12 Most Underrated Metal Albums

Tad are a hugely underrated metal band. They toured with Nirvana, recorded with Steve Albini and were discovered by Sub Pop, but never went on to achieve the same success as others bands who’d forged similar career paths. 1993’s Inhaler is their greatest achievement; eleven down-tuned, fuzzy headbangers that prove both consistently engaging and slyly transgressive.

The true sound of grunge was never Nirvana’s quiet/loud anthems or Pearl Jam’s passionate stadium rock. It was the sludgy misery of Alice In Chains, the eccentricities of The Melvins, Mudhoney’s superfuzz ugliness. Wild, country outsiders who listened to Flipper and Big Black and sang about serial killers. Tad are a wonderful example of the grim, dirty side of a genre that was supposed to encompass just those things, but quickly became this uncontrollable cultural behemoth.

Tad are one of the great early 90’s alternative metal bands, much earthier and more sinister than the jazz-trained, urban Helmet, with whom their sound shares some similarities. Inhaler is their finest achievement, a hugely underrated album that stands on its own, away from the more-famous genre to which Tad were intrinsically linked.