8. Metallica - Blackened
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DU_ggFovJNo Thrash, being the rather technical, often complicated animal it is, was successfully mastered by a pitiful few outside the big four of Anthrax, Megadeth, Slayer and of course 'Tallica. No disrespect to Napalm Death et al, but for many less dextrous individuals, forming a grindcore band was patently more feasible. As commercial and critical leaders of that select group, Metallica in their prime years had a canny knack of never allowing all those movements and tempo changes to diminish the pure animal instincts that pulsed through all their finest work. Lyrically, Blackened is one of Metallica's most narrowly focused, death-spiral invectives and musically of such concentrated heaviness that it would have been a far better suited torture weapon for the US military than Enter Sandman, which was reportedly used to break down prisoners by being played repeatedly at an excruciating volume. Not that we, the United nations or the European Commission of Human Rights condone that sort of thing. Punching pattern: The opening riff augmented by unrelenting drums is hard to defy, but almost every bar of this six and a half minute slab of morbid intensity is workout-worthy. A good one for the long distance pounders.