Top 10: Metal Albums of 1987

As the 80s entered its final few years, heavy metal evolved and expanded in ways nobody could’ve imagined just a few short years earlier. If death metal and black metal weren’t full blown subgenres already, they definitely were by 1987, as evidenced by two albums on this list, each frequently regarded as the golden standard for their respective genre. Meanwhile, thrash continued mosh through listener’s heads as the reigning flavor of the day, doom metal was elevated to a level of majesty previously unheard of, and a band of streetwise thugs stripped the bloated glam metal trend down to its barest essentials. All that and more in our Top 10 Metal Albums of 1987.

10. Testament – The Legacy

Kicking off our list at #10 is the band who arguably lit the spark for thrash metal’s second wave, Testament. In a perfect world, they’d be mentioned alongside the likes of Metallica, Slayer, and Anthrax as thrash pioneers. Although they were there at the same time, forming in 1983 under the name of Legacy, a series of events would prevent them from releasing their debut full length until 1987. In an era when thrash was getting heavier and more extreme, Testament took the genre back to its roots. The Legacy is an unrelenting collection of neck snapping riffs, mosh ready hooks, soloing that borders on neoclassical, and unhinged vocals. You’d be hard pressed to find a metalhead who wouldn’t throw down to the likes of “Over the Wall”, “First Strike is Deadly”, and “C.O.T.L.O.D.”.

9. Guns N’ Roses – Appetite for Destruction

Although the poodle haired, squeaky clean, boy band ethos applied to most on the Sunset Strip circa 1987, it didn’t apply to all. Slowly but surely, an underground resistance of denim and leather clad hard rockers was growing. Fueled by a love of whiskey, women, and old school rock n’ roll in the tradition of Motörhead and Rose Tattoo, one band in particular would rise to the forefront of hard and heavy music in 1987. That band was Guns N’ Roses. Their debut album, Appetite for Destruction, took the world by storm. Among an asphyxiating sea of hydrogen peroxide, Appetite was a breath of fresh air. This sleazy collection of balls out rock n’ rollers chronicled the sex, drugs, and crime that riddled the streets of Los Angeles after dark. Against all odds, the album went onto sell over 30 million copies worldwide and spawn three Top 10 hits: “Welcome to the Jungle”, “Paradise City”, and “Sweet Child o’ Mine”. In an ironic twist of fate, this band of anti-rockstars would fall prey to the traps of rockstardom, becoming as bloated as the glam metal fad they raged against before ultimately splintering and subsequently reuniting. This, plus the collective dilution of these songs thanks to classic rock radio, make it hard to believe Appetite as a convincing piece of art, but believe me. In 1987, when Axl Rose and the gang didn’t have a pot to piss in, they meant every word of this hard rock manifesto.

8. Bathory – Under the Sign of the Black Mark

Alright, so let’s assume you’re one of those dorks who claims Venom was never black metal and merely coined the term. Okay. Let’s also assume that you don’t consider Hellhammer, Celtic Frost, Mercyful Fate, Show No Mercy era Slayer, Bulldozer, early Sodom, early Destruction, NME, and so forth to be black metal. Fair enough. Now let’s assume you’re such an edgy contrarian that you don’t even believe the first two Bathory albums are black metal, but rather a raw amalgamation of thrash and crust punk. My head is about to explode from even thinking of such an argument, but I’ve heard it be made. If we cast all that aside, there is still absolutely no disputing that Bathory’s third album, Under the Sign of the Black Mark, is a black metal album. Not only is it a black metal album, but it singlehandedly laid down the framework for all black metal to follow. Gone were the thrashy riffs and punkish attitude of yore. Instead, listeners were served a feast of tremolo riffing, blastbeats, throat scraping rasps, bleak atmosphere, and lo-fi production straight from the deepest pit of hell. With the assistance of his father behind the mixing board, Quorthon would change the landscape of metal forever with Under the Sign of the Black Mark. Nearly 35 years later and 99.99% of all Bandcamp releases labeled “black metal” are mere carbon copies of this.

7. Candlemass – Nightfall

A lot changed for Candlemass in the course of a year. The release of their debut album, Epicus Doomicus Metallicus, made them titans of the underground euro metal scene…titans without a lead singer, that is. Why Epicus singer Johan Längquist didn’t join the band full time is beyond me, but everything happens for a reason. Besides, had he done so, there’s a good chance we’d never be aware of the vocal prowess of Messiah Marcolin. Originally the singer for pioneering doom metal band Mercy, Marcolin boasted a wide vocal range that could only be described as operatic. This in turn inspired Candlemass to up the ante on their second album, Nightfall. The arrangements of cuts like “The Well of Souls” and “Dark Are the Veils of Death” have more in common with classical and opera, albeit performed through an epic doom metal filter. The result is an album that’s as unique and powerful today as it was then. If Epicus made Candlemass doom metal legends, Nightfall made them doom metal gods.

6. Death – Scream Bloody Gore

Here’s a question for you: How extreme is “too extreme”? By 1987’s standards, the answer was Death’s Scream Bloody Gore. Although bands ranging from Kreator to Possessed had received the vinyl treatment, it was Death who was restricted to demo tapes for the better part of their formative years. Had they not persisted so fervently, there’s a good chance Scream Bloody Gore would’ve been yet another demo tape. And by “they”, I mean Chuck Schuldiner. Eventually, Combat Records would be the brave label to grow a pair and release Scream Bloody Gore to the masses. Even the most ardent of metal maniacs were taken aback. Here was an album that made Slayer, once the benchmark of extreme metal, sound like Judas Priest in comparison. Cuts like “Zombie Ritual”, “Regurgitated Guts”, and “Evil Dead” may not have invented death metal, but they were far more extreme than anything labelled “death metal” up until that point.

