10 Metal Bands That Have Never Made A Bad Album
Celebrating the heavy artists that have brought us nothing but gems.
While it may pain some of us to admit it, a lot of our favourite metal bands have made at least one irredeemable stinker of an album. Metallica has St. Anger, Megadeth has Risk, Iron Maiden has No Prayer for the Dying, Slayer has Diabolus in Musica, Black Sabbath has everything it did in the ‘90s... and so on. But what about those bands with the perfect streak? Those that, throughout their entire career, have been able to somehow provide nothing but good, hearty metal again and again?
These are the bands that we will be recognising for their unyielding craftsmanship here today. From arena-filling titans like System of a Down to cult mavens like Atheist, no stone will be left unturned in this quest for hard-rocking perfection.
But, first, some ground rules: For a band to make this list, they must have made at least four or more studio albums of wholly original content. Live records, EP’s, compilations and cover albums don’t count, so apologies in advance to Rage Against the Machine fans. Also, while the number of albums a band has made will affect their standings here, this list will ultimately strive for quality and consistency over quantity.
After all, four perfect, genre-defying albums are better than 20 decent ones, right?
10. Cavalera Conspiracy
Coming together in late 2006 after drummer Iggor Cavalera’s exit from Sepultura, Cavalera Conspiracy is a powerhouse outfit led by him and his brother Max that has produced four spectacular albums of tribal groove/speed/death metal. Their debut, Inflikted, dropped in 2008, named after what the band originally wanted to call themselves.
Featuring Gojira frontman Joe Duplantier on bass and Soulfly shredder Marc Rizzo on lead guitar, the album soon became hailed as the best Sepultura album that Sepultura never made. It possessed the same tribal drums and incessant pace as such masterpieces as Arise and Chaos A.D., setting the precedent for Cavalera Conspiracy’s subsequent three albums.
The collective’s latest record, Psychosis, hit shelves in November 2017 to similar acclaim, taking the mantle of their best record to date in the process. The disc was a ceaseless slice of thrashing death metal, bolstered by the blink-and-you’ll-miss-it insanity of singles “Insane” and “Spectral War”.
Fantastically, the brothers Cavalera have recaptured their former glories as the driving force behind Sepultura, resulting in a slew of ‘90s thrash callbacks in their stunning oeuvre.