10 Of The Heaviest Rock Albums Ever Released

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I recall with fondness when my friends and I argued over who was the hardest band, who was most outrageous, etc., and being teenagers, we were experts on the subject. But sometimes, rock and roll has no more excellent therapeutic value than when you don’t worry about the business side and concentrate on the music and image. Today, that’s not possible. Many people can create their albums with their computers, ProTools, and other programs and apps that sound as good as old records, but playing would undoubtedly leave something to be desired in most cases.

The business is closer than ever, and the magic is farther in the background. If you’re in a place like LA, NYC, Chicago, or some larger city that has studios, it’s one thing. Still, the only “studios” in NW Arkansas were just little hives for local businesses to do radio commercials; a few had some 4-track or a little larger 16-track machines.

Meanwhile, the fate of the world lies in our tiny hands because the heaviest, the best, the most butt-kicking bands were, we were sure, eager to learn their fates a thousand times an hour before the internet from fans who argued at school lunchtime, during class, drew logos, wore homemade patches, and maybe were lucky enough to see a live show. You know, dedication was on a different level back then.

One of the most ferocious battles amongst guitar-playing nerds and others who weren’t jocks who were too busy keeping up with disco while they chased pretty girls all over town to try to impress them (if it did, I wasn’t successful) was whether Led Zeppelin or KISS was greater and whether Jimmy Page or Ace Frehley were the greatest guitar players. My vote went to KISS and Ace Frehley because of their imagery, mystique, simpler straight-up rock and roll songs, and a mythical reputation as a touring band in the late ’70s.

Other contenders were, of course, Black Sabbath, Led Zeppelin, Aerosmith, and Styx, but when Eddie Van Halen was first broadcast, millions of jaws dropped to the floor worldwide. For a little while, the guitar-playing contest was over. Only Jimi Hendrix withstood the comparisons for a while. Jeff Beck is my favorite living guitarist, but he wisely laid low because his jazz/fusion was not what would get attention. Today, it’s Beck by a landslide.

Look at ten seminal ultra-heavy albums for their time and see how the industry reacted, not to mention fans and bands. This is not a complete look because I don’t own every album, but albums I have or at least have an excellent working knowledge of them. I’ve mentioned Link Wray and his infamous “Rumble,” Dick Dale and his great surfing songs and tuff tone for the day, and the Rolling Stones, whose albums usually have enough variety you couldn’t call them anything but Rolling Stones albums, and the grittiest and toughest rock and roll.

# 10 – Are You Experienced? – Jimi Hendrix Experience

I cannot fathom how this monster album impacted rock fans when it came out. I was only six, so Hendrix wouldn’t be part of my life until college. But nobody ever welded R&B, soul, blues, jazz, and rock and roll to create such an earth-shaking new sound. It was so wild. Undoubtedly, many guitar players probably returned to day jobs, knowing they could never get near this genius.

Read More: Jimi Hendrix Albums Ranked

# 9 – Kick Out The Jams – MC5

Detroit in the late ’60s was full of riots, demonstrations, etc., and was NOT a hippy town where flower children could go out on Grand Ave. and distribute daffodils to policemen. It was hard and ultra-violent, and the MC5 (Motor City 5) saw wartime, not peaceniks to address, and boy, did they ever. In one of the most daring and ultimately brilliant moves ever, the label decided to do something never done before, and that was to release a live album as its debut.

Kick Out The Jams was the result, and it was brutal. The title track was peppered with another word that ensured it would be banned by Hudson’s, Detroit’s biggest department store, and live, the band ensured the fans got the message. With thunderous, abrasive guitars, hooks, and somewhat kitschy sloganeering today, MC5 nonetheless gave us one of the heaviest albums for its day. It’s still gnarly and raw after all this time.

Read More: Top 10 MC5 Songs

# 8 – Black Sabbath – Black Sabbath

I won’t declare this debut the band’s greatest, but it is their definitive doom album, another band that didn’t see the world in peace signs. Ozzy Osbourne’s wail on the title track, the heavier-than-lead bass lines, and guitarist Tony Iommi’s sick huge bends created an album that would be a blueprint for all heavy music to follow.

Read More: Top 10 Black Sabbath Songs

# 7 – Rocks – Aerosmith

They were the American amalgamation of The Yardbirds and The Rolling Stones, and that blend worked very well for them. But on their fourth album, somebody must have put a burr under their saddle because Rocks is not just a great album; it’s also one of rock and roll’s heaviest ever. “Sick As A Dog”‘s segue into “Nobody’s Fault” is the building of one of rock and roll’s most titanic riffs ever played. This fantastic album floored us, and while I do not care for post-’70s Aerosmith, this one is one of the albums that raises the heavy quotient again.

