Kreator - Outcast
Judas Priest - Demolition
Running Wild - The Rivalry
Forbidden - Distortion
Accept - Death Row

The 90s yielded a lot of stuff of 80s bands that clicked more with me. Might have been my age when I discovered them. The way bands tried to change or adapt to sonic (and social) trends made for some interesting material.

I was a huge fan of this album and 90's Sodom, well at least half of it, I always wished they would drop the death vocals and use the thrash vocals only.

Some of mine are:

Saxon - Crusader
Black Sabbath - The Headless Cross
Carcass - Swansong
Slayer - Christ Illusion
Metallica - St. Anger
Anthrax - Worship Music
Megadeth - Hidden Treasures
Coroner - Grin
Vektor - Terminal Redux
Dying Fetus - Purification Through Violence
Suffocation - Souls to Deny
Cryptopsy - As Gomorrah Burns

Slayer - Divine Intervention
Limbonic Art - Ad Noctum

usually disliked, but I love both these albums

That's sort of how I feel about the first Keep Of Kalessin record, Through Times Of War. Fucking PHENOMENAL debut, the most underrated Norwegian Black Metal record EVER, it's "pure fucking armageddon". Yet the fans that like them keep talking about Armada, which is a good album too, but doesn't hold a candle to the absolute hell that TTOW is.

I also really like Enthroned's Pentagrammaton. It's not my favourite, and I don't think it's really 'hated' by the fans, but it's far from the first album that fans mention as being their favourites. Some great songs on that record, and fantastic drumming in particular.

Ordo Ad Chao is a massively underrated Mayhem record, and Attila's vocal performance especially is miles beyond what he did for De Mysteriis.

Darkthrone's Total Death is a great record too. Awesome songs that rarely get talked about, like Blackwinged, Earth's Last Picture, Majestic Desolate Eye, Blasphemer - the production's a little fucked but the songs are great.

Neurosis - Honor Found In Decay. I actually like it way better than Fires Within Fires, which seems to get more love between the 2. But IMO that album has Neurosis' last GREAT compositions, At The Well, My Heart For Deliverance, Bleeding the Pigs... so many great tunes.

Paradise Lost - Host
The Kovenant - Animatronic

Judas Priest- Jugulator. I love how gritty and outright evil this album sounds, and I like Tim Owens' vocals. The lyrics are dumb as a brick but the same is true for just about all Priest past Stained Class so it doesn't bother me that much.

Blind Guardian- A Twist in the Myth. I see a lot of people go at this album because BG has basically just used its formula over and over again since it was released, but I think this iteration of it was underratedly fun. The latter half has some real fun gems hidden in it

Devin Townsend- Empath. Honestly this might not quite fit the criteria for the fanbase overall, but it at least does for this site. This is Devin at some of his most eclectic and weird, but also at some of his best and most emotional. The way it shifts from big and powerful and majestic to crazy cosmic horror-esque stuff blows me away

Iced Earth - The Glorious Burden

There's a couple of duds (Eagle Cries, Valley Forge) but overall I think this is great. Declaration Day, Atilla, Waterloo are brilliant, Red Baron has Ripper at his peak, and Gettysburg is probably the best song they've ever done

Serenades is the only Anathema full length I like, and it is one of my favorite doom death albums.

No way, Valley Forge is my favourite song from that album.

I really dig most of these, too. "Electric Circus" is pretty killer.
"Hot In the Shade" is laden with a lot of filler, but the good songs are really good.

I was made for this thread. I am that weird guy who really likes St. Anger.
Why do I like it? I like how it sounds like they actually have something to prove on it, and that they are trying something different. To me, everything after AJFA (except St. Anger) sounds so safe and often uninspired.

And the snare sound doesn't bother me. I would take a weird/unique snare sound over a generic triggered snare sound every day of the week.

I actually agree with all of these except for a couple.

- Headless Cross is arguably my favorite Sabbath album because of When Death Calls.
- Voodoo is a masterpiece album (but I also love The Graveyard).
- Power Windows gets a bad rap because of the 80s synths but is still a real solid record.
- Destiny is a cool record. It's got a completely different vibe than other Saxon records, but some of the song on their are extremely good. Oh and I don't care what anyone says, that Christopher Cross cover rules and almost feels like that's the way the song should be written.
- Calm Before The Storm is like Venom going Van Halen. It's one of my favorite albums. Crazy mix of Speed/Glam/Punk Metal and the first five songs of that album are some of my personal favorites.
- Inside The Electric Circus is a good album. I can't say it's my favorite but I love all W.A.S.P. to be honest.

With that said, Turbo is an album that I never listen to all the way through. It just doesn't click with me. However, "Reckless" and "Out In The Cold" are great songs.

