti-metal in just about every conceivable way: they were socially responsible, they frowned on moshpits, they didn't sell T-shirts, they kept ticket and CD prices low and never ripped off their fan base...I mean, what the hell is all that about? Get outta here with that crap. Where'd I leave my copy of Cannibal Corpse's Tomb of the Mutilated?

22. Tragedy, Tragedy - There are about 700 bands named Tragedy. This one is some kind of underground crust punk outfit that doesn't even have a web presence. So fine.

21. Enslaved, Isa - I got no argument with this pick. As mentioned earlier, I like Enslaved and I like Isa. A good choice, and a good place to round out today's series of complaints.

Tomorrow...the thrilling conclusion of our journey! See you then!

(Above: Motörhead, who did not make the list.)

We're now into the middle stretch of our trawl through Decibel magazine's Top 100 Greatest Metal Albums Of The Decade (special issue available here), and I've got almost as many problems with #s 60-41 as I had with the ones below it. Let's get started.
60. Napalm Death, Time Waits For No Slave - This is, indeed, a very good album. Napalm Death are for the most part consistently awesome, and they've thrown a surprising number of curveballs at their fans over the years. But is this disc better than 2006's Smear Campaign? I submit that it is not, and that SC should have gotten this spot.

59. Dying Fetus, Destroy the Opposition - DF are a decent death metal band with relatively knowledgeable, politically aware lyrics that sometimes go beyond mere sloganeering into actual thought. So while I'm not a big fan, I can see how they'd belong here.

58. Disfear, Live the Storm - Now this I have no problem with at all. Disfear take the "D-beat" punk rock aggression created by UK legends Discharge and give it a serious adrenaline injection. This album kicks all kinds of ass.

57. High On Fire, Death is This Communion - Again, you're never gonna hear me say anything remotely negative about High On Fire (other than advising singer/guitarist Matt Pike to please put a shirt on). I like this album's predecessor, Blessed Black Wings, a little better, but High On Fire has never been less than awesome.

56. Cult of Luna, Somewhere Along the Highway - Again, no real complaints from me. I frequently like Cult of Luna more than Neurosis or Isis, the two bands to which they're often (and unfavorably) compared. So good for them making it this high up the list.

55. Enslaved, Below the Lights - Another good choice. This might indeed be these Norwegians' best album; it's a toss-up between this one and the follow-up, Isa.

54. Jesu, Jesu - I really don't like Jesu. It's Justin Broadrick of Godflesh exposing his soft, psychedelic side, and it bores the pants off me and is in no way metal. If this is metal, then so are My Bloody Valentine and Lush.

53. Isis, Celestial - Their first full-length. Better than recent efforts like In the Absence of Truth or Panopticon (heavier, too), but these guys don't deserve more than one spot on this list, and that spot belongs to their second album, Oceanic.

52. At the Drive-In, Relationship of Command - Not metal. Moving on.

51. Ludicra, Fex Urbis, Lex Orbis - Avant-garde black metal. Supposed to be quite good, but I've never heard 'em, so no comment.

50. The Dillinger Escape Plan, Ire Works - This is a very good album by a band that's changed a lot since the ultra-intense, hyper-complex mathcore of their early days. Now they're willing to throw electronics and other jarring noises at the listener, and even write a few songs that are almost catchy. I do actually think this is their best record.

49. Arsis, A Celebration of Guilt - I sometimes really hate James Malone's vocals, and the band's attempts to make death metal catchy sometimes run aground for precisely that reason, but I have tremendous admiration for their all-American approach to technical death metal with a big dose of thrash, so okay.

48. Mastodon, Blood Mountain - I love Mastodon, but this is their weakest album, and Crack the Skye should probably have gotten this spot.

47. Electric Wizard, WItchcult Today - The most recent album by these pot-fogged UK stoner-doom masters. It's pretty good, especially compared with its half-assed predecessor, We Live, but honestly, their second full-length, Come My Fanatics..., is really the jewel of their discography.