# 6 – Van Halen – Van Halen

The story needn’t be retold over and over. It was just indeed a mind-blowing experience when we got our Van Halen albums, eight tracks like I did or cassettes, and after “Runnin’ With The Devil,” which had already made our heads spin out of control, the now most famous in this sector of the galaxy guitar solo aka “Eruption” would make guitar players go back and practice a lot, force the LA music labels to invent hundreds of Van Halen clones and find guitar players who could tap, although not with the same flair and sound as Eddie, and leave the rest of us drooling all over ourselves as Eddie shredded all competition, again leaving only Hendrix intact.

Read More: Top 10 Van Halen Albums

# 5 – Woman And Children First – Van Halen

Van Halen Yes, it’s a bit weird to have two albums here, but the first was for the technique and style, and by the time Van Halen released this album, Women and Children First, for whatever reason, they decided to go as heavy and brutal as possible, and it worked. “The Cradle Will Rock” started as a good straight-up rocker. Still, from then on, starting with Alex Van Halen’s tribal drum intro, sounds started screeching, clawing, and annihilating anything that got in the way, giving us “Everybody Wants Some!”

It was just incredible. But not content, Eddie cooks up “Fools,” a boogie that makes you swing like a gorilla in a jazz band. And “Romeo Delight” is near thrash, and “Tora! Tora!”/”Loss of Control” finally leaves functioning ear drums bleeding before the last couple of cuts give a little respite. But it’s the incredible power of the first side, especially that I maintain is another album that raised the heaviness bar for everybody.

Read More: Top 10 Van Halen Songs

#4 – Ride The Lightning – Metallica

The funny thing about the Big Four and a few others who were around but didn’t get the attention because they didn’t sell as well is that most of these bands’ debuts were not great. It took the second album for most outfits to get the motor running, so to speak, but nobody was ready for Ride The Lightning. The opening track, “Fight Fire With Fire,” is a devastating thrash tune, so I have no problem listing it as an early death metal song. When I first heard it, I was in shock. This, indeed, was new territory now. Other albums are classics, but this is the blueprint for the heaviest thrash and early death metal.

Read More: Top 10 Metallica Songs

# 3 – Honorary Mentions – Suffocation, Morbid Angel, Sepultura, Vader, Oransii Pazuzu etc…

This style came on so fast that it’s impossible to pick out just one pioneering album because of its diffuse styles. All, however, had ultra thrash tempos, unless they were using doom as their template, like Obituary, Immolation or Incantation, experimenting, like Morbid Angel, a thrash/death hybrid like Sepultura, and the first two astonishingly brutal Suffocation albums. I’d pick Suffocation for raising the bar yet one more time, but they had a lot of competition.

If this most brutal yet technically mind-boggling music sounds interesting, I recommend the bands I mentioned: Nile, who specializes in Egyptian themes; Vader, a great thrash/death band from Poland; Oransii Pazuzu, a Finnish black metal/experimental band, or Possessed, regarded as an early death pioneer who invented the term “death metal.” Don’t let this tag discourage you – it is too extreme for most, but it is some of today’s most challenging music if you are like me and like your metal tough.

# 2 – Far Beyond Driven – Pantera

This third album since their “official” restart with Cowboys From Hell debuted at Number 1 on the Billboard charts and was so brutal and abrasive it was beyond anything most people had heard. Pantera was re-tooling metal for the ages. Brothers Vinnie Paul Abbott and guitar hero Darrell (Dimebag) Abbott were brilliant as drummers and guitarists. Dimebag was so good that he was getting many favorable comparisons to Eddie Van Halen, who is a huge fan. Dimebag was that good, and Pantera was the band to beat in their unfortunately short lifespan.

This album is just psychotic – vocalist Phil Anselmo is a monster, literally on vocals. Live, the band had no equals. Once again, the heaviness quotient had to be raised on this album. It would be a horrific shame that Dimebag would be assassinated onstage on December 8, 2004, by a deranged gunman in a club in Columbus, Ohio. But his legacy lives on.

Read More: Top 10 Pantera Songs

# 1 – Death Atlas – Cattle Decapitation

As this list has gotten heavier and more brutal, I can’t think of anybody worth more in this extreme music environment than San Diego’s Cattle Decapitation. Despite its unsavory band name, this outfit is on the cusp of containing musicality, especially in older albums. Still, with time and a few more albums, it has evolved into a great band capable of clean vocals, melodic passages, and, like always, featuring lyrics that deal specifically with pollution, global warming, and mankind’s extinction for lack of doing anything about it.

Singer Travis Ryan has it all – he can growl like a tiger with heartburn, has a shriek that could have been serious competition for Dan McCafferty of Nazareth, and has a clean voice. This is not easy music to listen to if you’re not already conditioned. However, given the subject matter and anger that we should all feel as our forests are leveled, jungles burned, oceans polluted, and air polluted by industry, it is more than appropriate.