Sister question to Zodi's "who caught all the breaks" question. It really got me thinking those bands that really should have "made it", but for one reason or another never really did. Be it bad luck, bad albums, rubbish management or otherwise.

Exodus are the most obvious example for me. They were in the right place at the right time. They had the ties to fellow bands who were taking off. Sure, Bonded by Blood came out a little too late for some, but then they released Pleasures of the Flesh, thereby welcoming the so-called "whiffle thrash" sub genre. In doing so, they changed vocalists much too early, and spent the coming years releasing mediocre thrash. Constantly changing band members, huge drug and alcohol issues and poor management choices killed any chance of success to rival the likes of Anthrax or Slayer.

Another one is Anvil, who absolutely had the metal world at their feet with their sophomore record, before completely disappearing off of the face of the planet just a year or two later. I don't know much about their ensuing years, but as far as I can work out they were basically stuck touring Canada for nearly 25 years, before a fleeting revival lasting all of 15 minutes as a result of a well known documentary.

Diamond Head.

Managed by Sean Harris' mother. No one rule in the music industry is to have a competent manager to acheive success.

Combined with a lack of a major label deal, they lacked the success acheived by the likes of Maiden and Priest.

Arguably, if it wasn't for Metallica (Lars) worship of them they would hardly be known these days.

I feel like Skid Row belong here. They were on top of the world in 1991 with the first #1 heavy metal album. However, that peak was short lived considering how grunge exploded very soon afterwards. To me that's why they belong here. Instead of having a prestigious career they fucked everything. They took their manager's advice to go on hiatus, thinking that popularity will shift back to 80s metal / rock. After that they were still huge in their heads and summarily lost Bach because of bullshit. Since then there have only been 2 albums in over twenty years, and no new album since 12 years ago. Then again, who really gives a shit about anything Skid Row has done that didn't have Bach on it? Certainly everyone since anytime the band gets mentioned it almost always includes something about Bach. Talk about totally dropping the ball when you were the face of heavy metal for a brief moment.

I want to say Celtic Frost as well but who the hell knows. The whole first part of their career was a mish-mash of line-up changes, not sticking to a genre, the legendary ball-drop that was Cold Lake, and years of inactivity and more mish-mash of ideas and line-ups before coming back for one more album. Should they have had greater longevity and more output? Who knows. Tom definitely deserved better than what happened to him.

You could say that most bands that had a band member die as bad luck but that may be unfair.

Helloween. Kiske coming in and the Keepers albums had them set up to explode, then Kai Hansen left, they got into legal shit so didn't put out an album for three years, and then when they did start releasing music again it was two of the worst albums they could possibly have done. It's quite impressive that they then managed to bounce back so strongly when Deris was brought in, but if Hansen/Kiske had stayed... Who knows where they'd be now?

Good suggestions so far, but the one I agree with most is Skid Row. It really seems they could have been on the same trajectory as Guns N' Roses.

And I don't know about "dropping a break", but I always scratched my head as to how Anathema was very bigger. I feel like "Judgement" is a really accessable, but incredible record. I guess the time in which it came out was continuative to having that type of music explode, but can I still kind of imagine some of the songs from Judgement being played on MTV and Much Music.

Diamond Head were actually approached by a major label. It escapes me now who it was (someone like EMI), but they visited Linda Harris, and she dismissed the record executive on the basis she didn't know who they were.



Growing up in that era, I can tell you that this musical style is exactly what was not popular on the radio around 1998. If Judgement came out 4-5 years earlier, then potentially the story might be a little different. Also, the earlier death metal influences probably put bigger record companies off.

I feel like Tarot had a real opportunity to get out there around the time of Crows Fly Black. That album was super accessible and clear compared to their previous works, and Hietala was big in Nightwish at the time. But instead they followed it up with the weaker Gravity of Light and then went silent for eight years. I guess Nightwish was more demanding of a schedule. Shame, though, as Tarot were awesome.

I 100% agree with the Skid Row one, although Bach has put out some solid solo material because of it so I can't complain too much. Perhaps some of those songs would have made it to a Skid Row record. Also, I don't think Slave was the first #1 chart metal record, Quiet Riot did that with Metal Health.

