Whereas the former half of the 90s saw extreme metal at its rawest and most brutal, the latter half saw the underground black and death metal scenes further expand their sounds, experimenting with elements ranging from progressive and melodic, to epic and symphonic. A handful of these albums are represented on our 1995 list, and I promise you even more will be on today’s list. Fear not purists: There’s also some bloodthirsty death metal, a platinum selling drug-addled rager, and the triumphant creative return of an old school staple. All that and more, in our Top 10 Metal Albums of 1996.
10. Pantera – The Great Southern Trendkill
By the time Pantera released The Great Southern Trendkill, the band was hanging on by a thread. Tensions between singer Phil Anselmo and brothers Dimebag Darrell and Vinnie Paul weren’t the only thing that had reached an all time high. So had Anselmo, whose heroin addiction became so crippling that the majority of his contributions to the album were recorded separately. Things only became worse when a few months into the album’s accompanying tour, Anselmo died backstage of a heroin overdose. As fate would have it, Anselmo would be revived and the band would soldier on for a few more years. However, they’d never release another album on par with those from Cowboys from Hell (1990) to Trendkill. Much like Van Halen’s Fair Warning (1981), Trendkill is an album seething with rage, anger, and sheer misanthropy. Yet the band held it together for their most brutal collection of songs yet, some even verging on death metal (“Suicide Note Pt. II”, the title track, etc.).
9. Type O Negative – October Rust
I have no doubt in my mind that someone, somewhere within the confines of the internet gave me a hard time for excluding Type O Negative’s Bloody Kisses from my 1993 list, and rightfully so. “Really Joe? Not even an honorable mention?” Yeah, I’ll take the L on that one, and if 1991 weren’t such a stacked year, I’d apologize for excluding Slow, Deep and Hard too. It only took 6 years, but the time has come to finally right my wrong with the inclusion of Type O’s fourth studio album, October Rust. I’m not sure if this is my favorite Type O album per se, but it’s definitely the one where, from a creative standpoint, everything came together. The brooding doom metal of the first two albums is perfectly balanced with the foreboding gothic atmosphere of Bloody Kisses, infused with a healthy dose of melodic eroticism designed for mass airplay (i.e. “Love You to Death”, “Be My Druidess”, “My Girlfriend’s Girlfriend”). The formula was a success, earning Type O their second gold album and further expanding their already rabid fanbase.
8. Borknagar – Borknagar
It wasn’t long after Bathory and Enslaved that other Scandinavian bands saw a greater future within the realm of Viking metal. One such band was Borknagar. Although they don’t get nearly as much recognition as their Norwegian peers, Borknagar helped push second wave black metal in a much more refined direction, without sacrificing the barbarism at its core. The band’s self titled debut combines black metal with facets of prog, folk, and even symphonic metal, melding these contrasting sounds together to create a tapestry that’s as intricate as it is captivating. Sure, cuts like “Vintervredets sjelesagn” and “Svartskogs gilde” would fit on any black metal mixtape. However, one can’t help but admire the Viking romanticism of “Dauden” or the bombastic, yet savagely arranged “Fandens allheim”.
7. Sacramentum – Far Away from the Sun
By 1996, the melodic death and black metal explosion was well under way. In fact, ’96 was arguably the greatest year for melodic black metal. Among the key releases of the year (Consider this a bonus honorable mentions.): Satyricon’s Nemesis Divina, Vinterland’s Welcome My Last Chapter, Diabolical Masquerade’s Ravendusk in My Heart, and this here album, Sacramentum’s Far Away from the Sun. As far as I’m concerned, this album is as brilliantly written, arranged, and executed as the finest moments in Dissection’s catalog. For the entire course of its 46 minute run, Far Away keeps the listener on the edge of their set; entranced by the spellbinding array of riffs, melodies, and solos that evoke images of a land infernal and unknown. It’s no wonder that so many modern melodic black metal bands continue to co-opt the aesthetic of this album today.
6. Opeth – Morningrise
It wasn’t long after shocking the Swedish death metal scene with their debut full length, Orchid, that Opeth returned with album #2, Morningrise. The album, while more refined in production and songwriting than its predecessor, still boasted a progressive and melodic blend of death and black metal that owed as much to 70s progressive rock in structure as it did the cutting edge extreme metal of the day. There’s also an increased presence of acoustic folk interludes, especially on cuts like “Advent” and “The Night and the Silent Water”. Perhaps Mikael Åkerfeldt was listening to Renaissance and Led Zeppelin III when writing this opus? Regardless of the underlying influences, Morningrise is a brilliant snapshot of Opeth at this vulnerable stage of their career: Fresh off of establishing themselves as a creative force and slowly starting to mature as artists.
