10 Perfect Metal Albums Everyone Tried To Copy

As thrash metal was starting to emerge out of the Bay Area scene, Metallica were already leagues above most of their contemporaries. Even though bands like Death Angel and Testament may have been making waves around the same time, the writing style behind songs like Seek and Destroy were much more fleshed out, going for songs that went through different movements over their long runtimes. This was the epic period of Metallica, and their third album may have the potential to be on the same level as symphonic metal.

While there's no sweeping orchestra in the mix (yet), most of the arrangements on Master of Puppets are very carefully thought out, hanging on different riffs for just the right amount of time before transitioning to something else. There are even a few moments here that seem to defy what music is supposed to be, like the transition riff in the title track never fully sitting well in one set time signature.

The symphonic metal description isn't just some bombast, like songs where the whole thing feels like a classical composition performed on metal instruments like Orion, which opened up many new doors for bands to experiment with different sonic flavors in their music. Too many metal bands have cited this album as an influence, but what it really did was teach us a lesson. You don't need to make your statement in just 3 minutes, so you might well make the kind of music that you'd want to make.