5. Sodom – Persecution Mania

After one last hurrah in the Expurse of Sodomy EP, Sodom kissed their primitive early sound goodbye with the release of their second full length album, Persecution Mania. Gone was the black eye makeup, over the top lyrics, and Moe Howard haircuts. Sodom was now armed and ready for total war. I’m not just talking about the lyrics, which are largely centered around war and its devastating effects on humanity. I’m talking about the music, which happens to sound more “war metal” than most war metal bands. Each song blasts through the listener like a piece of shrapnel. Close your eyes and you can smell the rotting carcasses scattered across the battlefield. Sodom’s newfound combination of thrash metal aggression, black metal savagery, and hardcore punk attitude would go on to define them as a fixture of not just thrash, but metal as a whole.

4. Anthrax – Among the Living

There seems to be a recent trend among kids my age (early 20s) of using Anthrax as a punching bag of sorts. Unlike the “cool” thrash bands of the time, such as Demolition Hammer and Vio-Lence (the only two thrash bands it seems acceptable to enjoy these days among these self proclaimed tastemakers), Anthrax’s ignorant mosh riffs, quirky sense of humor, and Bermuda shorts are “lame”. All that being said by a bunch of kids who I promise you were thrashing it up to “Indians”, “Caught in a Mosh”, and other classic tracks off Among the Living at their local Mayhem Fest stop circa a decade ago. Yes, despite what anyone says, Among the Living rules. The album showcases Anthrax at their musical peak, unleashing one blistering assault after the next. Their incorporation of memorable hooks and the melodic vocals of Joey Belladonna don’t soften the attack, but only make it more memorable.

3. Whitesnake – Whitesnake

Yes, I’m well aware that in comparison to Bathory, Sodom, and Death, including Whitesnake on this list is the equivalent of including Michael Bolton (Hey, The Hunger is an adult contemporary classic!). That said, there’s no denying importance of the band’s self titled 1987 album in the scope of heavy music that year. Thanks to a series of iconic videos, David Coverdale went from middle aged washout to MTV sex symbol overnight. But as much as sex sells, these videos would be nothing without a powerful soundtrack: A soundtrack that was largely written, arranged, and brought to life by guitarist extraordinaire, John Sykes. After working his magic with Tygers of Pan Tang and Thin Lizzy, Coverdale recruited the young axe slinger to catapult Whitesnake to the top of the charts. And boy did he do so. Whitesnake‘s amalgamation of lush AOR, fiery euro metal, and radio friendly pop rock made it a creative and critical triumph of its era, going on to sell nearly 10 million copies in America alone.

2. King Diamond – Abigail

After dabbling with conceptual horror on his solo band’s debut, Fatal Portrait (1986), King Diamond went full steam ahead with this idea on his second album, Abigail. The album tells the tale of a young couple named Miriam and Jonathan, who move into an old mansion, only to find out it’s possessed by the spirit of an evil child, Abigail. Not only that, but Miriam soon becomes pregnant herself with a child who will soon be possessed by Abigail. What happens from there? Assuming you’re one of the few who’ve never listened to this album before, I’ll leave it for you to find out for yourself. All of this is set to a pristine euro metal soundtrack, filled with classical flourishes and gothic atmosphere. King Diamond’s eerie delivery of the tale cemented him as heavy metal’s Alfred Hitchcock, while the twin guitars of Andy La Rocque and Michael Denner can only be described as terrifyingly glorious.

1. Savatage – Hall of the Mountain King

By 1987, Savatage’s career was floundering. Despite being one of the premiere bands of the US power metal scene and having the backing of Atlantic Records, they failed to crossover the way Queensrÿche did at the time. In a last ditch display of desperation, the band hopped down the pop metal rabbit hole with the release of 1986’s Fight for the Rock. Instead of attracting the attention of the average poser, I mean, Bon Jovi fan as intended, it only turned off Savatage’s trusty legion of true metal diehards. It wasn’t until a chance meeting with industry mogul Paul O’Neill that Savatage’s fortune changed for the better. According to Jon Oliva, this meeting occurred after what was supposed to be the band’s final show. It was a straightforward proposition: O’Neill offered the band $50,000 to produce and write music with them.

The result of this collaboration was Hall of the Mountain King. A combination of Savatage’s US power metal majesty and O’Neill’s rock opera theatrics (inspired by the likes of Styx and Meat Loaf), Hall of the Mountain King remains a crowning achievement of American metal. Throughout the album are moments of aggression (“White Witch”), hookiness (“24 Hours Ago”), melody (“Strange Wings”), and extravagant musicianship (“Hall of the Mountain King”), all wrapped in a shroud of epicness. It was the beginning of a magnificent creative partnership with O’Neill, one that would go on to break new ground in the progressive metal subgenre, but it all started here, with the greatest metal album of 1987: Hall of the Mountain King.

Honorable Mentions

• Death Angel – The Ultra-Violence
• Dio – Dream Evil
• Dream Death – Journey into Mystery
• Sarcófago – INRI
• Slaughter – Strappado