5. Amorphis – Elegy
If 1994’s Tales from the Thousand Lakes is a death metal album with touches of prog, doom, and folk thrown in, then its follow up, Elegy, is a traditional/progressive metal album with touches of death metal thrown in. Taking a complete 180 from their Scandinavian death metal roots, Amorphis fully embraced the writing and instrumentation of titans like Iron Maiden and Queensrÿche on album #3. Not only this, but they incorporated tinges of classic progressive rock à la Jethro Tull, Kansas, and so forth (i.e. “On Rich and Poor”, “Weeper on the Shore”, etc.). To say these bands were unfashionable in the late 90s would be an understatement. Yet Amorphis amped up the finest elements of each influence in a way that their elitist, “extreme metal or nothing” crowd wouldn’t even notice. Of course, now well into middle age, and considering the trajectory of bands like Amorphis and Opeth, it would be weird to be a late forty/early fifty something year old and NOT admit to liking Jethro Tull, but I digress.
4. Immolation – Here in After
Come the latter half of the 90s, many of death metal’s classic crop had grown stale and tired. In their place came a slew of brutal death metal bands, 99% of which were nothing more than one trick ponies, and the 1% who weren’t not having much impact outside of a key album or two (More on that in a bit.) Yet through it all, Immolation persisted, returning 5 years after their debut (1991’s Dawn of Possession) darker and deadlier than ever with Here in After. Not only did this new Immolation showcase a more diabolical side of the band if such a thing was possible, but it also boasted experimentations in technicality and dissonance, both of which would become genre cornerstones in the decades to come. There’s no telling how many bands Here in After spawned, but I promise you none of them can lay it down as hard as the breakdown in “I Feel Nothing”.
3. Deep Purple – Purpendicular
Sometimes all it takes is one little push to get an engine running again. Such was the case with Deep Purple. The year was 1996 and the reunion glory of Perfect Strangers (1984) was as distant a memory as Machine Head (1972) was 12 years earlier. In fact, the 70s giants were receiving airplay on a then new radio format called “classic rock”. Despite being relegated to dinosaur status by nearly everyone in the music biz, Purple soldiered on and did the unthinkable: They dropped a classic album without Ritchie Blackmore. The last time they did this (1975’s Come Taste the Band), it ended the band altogether. This time around, the move breathed whole new life into the classic outfit. We can thank Dixie Dregs guitarist Steve Morse, whose jazzy riffing and spirited soloing on Purpendicular gave Purple the “Vavoom” they needed for over a decade.
2. Cryptopsy – None So Vile
Remember a couple entries ago when I said about 1% of 90s brutal death metal bands contributed anything meaningful to the pantheon of extreme metal? Here’s 1 of that 1%. Cryptopsy were mulling around the Canadian metal underground as far back as the late 80s, originally formed under the name Obsessive Compulsive Disorder, then Necrosis, then Gomorroa, and finally, Cryptopsy. They released a demo (1993’s Ungentle Exhumation) and full length album (1994’s Blasphemy Made Flesh) before taking the death metal scene by storm with their second album, None So Vile. What makes this album so incredible isn’t the unholy gutturals of Lord Worm, mindblowing drumming of Flo Mounier, or even the overtly technical musicianship (although all of these aspects rule). What makes None So Vile stand out from almost every other classic death metal release is its hooky riffs. Go ahead and cry nerds: This album has some of the catchiest riffs this side of AC/DC. It shouldn’t work in death metal, let alone brutal death metal, and yet it does, perfectly.
- Bathory – Blood on Ice
The greatest metal album of 1996 was actually supposed to be the greatest metal album of 1989: You just weren’t ready for it then. Quorthon began working on Blood on Ice adjacent to what would become Bathory’s fourth album, Blood Fire Death. Whereas Blood Fire Death was an epic, Viking centric extension of the black metal sound Bathory had established with their first three albums, Blood on Ice was a full blown departure: A metal opera complete with clean vocals, traditional metal tropes, choir vocals, and acoustic interludes. Mind you, the metal press was just adjusting their heads around black metal as a genre in the late 80s. If they had heard this, it would’ve blown everyone’s minds, critics and fans alike.
Blood on Ice chronicles the life of a boy who survives in the forest, his home pillaged by a band of barbarians. As time passes on, this young boy grows into a mighty warrior, aided along the way by a “One Eyed Old Man” and two ravens. Not only this, but he soon cultivates supernatural powers, similar to those explored on Iron Maiden’s Seventh Son of a Seventh Son and KISS’s Music from the Elder. Yes, it’s as common a theme in metal as war, motorcycles, and the dark one, but that’s besides the point. Demo production aside, Blood on Ice is a timeless tale that stands up to the epic metal of Cirith Ungol and Manilla Road, while forging the path for all Scandinavian metal to follow. It is also the greatest metal album of 1996.
Honorable Mentions
- Abigail – Intercourse & Lust
- Gates of Ishtar – A Bloodred Path
- Grave Digger – Tunes of War
- Overkill – The Killing Kind
- X Japan – Dahlia