I've never given "Hot In The Shade" a listen, but I like The Elder and get shit on for it quite a bit hahaha

King Diamond - The Graveyard
Motorhead - Another Perfect Day
Iron Maiden - Fear Of The Dark & No Prayer For The Dying
Europe - Wings of Tomorrow
Kreator - Endorama
Black Sabbath - Tyr & Headless Cross
Coroner - Grin
Thin Lizzy - Renegade
Morbid Angel - Domination
My Dying Bride - Like Gods of The Sun
Darkthrone - Soulside Journey
Moonspell - Night Eternal

Indeed, Most of these are great records, imo .

“Renegade”, “Tyr”, and “Like Gods of the Sun” are essential, imo.

I know that Fates Warning tends to dislike their debut album, Night on Bröcken, or at least Jim Matheos does. I think it's a great album, though.

No Exit is my favourite of their albums, I think it's even better than the two before it.

I’d add “The Funeral Album” by Sentenced. It’s not my favorite of theirs, but just a step below its predecessors.
The closing track “End Of the Road” is their crowning achievement , as well.

I saw the thread title and thought "somebody is going to say St Anger" lol.

I guess without "hard mode" (on the topic of Metallica) I'd say I think the Black Album is treated harsher than it should be. Is it more radio friendly? Yes. Overplayed? Yes....but it's still good music, and it least it's still metal.

I also like Old Morning's Dawn.

Rotting Christ - Sleep of the Angels
Varathron - Crowsreign
Mystifier - The World Is So Good That Who Made It Doesn't Live Here

I'm going to expand on this because it's always kind of cool when you see someone has quoted you here

- Headless Cross - Also my favourite after Heaven And Hell. Because of When Death Calls indeed. I don't like the Ozzy albums. Just individual tracks.
- Astonishing atmosphere to Voodoo. It's got some sort of 'dark feel' to it. Brillant album. I don't like the Graveyard though. The only KD album I don't really get into
- Yep! Power Windows and Hold Your Fire get a lot of flak. But they're fantastic tunes, played and writted by 3 of the best in the business.
- Destiny - commercial as fuck. Completely radio friendly, barely metal. But it's got no filler, just 10 great tunes.
- Calm I get a lot of shit for liking. Don't get me wrong - the four preceding it are also just as loved by me. But to me they lost form with Prime Evil, Calm is one of the greats. But hardly anyone else thinks so.
- Inside is vintage WASP. Great sound and style they had back then. Love the debut just as much. The one in between not as much.
- Hot In The Shade is great - I don't even think of any of it as filler. Except I don't like the last two tracks (Caesar and Boomerang). If they had left them off or put two other better songs there it would be a perfect album to me. And my favourite KISS with Destroyer and Animalize.

The Graveyard is weird because that's seriously in the running for my favorite King Diamond story. It's not perfect (the climax is some cornball shit) but I thought the atmosphere and imagery was really evocative and interesting, just a shame that it's kinda aimless musically.

Yeah, the potential is there for a great concept/story. But it's a bit meandering musically. It's not as catchy or something and was in line with a couple of less catchy MF releases around the same time (Into The Unknown, Dead Again).

But then he nailed it next time round with Voodoo

To me Sabbath's Dehumanizer feels like the most natural, honest 90s release by any 70s dinosaur band, even moreso than Painkiller. (Which isn't a masterpiece in my book, so this isn't meant as hyperbolic praise, but it is praise.) Mob Rules 2 with a little extra camp menace? Hell yes, that's exactly what they should have done, and they did it well.

Motorhead's Iron Fist is cut from the exact same cloth as Ace of Spades and the trashing it got and still gets always bewildered me. Another Perfect Day sorta rules too, although these days maybe that one actually is slowly clawing its way up to some sort of cult fan favorite status.

Iron Maiden: Fear of the Dark and No Prayer for the Dying.

The Black Dahlia Murder - Unhallowed

This album got kicked around at release (this was before TBDM became as big as they are with people) and this album is still not looked back at as fondly as their later stuff. However, it's a real good time, even if it's the most Slaughter of the Soul they ever got

Thank God that many are mentioning Helloween's Chameleon album. I even wrote a review defending it and I don't think it's THAT BAD. You have the song "Giants" which can be on any of the Keeper albums and even Windmill is quite nice to listen to. Sure, there are some awkwardness here and there but I was expecting, like, THE WORST and considering the band was in a transitional period and it's amazing what they were able to put out. Many of the key players were leaving left and right and I appreciate the effort. If you like Power Metal with a lick of Hard Rock, Chameleon is your thing.

This one makes me sad, because that album was the soundtrack to my senior year of high school...as weird as that sounds.