Tarot was heavily promoted and advertised circa Crows Fly Back. Granted, it must've been largely due to the association with Nightwish, who were so big at the time that they had an advert in the back cover of Donald Duck comic magazine (which is very big in Finland).

I don't know if their failure to make a bigger breakthrough was due to their new album being disappointing. Even in 2006, few albums had adverts in bus stops or metro stations, but I recall that Crows Fly Back did. I remember being surprised at how truly metal it was, as opposed to the "metal" that ever gets advertised anywhere. It's more likely, in my opinion, that labels took a big risk with Tarot, counting on the (then already eclipsing) Finnish metal boom, and Hietala's association with Nightwish. All that effort was probably highly reflected in album sales, but four years later, labels probably figured that it wasn't going to be profitable any more. Crows Fly Back and its mainstream presence was a product of its time.

Already in 2008-09, new rock and metal only got radio play in designated programming, and its mainstream presence was almost completely wiped out. Nightwish was struggling, the world had forgot about Bodom, and not even a new In Flames album made any real waves in 2008. As a rock band, you probably had to have a song on Guitar Hero to be worth your salt to labels.

As discussed in their own respective threads, Faceless and Nachtmystium. Both were darlings of the metal press with acclaimed albums, both constantly thwart any good will they have due to their respective frontmen. If Faceless hadn't fucked up so much I could see them going for a more mainstream sound with some of their tech-death tinges and ending up kind of like Gojira. Nachtmystium probably wouldn't have reached those heights, but they definitely have squandered so much good will.

Huh I figured that might be the case. That was an interesting transitional time for music. The internet was just getting really big and everyone was starting to get savvy, but then things changed in the 2010s and stuff like Bandcamp and whatnot became popular. Now I feel like music is separated more into niches and it's less in the hands of labels than it was. Bands like Tarot and a lot of others just got unlucky with that one I guess - so many of my favorite bands from high school ended up taking super long breaks around this time and music kinda moved on without them.

I don't know about that, it seems like their time was up. Do you think releasing "Subhuman Race" in 1993 instead of 1995 would've successfully brought them into the alternative rock movement? Their two biggest singles came from their first album, the second one hit #1 because it was released in a week with less commercial competition but ultimately sold less than half and the singles just weren't as good as "18 and Life." Besides commercial success, their music just wasn't as good and memorable.

Oh shit, you're right. Forgot about that. I was misled in that Slave was the first in the newer era to chart that high.


They would have been hit hard no matter what. Being who they were wasn't going to save them, just like it didn't save any other 80s rock / metal band from the 90s wave. Still, I think their legacy and current standing would be different had they been releasing consistent albums with quality music. As it stands, they're a band that is completely and utterly irrelevant who has done nothing but live off that 80s / early 90s success. I'd personally agree that their music isn't something I always come back to, being only 3 albums of note (out of 5 total) in a +30 year career definitely shows they got content with being lazy and squandering their potential.

I think the only thing that would change Skid Row's legacy is if they put out a good album after 1991. They weren't a particularly great band, their albums didn't have the deepest cuts, and they were definitely known more for a single than for an album.

Without looking it up, I think the distinction that Slave to the Grind has was that it was the first metal album to debut at #1. I could be wrong on that though, because Ozzy has a point that it might have just been the first in the Soundscan era when sales were tracked instead of just collected by calling record stores and asking them (I think that system started in 1991 so there weren't a whole lot of other big metal releases before Slave to the Grind to even have a chance at accomplishing it). For what it's worth Pantera also claims to be the first metal band to do it with Far Beyond Driven but I think at that point people were splitting what was and wasn't metal and probably discarded Skid Row as a silly glam band despite Slave to the Grind going hard as fuck.

Vio-Lence. Watching their documentary is a bit depressing because it turns into, "and then they fucked up again". With a few bad decisions, they went from potentially being on the level of Testament and Exodus to shitting the bed and vanishing. They still would have had a rough go in the 90s, but we'd potentially see an active Vio-Lence today.

Speaking of Vio-Lence, how about Machine Head successfully managing to hop on every trend for decades?

Oh, wait, I wrote the post then realized I was in the wrong thread.

