1986: The year thrash reigned supreme…or so I thought. Before making this list, I really thought this year’s top 10 would almost exclusively consist of thrash with perhaps one or two exceptions. I thought wrong. Only four albums on here fall into the thrash category, while the six others touch on facets of traditional metal, power metal, prog metal, doom metal, and if you asked the late frontman of the band at #6, good ol’ fashioned rock n’ roll. On that diverse and dynamic note, here are our Top 10 Metal Albums of 1986.
10. Fates Warning – Awaken the Guardian
Kicking off our list at #10 is an album that is frequently name dropped as the “greatest metal album of all time”. Considering I don’t even have it listed as the greatest metal album of the year it came out, I’m sure I’ll face no shortage of hate mail. However, one thing we can all agree on is that Fates Warning’s Awaken the Guardian is a shining example of US underground metal. Their previous album, The Spectre Within (1985), was widely heralded as a creative triumph. It also saw the band inching closer towards progressive metal, as opposed to the unadulterated power metal of their debut, Night on Bröcken (1984). By the time they released Awaken the Guardian, they had found their sweet spot, saddled between the complexities of prog metal and steely glory of power metal. 35 years on and cuts like “Guardian”, “Fata Morgana”, and “Exodus” are ethereal as ever.
9. Megadeth – Peace Sells…but Who’s Buying?
In the short span of a year, Megadeth went from beer guzzling, meth snorting, vitriolic heathens to a sniper precise outfit of musical virtuosos. The dark lyrical themes of Killing is My Business…and Business Is Good! (1985) remained, but gone was the rotten production and punkish edge. Part of this was probably due to signing with Capitol Records, but I digress. Peace Sells…But Who’s Buying? showcases Megadeth at their musical peak. The riffs thrash hard as ever, but the songs as a whole are executed with an intricate edge that even the most pretentious of music theory snobs could appreciate. Save for a juvenile cover of the blues standard, “I Ain’t Superstitious”, which only became worse upon hearing the stellar Jeff Beck version, Peace Sells is one of the finest thrash outings ever, as well as a sign of what was to come for Megadeth.
8. Candlemass – Epicus Doomicus Metallicus
Spawned from the depths of the netherworld, Candlemass quickly proved themselves to be masters of all things eerie and arcane on their debut album, Epicus Doomicus Metallicus. With Mercyful Fate having been laid to rest a year earlier, somebody had to do the devil’s work. Who better than Candlemass? The band’s combination of doom laden guitars, operatic vocals, dark fantasy lyrics, and foreboding atmosphere made them a force to be reckoned with. In the wake of Venom, most metal bands thought the key to being evil was to play as fast and ferocious as possible. Meanwhile, Candlemass stripped metal down to its barest, bleakest essentials, conjuring an ancient unholiness not heard since Black Sabbath’s namesake song. While epic doom has since become a full blown subgenre, there hasn’t an album as epic or doomy since.
7. Whiplash – Power and Pain
While most thrash metal bands were now pushing the envelope into death metal, black metal, and even progressive metal territory, Whiplash took headbangers back to a simpler time when thrash was thrash (AKA 1983/1984). The New Jersey trio’s debut album, Power and Pain, shares the same savage spirit as Metallica’s Kill ‘Em All and Anthrax’s Fistful of Metal. They also maintain enough of an old school spirit throughout that recalls the likes of Exciter and Accept. The result is one of the greatest, yet underrated, thrash albums of all time. Unlike their peers, Whiplash wasn’t ready to sign that major label deal, only to be neutered a few short years later. No, they were hellbent on leaving a trail of death and destruction in their path, with no outing deadlier or more destructive than Power and Pain. With certified neck snappers like “Power Thrashing Death”, “Stage Dive”, and “Nailed to the Cross” in tow, you’d have to be dead not to mosh to this one.
6. Motörhead – Orgasmatron
Here’s a hot take: Despite being one of the greatest trios of all time, Motörhead’s finest hour came as a quartet. With all due respect to Overkill, Ace of Spades, and the severely underrated Iron Fist, Orgasmatron always resonated with me more than any other Motörhead release. For this album, Lemmy enlisted a brand new incarnation consisting of guitarists Phil Campbell and Würzel, as well as original Saxon drummer Pete Gill. Another key component of this album’s success is the cold production of avant-garde pioneer Bill Laswell, which at times borders on industrial. Of course, you can have all the talent in the world, but it means nothing if you don’t have the songs to back it up. For Orgasmatron, Lemmy went for the jugular both musically and lyrically, concocting a collection of high speed rockers that stood against the most extreme thrash bands of the time. Rounding it all out is the masterpiece title track, a slow, scathing takedown of religion, politics, and war. Orgasmatron is Motörhead, and it most definitely is rock n’ roll.
