10 Hard Rock Albums You Must Hear Before You Die

For as forceful as the punk wave was in the late '70s, it wouldn't take long until it was molded with the concept of metal. After all, since both of these genres were loud, abrasive, and fast, it almost made too much sense to combine them to create some of the most extreme sounding music ever made. What was born was thrash metal, and Metallica took it to a whole different level on Master of Puppets.

Standing at only 8 tracks, these songs kept the speediness of punk, yet spared no expense when it comes to technical prowess. Even though there is that rebellious attitude across songs like Battery, there is also a lot of musical veteranship, with some of the most outrageous musical harmonies taking place on songs like Orion and the title track.

This was also a turning point for metal as a whole, with lyrics moving away from the doom and gloom of acts like Black Sabbath and more towards everyday evils like the mental asylum on Welcome Home or the hellish landscape of war on Disposable Heroes. Also, any album that has a riff as hard-edged as Master of Puppets almost deserves a spot on here regardless of any of the other songs.

Given that Metallica would start to take a more commercial approach with their next records in the '90s, this is the pure synthesis of thrash metal at the top of its game.