I listened to a lot of different types of shit, but the full album was on shuffle on my playlist most, if not all, of that particular year.

Usually I may have individual songs or three from an album on any given playlist, but this one was always found a way into my playlist.

There seem to be two kinds of answers to this thread, the first being albums that you love that are kind of viewed indifferently by most or forgotten about, or the BastardHead rule of loving albums that most actively dislike.

For the first category, I would agree with the mention of Acts of the Unspeakable by Autopsy. It has such a deranged atmosphere and the greater punk vibes really give it an energy that surpasses even the first two albums, IMO. In fact, I'd say it's my second favorite Autopsy album behind Mental Funeral. I feel like I've brought this album up in a couple other threads, but I love Satanasword by Sabbat (JPN). I think this one tends to be forgotten about a bit, while most Sabbat fans talk up Evoke, The Dwelling, and/or Karisma as their peak. I saw someone mention Tapping the Vein by Sodom, but I think that tends to come up a lot as a particularly fan favorite album among their discography, it's just not as well known as something like Agent Orange. I think 'Til Death Do Us Unite is an album I really like that may fit this category better, as it tends to forgotten about more often.

Other albums that would fit in this category for me:

Motörhead - We Are Motörhead
Amon Amarth - Deceiver of the Gods
My Dying Bride - The Light at the End of the World

Neurosis - Given to the Rising is a top 3 Neurosis album.

I always thought Hate Campaign got a bad rap. Sure it was cobbled together quickly to get out of their Century Media contract, but it's a ferocious album. It's better than Massive Killing Capacity anyway.

lol that's my favorite Darkthrone album. Hell, I like it waaay more than stuff like A Blaze in the Northern Sky or Transilvanian Hunger. It has way more crushing riffs and the production is leagues better.

Morbid Angel - Heretic.
The production is questionable, but in an odd way it gives the album this sort of psychedelic dream-like quality that I love.

'Dance of death', 'The X factor' and 'No prayer for the dying' spring to mind. I prefer them to 'Killers', 'Somewhere in time' or 'Brave new world'.

Exodus - Force Of Habit is the first one that comes to mind. I’m in the minority of Exodus and thrash fans in general for thinking that album is really good. Even the band dismisses it. I’ve been a fan since it was released and remain a fan. Drop the two covers and it would be a masterpiece. Architect Of Pain is incredible, definitely underrated. I love the drop tuned sound and production, it’s also the peak of the H-team, creatively IMO. I would rank it as my third favorite Exodus album after Bonded and Fabulous.

Jag Panzer - Ample Destruction is the fan favorite but I'd rather listen to most of their other albums, especially Chain of Command and Age of Mastery.

I quite like this album, too. (Also agree that the covers waters it down.)
There are a ton of great riffs on this record.

Agreed.

Scanner - Terminal Earth. Hypertrace is usually considered the band's sole classic album but I probably listen to Terminal Earth more. Excellent songwriting and I love the vocals.

Judas Priest - Sad Wings of Destiny. Usually people choose Painkiller, Screaming for Vengeance, British Steel or Stained Class over Sad Wings but for me it's their best album.

Slayer - Show No Mercy. The obvious pick for most people's favourite Slayer album is Reign in Blood, but I find myself listening to Show No Mercy more often. I love the mix of speed/thrash and NWOBHM influences and melody.

Metallica - Kill 'Em All. My favourite Metallica album. It's just balls out thrashing fun for 50 (!) minutes. Their other albums all have a couple of tracks that could have been left off, but not KEA (except maybe Anesthesia).

Overkill - Feel the Fire. Following the trend of debut albums from thrash bands, while The Years of Decay is my favourite Overkill album, Feel the Fire is a close second. I liken this one to Show No Mercy in its speed and melody not found on the band's later work.

Dio - Dream Evil. Most people consider Holy Diver the best Dio album and I'm inclined to agree, but Dream Evil is a close second for me. Excellent songwriting throughout.

Voivod - War and Pain. Killing Technology is my favourite, but War and Pain is a close second. I love how dirty and raw it sounds. Actually, the more I think about it, Dimension Hatröss is up there too and it might be a tie for second place.

Motörhead - Iron Fist/Orgasmatron. These albums seem under appreciated after all the love that Ace of Spades gets but in my opinion, all three are also excellent. I probably listen to Iron Fist and Orgasmatron more than Ace of Spades, honestly.

Cirith Ungol - Paradise Lost. Very unpopular opinion, but I actually think Paradise Lost is Cirith Ungol's best album. The opening riff of Join the Legion is what heavy metal is about and after that the album is full of great songs.


I could go on but I think I'll leave it there for now.

This one is my favourite Overkill and I don't think they topped it despite having many more great albums.