10 Darkest Rock Albums Of The 90s

As the '90s drew to a close, there was a fine line between nu metal conveying real pain and turning into sort of a joke. For every band like Korn that seemed to have some legitimate anger and pain behind their lyrics, there were also bands like Limp Bizkit and Staind, who were either too dumb to take seriously or too gloomy to be any fun to listen to. Somewhere in between those lines though, some nutcases from Iowa came in wearing boiler suits and tapped into the more animalistic side of heavy metal.

Starting from the first few licks of (sic), Slipknot's debut might be the most nu metal tinged album of their career. Even with some of the dated production behind it, this still might be the most aggressive nu metal record ever put to tape, with Corey Taylor spitting venom from the back of his throat while chaos goes on below him. While there's definitely some melody behind the screams on songs like Wait and Bleed and Spit It Out, there's always a bit of a twisted streak behind some of the licks here.

Combined with the horrific look of all of these guys in their stage getup, a song like Eyeless feels like something ripped straight out of a B-list horror movie, with the guitar lick from Mick Thomson sounding like a killer stalking their prey, about to tear everything limb from limb. It might be campy in a few places and there have definitely been some heavier stuff that has surpassed this, but bringing this into people's living rooms at the end of the decade gave us a preview of what we'd be in for in the '00s.