Here we go. https://www.metal-archives.com/board/vi ... 0#p2800530

The first band that immediately comes to mind before anyone else has to be Nevermore. Those guys never even did a proper headlining tour of their own fucking country through like 6 albums if I remember correctly. A total joke. They should have been huge.

no I think you were spot on about Machine Head; Rob Flynn basically focused on Machine Head because he felt that they had the most potential to make money and go mainstream- whereas as a result, he let Vio-lence die off. I remember Vio-Lence did a third album that basically sucked- it was mainstream groove/slow metal and no longer thrash, which was essentially what Machine Head wanted to do anyway to make more money. Rob Flynn was just chasing the $$$. Too bad, because I really liked Vio-Lence.

Amon- Eric hyped it after leaving Deicide and we all know how thats gone.

As much as Dead Heart in a Dead World should've been Nevermore's Black Album/Empire, I think the band really faltered when they failed to capitalize on This Godless Endeavour's momentum. It's initially understandable when you consider the health problems a couple members had in 2006, but the decision for Dane and Loomis to release solo albums in 2008 instead of a new Nevermore album really cost them in the long run. I enjoyed The Obsidian Conspiracy but it was too little too late to make much of an impact.

I don't think there's any musician that squandered their success more than Bobby Liebling. Pentagram's 70s bungling is the stuff of legend, having failed to impress Gene Simmons when he was scouting them and screwing up a studio experience with Sandy Pearlman. They never would've reached mainstream success during the 80s but a more stable lineup probably could've gotten the exposure Trouble or Candlemass had at the time. Even nowadays, the redemption that they got from the Last Days Here documentary was completely ruined by Bobby relapsing, losing his family, and beating up his mother. At this point, I'd prefer Pentagram to just keep the live trio format with Victor Griffin fronting it as Bobby has proven himself to be an irredeemable piece of shit.

I don't think they completely disappeared at all -- I mean, you say this happened after their sophomore; one could just as easily claim this occurred after their third album, Forged in Fire, which does in part seem to be their most highly praised record over-all. They took a couple of years to release the follow-up, Strength of Steel, but it has some of their best songs on it ("Paper General", anyone?). They never stopped doing what they do, and even went through a slightly more technical/near-thrashy period in the early 90s when everyone else wanted to sound like Pantera. I think the band does have a kind of weird attitude about all this; I never bothered with the movie but it seems like they were like Cirith Ungol in the sense that they perhaps had unrealistic expectations about themselves, but they seem to be a little more bitter that they never got bigger. Nevertheless, I'd argue it can't be that much of a deterrent to them as indeed, they never stopped!

I don't have much to go on with this, but your comment about Exodus made me think of Forbidden. They seem like a band that should have been bigger than they were, by a certain logic. Key players with lots of experience and ties to other bands that somehow out-sold them, like machine Head. Forbidden even tried to ride that wave in the mid-90s, but rather than make their popularity explode, those last two albums were seemingly disregarded by almost everyone. I'm not necessarily the best judge of such music but they don't seem that bad to me; certainly not worse than a lot of the "half-thrash" that was popular at that time.

I'd say Forbidden's vocalist was a little too idiosyncratic for a wider appeal. It's not necessarily his voice but rather a lot of really goofy choices ("STEP BY STEP - BY STEP - BY STEP - EEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!!").

You might be right. I rather like him and I honestly didn't even think of that.

You should look up Tim Calvert's account of time post Twisted Into Form for a bit of a better idea of why Forbidden kinda fell off after that album. Basically, they were in a very precarious place with the whole grunge thing, and the Trapped demo earned them enough attention to keep afloat. Apparently though Locicero wanted to move into a more alternative direction, basically what Distortion was, and that turned off a lot of the suits who were still willing to give Forbidden a chance, basically putting them on life support until they pulled the plug after Green.


As far as Anderson's vocals, yeah, they were kinda weird, but thrash has always been kind to odd voices, and Anderson was way more traditional than a lot of other guys. If Exodus and Overkill can build fanbases, Forbidden shouldn't have any issues, you know?

Surprised Possessed haven't been mentioned...somehow the missed the death metal boom despite being one of the bands that founded it...

