10 Most Underrated Metal Albums

Metal as a genre tends to be a tad bit underrated in the public consciousness. In the grand scheme of rock music, the sounds of heavy riffs and gutteral vocals tends to be a big stumbling block for the more casual music fans. Then again, even the heavyhitters of the genre have those hidden gems amid their discography.

From every stripe of metal music, there have been those albums that don't get nearly the amount of love they deserve. As opposed to the immediate riffs coming from classic albums, these are the ones that had to grow on you for a little while in order to be hailed as great. Amid thrash, hair metal, and even the various stripes of nu metal, these records had the potential to be great but somehow managed to slip under the bar. Why, though? Well, not everything that actually comes to prominence in the rock scene necessarily has to have the goods from the word go. Any old album can be in the right place at the right place, yet these records managed to do everything right except for registering with the public.

Hell, at the best of times, these records end up breaking new sonic ground for their respective acts that they hadn't tapped into before. So before someone tells you that these albums are just passable, give them a second look and see the brilliance just under the surface.

As Queen entered the '90s, it was clear that the time had come for Freddie Mercury. After spending years dealing with AIDS, these rock royals officially stopped touring and just tried to live on as an in-studio act until Mercury eventually succumbed to the disease in 1991. What no one could have predicted is that one of their final statements became one of their heaviest.

With the release of Innuendo, Queen had finally gotten in touch with the hard edged sound of their early years while playing off of the musical veteranship they had achieved just a few years earlier. While the thought of Queen doing metal certainly sounds like a strange fit for the uninitiated, this is one of the most heartfelt feats of musicianship that each member had done, with songs like Headlong and I'm Going Slightly Mad toeing the line between the traditional Queen magic and something much rootsier.

Though the Show Must Go On is the one thing most people remember from this outing, it really is a testament to Freddie's talent that at this stage of his life he could still belt out tracks like this. Also, don't miss the mammoth experience of the title track, whose cinematic scope almost rivals that of Bohemian Rhapsody. For as much as Made in Heaven is the true Queen epitaph, this is still an amazing record and one hell of a sendoff to one of the greatest voices in rock history.