46. Evoken, Quietus - This New Jersey band plays funeral doom; long, ultra-slow, depressing stuff. I haven't heard this album, but I think I might check it out, so points to Decibel for bringing it to my attention.

45. Between the Buried and Me, Alaska - I really don't like this band. They try to blend prog-metal and crunching post-hardcore, but I always wind up feeling like they wrote a bunch of riffs and forgot that that's not the same thing as writing a song.

44. Watain, Sworn to the Dark - Watain again? One spot, low on the list, was enough for this band. Someone else should have been put in here.

43. Nile, Annihilation of the Wicked - As long as that someone else wasn't Nile. The love for this Egypt-obsessed death metal band has eluded me forever. Sure, their concept is kind of cool, and Karl Sanders is a better-than-decent guitarist, but their albums (and especially their live show) are crushingly boring.

42. Opeth, Ghost Reveries - I love Opeth, but this is their weakest album of the 2000s. It was basically just them running through their Still Life/Blackwater Park/Deliverance sound one more time before making the vitally necessary, and creatively invigorating, left turn of their brilliant 2008 album Watershed.

41. Primordial, The Gathering Wilderness - Primordial, Ireland's contribution to the pagan/folk death metal scene, are okay, but should they be this high? No, they should not. And frankly, a list that doesn't include Amon Amarth should have no room for Primordial. Sorry.

Back tomorrow with the first half of the Top 40!

Today, December 8, is the fifth anniversary of the murder of Damageplan and former Pantera guitarist "Dimebag" Darrell Abbott. I have tremendous respect for the guy's playing; I haven't heard the early stuff, but every single Pantera album from Cowboys from Hell through Reinventing the Steel has riffs on it that'll make you wanna shove your head through the nearest wall. (It's not a majority opinion by any means, but Reinventing the Steel might be my favorite Pantera album.)

Anyway, I can't think of any more fitting tribute than this truly horrifying Photoshop atrocity which someone pointed me to online. RIP Dimebag Darrell, and thanks, anonymous benefactor!

(Above: Megadeth, who did not make the list.)

Today, we're going to go through #s 80-61 on Decibel's list of the Top 100 Greatest Metal Albums Of The Decade, which they published in a special issue you can purchase at this link. Yesterday, I did a fair amount of griping about non-metal bands being on the list, and that's going to continue today. Here's the thing: I know that Decibel doesn't cover just metal bands. Like the UK magazine Terrorizer, they see their territory as covering all of "extreme music," with a focus on metal. But they called this a list of metal albums. And if metal can be anything, then it's really nothing at all. Without definitions, there are no genres. Throwing a trumpet solo into the middle of a Judas Priest song doesn't make it a jazz piece, and art-punk isn't metal just because some metal fans happen to like it. You can't say "I'm a metal fan" without finding some way to define "metal" beyond "music I am a fan of." That's boneheaded tautology, not critical thinking.

Anyway, on to the list!

80. Warhorse, As Heaven Turns to Ash - As doom goes, this is a pretty good album. It's slow, heavy and blisteringly loud. I don't know that it's exemplary within the genre, but it's not particularly objectionable.

79. Akercocke, Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone - I really like this album. Akercocke are a mystically-minded progressive death metal act from the UK who add psychedelia and the occasional Middle Eastern influence to their music, and I think they don't get enough recognition in the U.S. So good for Decibel finding room for them here.

78. System of a Down, Toxicity - I'm genuinely surprised to see this on the list, not because it's bad (it's actually a really good record), but because it was a big mainstream success and for the most part this has been an undergrounder-than-thou parade so far.

77. Taint, The Ruin of Nova Roma - These guys play uninspired stoner doom/sludge, and I wouldn't have predicted them making this list at all, let alone making it out of the bottom ten.

76. Neurosis, Given to the Rising - I don't like Neurosis. Lots of other people do, but I find them pompous and boring and depressingly influential on lots of other bands, who are equally pompous and boring without even offering a modicum of originality (if nothing else, Neurosis were original) to back it up.

