40. Mouth for War - Pantera
Groove metal's finest band, finally making an appearance on this list. It would've been inconceivable to not include something off Vulgar Display of Power which could very well be the best metal album ever made. "Mouth for War" is another in a seemingly endless long line of phenomenal opening tracks to metal albums. Dimebag's guitar tone and Vinnie Paul's drum sound on this album are as good as it gets. And Phil Ansemlo as usual lives up to his reputation as an extreme metal vocalist with hardly a peer. Anytime Pantera thrashed it up was always good times and the end of this song is no exception. Pit-worthy excellence.
39. Unas Slayer of the Gods - Nile
According to what bassist and one-time frontman Jon Vesano told the audience the first time I saw Nile on stage, we all witnessed the very first live performance of "Unas Slayer of the Gods". It was one of the legs of the In Their Darkened Shrines tour with these delightful chaps headlining. And seeing all eleven minutes and forty-three seconds of this played note perfect was as impressive as all get out. Just on a technical level as this is the ultimate Nile epic to rule them all. It's also their best song. The real Unas was the ninth pharaoh of the 5th Dynasty in the Old Kingdom and according to legend, as the song dictates, he ate hearts to attain godhood. Can you say "brutal"?
38. Deliverance - Opeth
Mo epicness abounds! Deliverance may be an album that Mikael Åkerfeldt thinks could have turned out better if he wasn't simultaneously writing and recording it along with their mellow-only masterpiece Damnation. But anyone would have to admit that the title track off the heavy album can do no wrong. It's the best heavy Opeth song and all the trademarks are there. Acoustic softness, bleak, dissonant metal riffs, proggy time-signatures and transitions, and Åkerfeld's always superb clean and extreme vocals. All culminating with the last four minute riff sandwich that just goes on and on. Which is the single best Opeth moment of all time.
37. An Ode To Locksmiths - Type O Negative
And here we have all the proof we need that when Pete Steel wanted to channel his inner Black Sabbath, he was beyond fully capable of offering up some goddamn mighty fine riffage. For whatever reason, on Type O Negative's ultimate swan song Dead Again, Steele must've hooked Tony Iommi's DNA straight to his veins as it's frontloaded with killer stoner riffs almost on every song. Type O only before would occasionally dabble in such things, always excellently mind you, but this album is another story. The penultimate track "An Ode To Locksmiths" wacks you right in the groin with that goddamn riff, but then ends with yet another one with the "You ain't going NOwhere!" part. Whatta way for a band to go out.
36. Redneck - Lamb of God
Speaking of riffs that make my pee-pee tingle, holy christ how bout this one? "Redneck" was leaked first when Lamb of God's fifth and best album Sacrament was on the way and I certainly wasn't expecting this. Not that I wasn't expecting something awesome as LoG had been offering up nothing but greatness for the last several years and once again Machine was back producing who has the uncanny ability to routinely capture or at least sound replace the greatest drum sound of all time. But a riff this tasty, southern, and slamming is pretty much what I'm always hoping to hear. A dash of the blues can often spice up your metal meal I suppose. These guys have always remained consistent, though it'd be just mean to expect them to tear it up quite to this level ever again.
35. Caught In a Mosh - Anthrax
This is probably Anthrax' "Raining Blood". It's played live always and really, with a song titled "Caught In A Mosh", it's pretty much tailor made to make the room it's being played in instantaneously erupt into a pit of slam dancing bonkersness. Though oddly I must say when I saw them live, "Indians" had the biggest pic I'd ever seen in all my days. All that aside, Among the Living is Anthrax' masterpiece and "Mosh" is impossible not to love. That main riff that begins with bass and slams into thrash pudding proves this. Joey Belladonna's vocals are and have always been perfect as has Charlie Benante's drum sound and performance. Fist clenched, shouting, and of course moshing perfection up in here.
34. Redneck Stomp - Obituary
Yes I'm aware I almost put two songs with the word "redneck" in them right next to each other. Thank you Anthrax for making it not so. But this here one with the word "stomp" after it opens up Obituary's back from the dead reunion album, oddly not titled back from the dead, but instead Frozen In Time. Tis a solid offering and one that I caught live during the touring cycle, (where Allen West stood motionless like a robot who couldn't wait to not be there anymore the entire show, btw). My pick for the best instrumental song in all of metal simply because all of these riffs are ridiculously heavy meat awesome. Obituary sans John Tardy just destroys it here.