Possessed split up in 1987- right at the time they really started to get big. Part of it was Larry not wanting to do thrash/death metal anymore, part of it was Becerra and Torrao always fighting. I remember it kind of sucked at the time as a lot of people kind of expected them to get as big as Slayer,or at least, as big as Overkill and Exodus were. Torrao re-formed an all new band called Possessed (without Becerra, who had been crippled during a drug-related robbery by that point) around 1991 or so but they never really did much- a couple shows, maybe one demo, that's it.

Russ Anderson struck me as a more traditional metal singer in a thrash band. He would have sounded better in a more Judas Priest, Iron Maiden kind of band. I think Sean Killian qualifies as a more distinctly "unusual" vocalist here.

So bands that dropped all the breaks- in around 1983 there was this band Warlord from Los Angeles, that played a form of progressive (Vaguely Rush-influenced) hard rock/metal. They got a lot of airplay on the west coast radio stations and were getting to be fairly big, despite being on what was technically an indie label. Actually, they were one of the first signings to Metal Blade records. I don't know if that was what killed them, or if they split up for whatever reason shortly after their big (but all-too-brief) breakthrough. But after 1984, you just never heard about Warlord again- they disappeared from the airwaves and from the scene altogether, and now most people don't even remember them at all.

OZ (not Ozzy, but O.Z.) from Scandanavia- that was another one. They were on an even smaller label than Warlord- Black Mark Records of all things (!) but yet, the local San Jose commercial rock station, KSJO, actually played some of their songs from their "Fire in the Brain" album on their weekly metal show, and they became an instant hit with metal fans in the area. For those who (like most people) have forgotten about them, they were great traditional metal in the vein of "Shout at the Devil" era Motley Crue, and harder stuff like Accept or Iron Maiden. Well, the album was hard to find, for one thing- and not only did they never get that major label deal, but they just faded into obscurity after "Fire in the Brain" and disappeared from the scene. I think they had one album after that which I never got around to hearing- but neither did anyone else.

Anvil definitely squandered their chance. After Forged In Fire, the band was split between staying heavy, or going more in a softer direction. The result was a very mixed record. Perhaps equally important is the fact that they were among the leading edge bands in terms of speed (at least in 1982), and in the 4 years they waited to release a follow-up, everybody surpassed them.

I'm not sure Anvil ever would have blown up and become huge if they didn't speed up to match the thrash bands of the day, but certainly their minor disappearance, combined with an identity crisis did not help.

Even once they kind of figured things out on Pound For Pound, they waited another 4 years to release Worth The Weight, by which point, support for metal was dying off.

On a side note, their era from '96-'02 was absolutely fantastic, and even though the band doesn't really acknowledge it anymore, it's probably their most consistent set of albums.

How about Edge of Sanity? As one of the first ever death metal bands to incorporate prog/melodic elements into their sound on "Unorthodox" in 1992...years before practically anyone else, they could've totally changed the death metal world if they had only taken themselves more seriously. They only ever toured twice in their entire existence, and Swano's extremely candid portrayal of their approach to songwriting is fucking mind-boggling (the "genius" genre-shifting on Crimson was created as a result of Swano being forced to haphazardly throwing death & black metal sections into the mix because the other band members were whining that they are bored of playing soft). The problem is, they never saw EoS as an actual band, just another "project" among many others, and that mentality alone (brought on by the apathy & childish behavior of certain members) is what allowed bands like Opeth and In Flames not only to take that sound and popularize it, but in some cases even take credit for the invention of it (Akerfeldt actually claims he's the one who invented 'progressive metal' ). I have honestly never heard a single band in the 'progressive' sphere even so much as acknowledge EoS as an influence, and that's fucking astounding and sad. I can't help but wonder, if Dan Swano had the same resolve & passion for EoS that Chuck did for Death, for example, they could've been one of the biggest death metal bands in the world, certainly more than the glorified footnote (cult band, at best) that they are now.

