Seven Killer Metal Albums You May Have Never Heard

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While our site likes to cover all rock music genres, one of our favorites has always been good old-fashioned metal. Of course, we’ve gone deep into many different metal genres over the past few months. However, sometimes it’s nice to sit back and pick out some of our favorite metal albums that many people may not know outside the hardcore fan base. The point is that we want to turn more people onto excellent metal music they may have missed along the way. So, in this article, we present seven great metal albums that we think will ignite your rock and roll metal shoes and have you screaming for more……

#7 – Enforced – Kill Grid

This powerhouse thrash delivers the same energy, pounding drums, and ultra-fast thrash guitars as the late, great Power Trip. Vocalist Riley Gale died in 2020, and the band later returned to live activity with Seth Gilmore on vocals. Enforced is the best thrash band out there among the new maniacs on the block. This stuff recalls early Exodus, some hardcore for a more brutal sound, and plenty of chops to keep you pounding your dashboard. Or your metalhead kid will love it.

#6 – High Tide – Sea Shanties

This album hails from 1969, but it qualifies as a rediscovery because it has been reintroduced through numerous reissues over the years. High Tide hailed from England and were a heavy band, especially for their day, and would have given every last hard rock band a run for its money with fiery guitar, a vocalist who sounded eerily like Jim Morrison, violin and keyboards, and a sound that was among the early progressive music.

Think the Doors had decided to go metal, Blue Öyster Cult for the organ and trippy stuff, a tad bit of Jethro Tull, and even one jam tune that is more than just a little reminiscent of Hot Rats-era Frank Zappa. The original band released two studio albums in 1969 and 1970, and I recommend both. It’s the one classic rock-era album you can call new to your ears.

#5 – Flotsam and Jetsam – Blood in the Water

America has a handful of superb metal bands with brilliant lyrics, outstanding musicianship, and power to burn. This band from Phoenix has been slugging out top-notch thrash/heavy metal for decades and never disappoints. Indeed, like other veteran thrash outfits and those right on the line between the hardest rock and thrash, Flotsam and Jetsam deliver a modern metal masterpiece. Blood in the Water burns with anxiety, believe it or not, and sounds like it’s just freaking out waiting to get to the next excellent dual-guitar section, one of Eric A.K. Knutson’s caterwauling vocals, and sharp songwriting. These fellows are not children and do not make childish records. It is a legend already.

#4 – Armored Saint – Punching the Sky

These fellows go back to the early 1980s metal scene, when Metallica wanted singer John Bush as their vocalist. However, Bush refused the offer, and Armored Saint became a second-tier band whose star should have risen much higher. This album is a triumph. Bush is always expressive, a great singer and lyricist and, like Eric A.K. Knutson in Flotsam and Jetsam, a very personal and thoughtful singer as well. But Punching the Sky is brilliant, with incredible song arranging, advanced guitar, and chords that make every song shine and take on dimensions most bands can’t achieve. Why this fantastic band and their equally genius albums haven’t propelled them to superstardom is a mystery.

#3 – Rivers of Nihil – The Work

Starting as a reasonably contemporary death metal/progressive act, this band has ambition all over it, and with each new release, the albums became more involved and added more melody. By Where Owls Know My Name, the band had brought in saxophonist Zach Strouse and used plenty of keyboards and clean vocals. That was an astonishing feat in the extreme metal world, and on The Work, they went even further down the rabbit hole. Their death metal is still present, but the journey clearly takes them into the works of ’70s progressive outfits, showing that modern bands that don’t want to stagnate are finding fresh ideas from decades ago and making their styles more interesting. Bands like Rivers of Nihil are leading the way into more melodic territory.

#2 – Deafheaven – Infinite Granite

This band has been around for some time, and earlier albums were much more black metal-influenced but also contained lots of quiet passages and some lovely guitar work. But like other bands in this “shoegaze” world, so-called because they tended to just stand still on stage and stare at their shoes, melody was starting to take a stronghold, and this album is a masterpiece. It starts very quietly, reminds me of Alcest’s quiet moments, and is just gorgeous, with less black metal and more beauty. This is the sound of a band that started very brutally, discovered melody from the past, and applied it to their base sound. The vocals are, for the most part, clear, and the guitars are clean and just beautiful. It would have been my first choice had it not been for…….

#1 – Mastodon – Hushed and Grim

I always look forward to a new Mastodon album with the same enthusiasm a fox discovers an unguarded chicken coop. They are unique, to use a cliché, but it really does apply. Many bands and performers use real-life tragedies and events to fuel their creative fires, but if it’s done better than by this great band, I don’t know who it is. This first double album is dedicated to the memory of their manager, Nick John, and lyrically it’s very touching and very sad; musically, it captures convoluted feelings and anguish while still rocking like hell.

However, there are some new musical approaches, and the album gives you much to think about. It is far from dull or self-indulgent, and the music is usually top-notch, with the unmistakable remnants of Rush not too far away without being derivative in any way. Mastodon are metal, but they are brilliant in a way that non-metal fans would be captivated. Hushed and Grim is an album that sets the bar far higher for all the competition.