75. Fucked Up, Hidden World - An arty punk band from Canada. Has no business on this list.

74. Nasum, Human 2.0 - I love me some grindcore, but Nasum's ultra-clean style is like the Ikea of grind. Streamlined and crisp, for mass production and global distribution. This album is a fine example of their work, if you like your grindcore glossy and slick, instead of punky and noisy.

73. Immortal, Sons of Northern Darkness - I love this album. I probably would have tried to find room for it in the top fifty. Immortal are masters of riff-heavy, anthemic black metal, and this album, seen as their farewell gesture at the time of its release, really encapsulated their greatness.

72. Nachtmystium, Assassins: Black Meddle Part I - This disc got a lot of favorable response upon its release in 2008. Basically, these Chicagoans expanded their sonic palette from the raw black metal of their early days to include lots of psychedelic production and progressive songwriting. Good stuff, but it doesn't feel like the end of a journey - they've got a way to go yet.

71. Deathevokation, The Chalice of Ages - This is the kind of album these lists were meant to highlight. An ultra-impressive debut by an American death metal band with an old-school feel but with plenty of modern touches thrown in. Deathevokation are destined to be underground forever, but more people should know about them. A great choice.

70. Trap Them, Seizures in Barren Praise - These guys are an excellent grindcore/death metal band, noisy and punishing but heavy as hell, too. A really good album that deserves its spot.

69. Rotten Sound, Murderworks - I don't necessarily love these Scandinavians, but they're good at what they do. Not sure I'd put this album in the top 100 of the decade, though.

68. Thorns, Thorns - A really interesting blend of black metal and industrial/electronic sounds and production effects. This is fine where it is.

67. Meshuggah, Catch 33 - I think this should maybe have been a little higher. It's a tough album to listen to, because it's one long song divided into a bunch of "movements"; it's probably Meshuggah's magnum opus, though that doesn't necessarily translate to being their best album, just their purest. But I love it and it deserves to be honored as an artistic achievement.

66. Leviathan, Tentacles of Whorror - The one-man-band school of "bedroom black metal" is pretty weak stuff, generally speaking, but within that subgenre, the two big names are Leviathan and Xasthur. I'm surprised Xasthur hasn't popped up on this list yet, because while I don't actually like him or Leviathan that much, I definitely think the X-man is the better of the two.

65. Withered, Memento Mori - I guess these guys' mix of black and death metal is pretty good. I saw them open for Marduk in April and they were solid performers, but I couldn't recall a single riff or chorus with a gun to my head.

64. Hatebreed, Perseverance - Man, am I not a Hatebreed fan. I respect their achievement - crossing knuckle-dragging, thick-necked hardcore over to a sizable semi-mainstream audience - and frontman Jamey Jasta's a nice guy, but their music just bores me. Also, hardcore ≠ metal. I recognize their importance to metal culture, though, so I'll give this one a pass.

63. Converge, No Heroes - Here's another non-metal band on the list. I like Converge a lot, but they owe more to Unsane and other noise-rock outfits than they do to Slayer or Metallica. And No Heroes is a decent holding-action album between You Fail Me and this year's awesome Axe to Fall, nothing more. This doesn't belong on the list.

62. Botch, An Anthology of Dead Ends - Remember the Coalesce entry I talked about yesterday? Here we have the same thing happening again. Botch was one of the greatest American bands of the late '90s; unfortunately, they released their last real studio album, the mind-roastingly awesome We Are the Romans, before the cutoff for this list. So the Decibel voters tossed in this leftovers anthology instead.

61. Deftones, White Pony - This is System of a Down all over again; a really good, mainstream-accessible record that deserves its spot, yet somehow surprises me by being here. I love White Pony. I'd have put it in the top 30 of this list, easy. I feel bad for Deftones that they have to keep trying to top it - they must know on some level that they never will.

That's all for today, folks! See you tomorrow for #s 60-41!

Before we embark on Day Two of my run through the Decibel Top 100 Greatest Metal Albums Of The Decade, here's "Ice Worm," the new video by Indianapolis-based doom/biker-metal band The Gates Of Slumber. If you haven't heard their album Hymns Of Blood And Thunder yet, by all means pick it up - it's ferocious.

Enjoy!