33. Ontogomy of Behavior - Cephalic Carnage
When I got into Denver, Colorado's Cephalic Carnage, it was with the Anomalies album. And this was the album where the band spiced shit up with a slew of sludge, stoner, and even metalcore parodying moments. And clean singing and guest vocalists. The album's final song "Ontogomy of Behavior" is the sole, darkly melodic entry and shit, nine minutes and fifty-seconds simply isn't long enough. I always wanna hear this album as it's excellent front to back, but I'd be lying if I said I always can't wait for it to get to this song. "Behavior" slowly builds and builds, getting heavier and heavier, and eventually blowing up your speakers with a "My freakin ears hurt" distortion effect. Fantasmicgasm stuff.
32. Curse You All Men! - Emperor
When I bought IX: Equilibrium, I had no idea what black metal was. Let alone symphonic black metal. I just listened to it a bit in a used CD store and thought it sounded like death metal with keyboards and screaming instead of cookie monster vocals. Ah, virgin ears. Thankfully these days and for many days previously now, I have been well informed and aware of what black metal and Emperor is/are. Of course meaning they are the finest black metal band of all times. Equilibrium's opener "Curse You All Men!" is a pristine example of why. It's Ihsahn, Samoth, and Trym at their most brutal, with the later just cruising on the kit and the former two multi-layering riff on top of riff, all of them killer.
31. My Curse - Killswitch Engage
Metalcore, (or "girl metal" as some of us snobs like to call it for a hoot), has admittingly produced a number of solid bands. Shadows Fall, Chimera, and the golden poster boys Massachusetts's Killswitch Engage. Both this band's singers were and are excellent, but I've always preferred Howard Jones soulful croon and it's on full display in "My Curse". Easily one of the prettiest metal songs of all time, "Curse" is basically a pop song with guitar harmonies, tons of chunk, and at least one bouncy and memorable riff. Killswitch in general are several cuts above all the other bands in their field and in this case, their popular dominance in the sub-genre is wholly justified.
30. Mein Herz Brennt - Rammstein
We've now come to my favorite Rammstein jammie jammie jammie and it's fittingly off my favorite Rammstein album Mutter. "Mein Herz Brennt opens that album as it did that tour and also got a creepy, piano version music video long after originally being released. And worry not, the regular video of the song is plenty creepy as well, (see link). This song can do no wrong as every audio and visual representation of it is glorious. The orchestral section is oh so good and when shit gets heavy, it ushered in at the time the first steps the band would take in a more loose and primitive direction with their riffs as they'd continue till presently.
29. Welcome to Planet Motherfucker/Psychoholic Slag - White Zombie
How I miss White Zombie. Long before Rob Zombie started routinely making bad movies and bad music on his lonesome, his band White Zombie was delivering the groove metal goods with a side of horror and b-movie schtick. "Welcome to Planet Motherfucker/Psychoholic Slag" is the first track on La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1 and it's the reason this band was awesome. J and Sean Yseult's riffs are as fantastically slamming throughout this entire album as Rob Zombie's lyrics and vocals are obsolete. Rob ultimately doesn't even need to be here as these songs could thrive instrumentally just as well if not better. The samples should stay though.
28. Where You Come From - Pantera
It's interesting to think, what if Pantera didn't bother with the whole live album idea and instead when they went in the studio to cut "Where You Come From" and "I Can't Hide" for said album, they just took the time to slam together an entire full length? Because these two songs are goddamn fantastic and one can only assume an entire album with the band firing on these cylinders would've been a masterpiece. This was my favorite Pantera riff for years until I caught wind of another song that's still on the way on this list, but christ could Dimebag bust out some ridiculously good shit when the whiskey was flowing just right.
