12 No-Skip Hard Rock Albums
Sit down, put on your headphones, relax. And don’t you dare touch that dial.
The way we listen to music has changed. Long gone are the days of physical formats, and now, we have everything at our fingertips. With multiple streaming apps, we have access to a substantial amount of music from across the world and from the past one hundred years.
While this accessibility is a fantastic development, it has changed listening habits. Why bother trudging through albums when you can put good tracks into a playlist with other good tracks? This is a blessing that was only a dream just over a decade ago.
However, before this, some bands tried their hardest to make the album a treat in itself. Not every album is successful in this attempt, but these are some of the finest Hard Rock albums from start to finish.
12. Queens Of The Stone Age - Songs For The Deaf
Palm Desert stoners Queens of the Stone Age hit it big in 2002 with Songs for the Deaf. This album blends the band’s signature Stoner Rock sounds with a heavy edge.
After introducing the album’s concept of a drive through the Mojave desert whilst listening to the radio, the album begins with the locomotive drumbeats of You Think I Ain’t Worth A Dollar, But I Feel Like a Millionaire. Droning guitars, Dave Grohl skipping on the skins, and Josh Homme’s quiet screams, this song welcomes you to the best album of 2002.
Next song is No One Knows, and literally, everybody knows this hit single from the band. It’s overplayed, but still undeniable great.
Josh Homme’s darkly quiet vocals set the morbid tone in First It Giveth, then it’s all about the distorted muff of the guitars in Songs for the Dead. Dave Grohl smashes along in this noise rock stoner track which seemingly pays homage to the band Sleep.
The Sky is Fallin’ continues Homme’s depressed tone with eerie choral overdub in a two-minute intro. Once the dirty sound of Homme’s guitar enters, the pace picks up, and it is an underrated highlight of the album.
The second half of the album is just as ferocious, yet melodic. With angry despair, Go With The Flow remains the album’s best track, but Do It Again is a close second. The album ends with the ballad, Mosquito Song, bringing the power hour to a close in an ever-present dark lullaby.