15 Greatest Hard Rock Albums You Need To Hear Before You Die

With hard rock slowly working its way into the new millennium, many artists were reverting back to old tricks like garage rock and pop punk. Though many have made entire careers off culling from the 70's glory days of hard rock, Joshua Homme used his metallic roots to push the genre forward.

Though Songs For The Deaf is a hard rock album through and through, one can't help but catch a subtle whiff of Homme's previous band Kyuss, with the extremely low riffs and driving tempo luring the listener into a musical haze of sound. After each passing song, you feel like you're being driven further down a dusty highway, with no end in sight for miles.

Homme didn't do it alone though. The other offerings like the punk recklessness of Nick Oliveri and the sheer power of Dave Grohl's drums give the band an added edge that keeps you on your toes throughout the listening experience. The whole album has a distinct character to it, possessing both a nostalgic feeling while also sounding like nothing you'd ever heard before. Sure the sound may be filled with the trademark QOTSA menace, but we would have it no other way. It's easy to feed off past nostalgia, it's even harder to be original, but this is the one record that does both with the greatest of ease.