27. White Walls - Between the Buried & Me
Colors by North Carolina's Between the Buried & Me is the best progressive metal album not made my Dream Theater. And in fact it's far, far better than the last several Dream Theater outings as well. Colors is all over the place and is nearly impossible to predict even after hearing it several times as musical genres are thrown into a blender and served up with brutal blast beats, ridiculously complex guitar leads/riffs, and Tommy Giles Rogers vocals that cover as much ground as the music. Closing it all out is "White Walls" which is fourteen minutes of better-than-anything-you've-ever-heard. Every song on earth should end exactly like this one does.
26. Raining Blood - Slayer
If you're a drummer or just knocking on a door, it is physically impossible NOT to at least at some or every point bang out the tom intro to "Raining Blood". If we could all agree that only one song on earth qualifies as "metal", this would undoubtedly be it. The breakdown to destroy all breakdowns is in this one, as is the chaotic ending to end all endings. And the opening riff here is definite Slayer and ergo again, definitive metal. As much as a cliche as this song has become over the decades, it has done zero to diminish it's powers and not including it in this list here would be like not putting Citizen Kane in a greatest films ever made list.
25. The Trooper - Iron Maiden
And another metal classic. Just as "Raining Blood" is what thrash metal is all about, "The Trooper" is what old school heavy metal looks, tastes, and smells like. Iron Maiden has one of the most impressive laundry lists of iconic songs, ("Number of the Beast", "Run to the Hills", "Hallowed Be Thy Name", "Aces High", etc). And Piece of Mind's "Trooper" obviously belongs on this list for all the Maiden staples that need be there. Galloping, ass-kicking drums, sing-along everything, the harmonized riff to rule them all, and lyrics about epic battle. Also for what it's worth, this has the best guitar solo Dave Murray and Adrian Smith ever dueled out.
24. Psycho Man - Black Sabbath
When I saw Black Sabbath full original line-up at the 1999 Ozzfest and they didn't play their new single "Psycho Man", part of me died inside. It was one of the only times I can remember seeing a classic rock era band and actually wanted them to play their new stuff. Sadly I wasn't too impressed with three-fourths of this line-up's 2013 album cleverly titled 13, but when the full four reunited in the late-90s, holy mother of Satan did they kill it with this song. The first three minutes of pure, doom awesomeness leads into a riff so amazing that Tony Iommi must've been channeling Tony Iommi to come up with it. How I wish classic Sabbath was always this heavy.
23. Green Machine - Kyuss
Stoner-rock/metal is a genre I certainly enjoy, though it's ended up that Kyuss is the only such band to fall into these ranks that I'm including here. There version of Sabbath's "Into the Void" made my 100 favorite songs list, but I chose not to include covers on this one which meant "Green Machine" was gonna be here. Most definitely so. Written by drummer Brant Bjork, "Machine" is the second track on Blues for the Red Sun, this band's best album offering. But as good as said full-length is, I have bumped just this song about seven hundred more times than anything else on it. Josh Homme's de-tuned, bass amp amplified guitar is technically heavier than all the other songs appearing here.
22. Athanati Este - Rotting Christ
I had been a fan of Rotting Christ for a few years when I got their current album Sanctus Diavolos in 2004 like a good metal consumer. But it transcended all expectations, as good as much of their previous material was. This is a top ten metal album for me and absolutely always will be. It's also one of the oddest, which contributes both to it's uniqueness and excellence. I've heard it described by my friends as both Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom metal and Damien metal. The later has to do with the fact that much of the lyrics are in Latin and it heavily features a evil as fuck sounding real choir. "Athanati Este" is the ultimate track on it that I'm including and if the opening riff to this doesn't immediately make your privates tingle, then you should see a doctor.
21. Pierced from Within - Suffocation
Pierced from Within, (besides being solid front to back and containing superb production), is the definitive album from Long Island's technical death metal masters Suffocation. Even though Mike Smith isn't on it, sad to say. I've seen these guys three times, (ironically with Mike Smith behind the kit), and the opening track to this album was played always. They were also three of the most brutal performances ever, Frank Mullen's karate-chop hand gestures supplying the comic relief. My first death metal band learned this song and it took me an hour to get the first twenty seconds down. My guitar players likewise spent about two hours per riff. So yeah, either we suck or this band rules. Little from column A, little from column B.
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