Another one...Nocturnus. Or really just Mike Browning in general. From getting fired from Morbid Angel because Trey tried to fuck his girlfriend, and then the 'debut' album Abominations of Desolation getting shelved and unreleased for years due to the influence of David Vincent, then forming another highly influential band in Nocturnus, which suffered greatly at the hands of Earache's idiotic actions (pressuring them to abandon occult lyrical themes and hire a 'real' singer)...only to get fired from that band because Louis Panzer & Sean McNenney stole the copyright from under him. But even after that, things only got worse as they never really caught on and struggled for years before they finally gave up in the early 00's. These days the members have (allegedly) either converted to Christianity & set fire to their entire metal collection (Louis Panzer) or sold their equipment and vanished into thin air (Mike Davis). Fucking disgraceful (and not mercyful at all) fate for the band that put out the eternal masterpiece "The Key"!!!

I think there were a few factors here. Dan Swano was building a successful career as a producer/engineer and I don't think he wanted to tour heavily when he could be just as close to metal and have a relatively stable life. He has 13 production credits on MA from 1992, 15 from 1993, and 23 from 1994. Legendary bands, too!

Their relationship with Black Mark Productions worked well for them. It seemed he had complete artistic freedom. The label would put out albums every year and never asked them to tour, but also didn't really have the same promotional power that Earache, Century Media, Nuclear Blast, and others had. Those labels could help them get on the road opening for other bands, but he stayed home and recorded/performed on some of my favorite albums rather than living out of a van.

The sheer number of great albums he collaborated on/recorded is a testament to his choices to not tour with one band.

Wait, what? I could swear Dan was only around 18 when EoS' first album came out.

Whoops, it's the other D. Swano that was born ten years earlier. Well, the other points stand.

While both of these bands are legendary, I would have to say that At the Gates and Dissection could have accomplished way more than they did.

In the case of Dissection, you got two timeless albums and there was some material on the one after he got out of prison that could have been built upon had he had gotten some guidance from a better label or producer. Instead all we have are Watain and some what ifs.

At the Gates broke up right at the time that the NWOMSDM, the branch of metal that they helped create, was taking off. I know their members went on to do some notable other projects, but I am pretty sure most would rather have seen what the next move for At the Gates would have been had they had stayed together.

Inquisition might fit the bill as well. They had it made, they put together a great body of work, and they were the leaders of the scene. Now their trajectory seems to have been forever altered.

Well, Dissection only had two real bad breaks, both caused by their frontman doing stupid things. I suppose you could also include the whole ideological shift for that last album, so that's three stupid decisions that basically ended the band.

At the Gates had some bad breaks, too. Their tour manager got robbed of their entire tour advance in England in 1994, and they had to borrow money from their tourmates' label (Seance and Black Mark Productions) then go home and get jobs in order to pay it back. Seems like they quit at their peak, but they hadn't really reaped the rewards of their success when they split. It is pretty bad luck that they called it quits and moved on, because the rewards were there to reap only a few years later.

Entombed - after 2 great death metal defining records, they tried to incorporate rock elements and that didn't work (for me at least). They returned later to their early sound but the carnival moved on..

Primordial - after "To The Nameless Dead" I thought they're gonna get bigger and bigger with each new output, but it seems to me that they began to stagger lately.

Another factor is that Dan has mentioned several times that he was not able to hold his growls very well in concerts. I've actually never heard any live footage of EoS so I can't really judge it. He also hasn't toured with Witherscape as far as I know.

And didn't a bunch of bands name EoS as an influence? I still think they're highly underrated and that pretty much every album except Cryptic is an absolute gem.

Send More Paramedics called it quits just as the thrash/crossover revival was heating up. I don't think they'd have gone on to the same success as a Municipal Waste or a Warbringer, but there's no reason to think that they wouldn't have enjoyed a similar level of success as Ghoul.

I've been listening to a lot of 3 Inches of Blood lately, and given how fucking great the music is they should have been much, much bigger. Between constantly cycling through members, playing a style of metal that wasn't big at the time, and calling it quits too early, I hate to think about what could have been. They'd fit right in at just about every festival in the world right now.

As you pointed out, BBB came out late, by probably a year. A lot can happen in a year, and the scene was exploding.

Zetro's voice was nowhere near as palatable as the other Big 4 vocalists, or Testament for that matter. The goofy lyrics also hurt their credibility I think. I don't think the band member changes hurt them at all though.



They were only big because they were a bit early for the 80s metal boom. Once they had some real competition no one cared about them anymore, nor should they.