5. Dark Angel – Darkness Descends
How extreme can a thrash band get without going full blown death or black metal? The answer lies within our #5 album, Dark Angel’s Darkness Descends. After releasing a debut that was disjointed at best (1985’s We Have Arrived), the Bay Area barbarians returned with a vengeance for album #2. It also helped that they had one of the greatest drummers to ever step behind a kit, Gene “The Atomic Clock” Hoglan. Most metal bands go for hellish lyrics, hellish vocals, hellish riffs, or a combination of all three. Hoglan was able to make drumming hellish. From the moment Darkness Descends opens with its menacing title track, it feels like we’re on a downward trip to hades with his unholy beat leading the way. The aforementioned lyrical, vocal, and guitar elements only make this album more brutal. On subsequent releases, Dark Angel would settle for a more technical path, but for this one album, no other American thrash band came close in terms of excellence and extremity.
4. Queensrÿche – Rage for Order
If Queensrÿche had disbanded after releasing their self titled EP (1983) and The Warning (1984), they still would’ve gone down in history as one of the greatest metal bands of all time. The only other band of the era writing full blown epics on such a grandiose scale was Mercyful Fate. As compelling as cuts like “Take Hold of the Flame” and “Roads to Madness” are, Queensrÿche knew they had to up the ante for their follow up. Despite all odds, they managed to do so. Rage for Order is 35 years old and still sounds ahead of its time. For this album, the band bid farewell to the power metal tropes of yore and doubled down on the progressive leanings hinted at on The Warning. Throw in peculiar electronic sounds, lyrics ranging from cerebral to sci-fi, and an all around futuristic atmosphere, and you’ve got what might be the archetypal progressive metal album.
3. Kreator – Pleasure to Kill
In 1985, Kreator were a group of kids too young to sign their own record contracts, hellbent on cranking out blackened thrash that drew heavily from Venom and Slayer. A year later, they were on the cutting edge of metal as a whole, pioneering death metal in its earliest stages. I believe it was Igor Cavalera of Sepultura fame who said to this day, he’s not sure if Pleasure to Kill is a thrash metal album or death metal album. Sure it has its thrashy qualities (i.e. the breakdown in the title track), but the songs are so deadly in their overall execution. One could say the listener is “Under the Guillotine” from beginning to end. Of course, Cavalera’s band would also ride this fine line between thrash and death, but I digress. No matter which side of the spectrum you place Pleasure to Kill, there’s no doubt it’s the golden standard of extreme metal in its purest, unadulterated, and unholiest form.
2. Iron Maiden – Somewhere in Time
Queensrÿche wasn’t the only metal band looking into the 21st century in ’86. So was Iron Maiden, who with the release of Somewhere in Time committed the cardinal sin of *gasp* playing metal with synthesizers! Well, not exactly. If we’re being specific Adrian Smith and Dave Murray were using guitar synthesizers, the same kind of technology being utilized by prog gods Steve Howe and Steve Hackett in the short lived GTR project around the same time. These guitar synths were one of the best things to happen to Maiden, adding a layer of depth and atmosphere to their already complex thinking man’s metal. Cuts like the title track, “Sea of Madness”, and “Alexander the Great (356-323 B.C.)” put the “prog” in prog metal, while “Wasted Years” and “Stranger in a Strange Land” showcased the band’s melodic side and even got some FM rock radio airplay. Although a world apart from its predecessor (1984’s Powerslave), Somewhere in Time is yet another brilliant entry in the Maiden catalog.
- Crimson Glory – Crimson Glory
Exactly 35 years ago today, a mysterious group of masked men released an album so powerful, so glorious, and so majestic, that it would reverberate through the universe for all of eternity. I refuse to believe that Crimson Glory’s self titled debut is of this earth. This album sounds like it was recorded in heaven by a band of angels hand chosen by God himself. Nothing about it sounds the human. I’m not just talking about Midnight’s once in a millennium vocals that let King Diamond and Geoff Tate know there was a new sheriff in town. The riffs, the guitar leads, the melodies, the rhythms, the backing vocals, the production…every time I drop the needle on Crimson Glory, I feel like I’m ascending, and that’s without substances. If for whatever reason or another you’ve never listened to this album front to back, please do so. It’s heavy, powerful, progressive, and most importantly, divine.
Honorable Mentions
- Agnostic Front – Cause for Alarm
- Cro-Mags – The Age of Quarrel
- Metallica – Master of Puppets
- Onslaught – The Force
- Slayer – Reign in Blood