Chimaira’s Debut ‘Pass Out Of Existence’ Turns 25
The Cleveland band’s Roadrunner debut used seven-string guitars, programming and samples before their sound moved towards groove metal.
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The songs, sessions, artwork and decisions behind the records that changed metalcore, deathcore, hardcore, emo, punk rock and nu metal.
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Something Corporate’s Debut EP ‘Audioboxer’ Turns 25
The six-song Drive-Thru EP introduced the piano-led version of Something Corporate that reached a much wider audience the following year.
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Wage War’s Fourth Album ‘Manic’ Turns Five After Resetting Their Metalcore Formula
The album kept Wage War's cleaner hooks but brought the title track's electronics and the weight of ‘High Horse’ into the same version of the band.
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Dying Wish’s Debut ‘Fragments Of A Bitter Memory’ Turns Five
The Portland band's first full-length put Emma Boster's voice over eleven tightly written tracks of metallic hardcore and metalcore.
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Yellowcard’s Farewell Album Turns Ten After Their Comeback
Released as Yellowcard's final album in 2016, the self-titled record now sits between the band's farewell and its unexpected return.
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Oathbreaker Revisit ‘Rheia’ Ten Years Later With A New Redux
The 2016 album returns with new mastering and anniversary shows, giving Oathbreaker's most expansive record a second active life.
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My Chemical Romance’s ‘Welcome To The Black Parade’ Video Turns 20
The Samuel Bayer-directed video introduced The Black Parade before the album arrived, complete with uniforms, a funeral procession and the Patient.
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blink-182’s ‘Neighborhoods’ Turns 15 After an Eight-Year Album Gap
The first blink-182 album after the band’s reunion sounded fractured by design, with ‘Ghost On The Dance Floor’ and ‘After Midnight’ holding its darker edges together.
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Volumes’ ‘Via’ Turns 15 With ‘Wormholes’ Still at Its Centre
The debut album built its identity around low-tuned rhythm, bright ambient guitars and two vocalists without letting the technical details replace the songs.
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Saosin’s Self-Titled Debut Turns 20
The first Saosin full-length introduced Cove Reber on album vocals and still holds together far beyond its three best-known singles.
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Sempiternal: When Bring Me The Horizon Made The Electronics Count
On Sempiternal, the electronics are as memorable as the riffs. Bring Me The Horizon brought both together without losing the heaviness.
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The Doom EP, MySpace and that opening scream
That scream in Entombment of a Machine still gets a reaction. Doom caught Job for a Cowboy early, before they moved towards technical death metal.
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Have Heart's promises and pressure on The Things We Carry
The Things We Carry is fast and full of conviction, but Patrick Flynn leaves room for doubt. That's a big part of why these songs still connect.
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American Football’s First Album Outlived The Band That Made It
American Football were already going their separate ways when their 1999 debut arrived. The record kept finding people anyway.
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How Suffer put Bad Religion and Epitaph back on their feet
Suffer gets a lot done in twenty-six minutes. The songs are fast, the harmonies stick, and Greg Graffin gives you plenty to think about.
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Toxicity At 25: System Of A Down Still Sound Like Nobody Else
System Of A Down packed Armenian musical influences, politics and absurd humour into their second album. Somehow, the hooks made it all feel immediate.
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Alive or Just Breathing before Killswitch Engage changed singers
Swedish melodic-death-metal guitars, hardcore and Jesse Leach's voice came together on Killswitch Engage's second album.
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Why Whitechapel needed three guitarists on This Is Exile
Whitechapel's second album locks the Knoxville band's three guitars into a precise, low-slung attack without cleaning away its ugliness.
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Refused’s The Shape Of Punk To Come Still Keeps You Guessing
Refused used hardcore as a launch point for electronics, jazz tension, silence and political theatre, then split before the wider audience caught up.
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The Get Up Kids Made Heartbreak Loud On Something To Write Home About
Twelve songs about distance, bad timing and ordinary heartbreak, with choruses that still deserve to be sung loudly.
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Smash: the Epitaph record that sold like a major-label release
The Offspring recorded Smash cheaply, stayed on Epitaph and watched a nervous, sarcastic punk album become an eleven-million-copy exception.
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Korn’s Follow The Leader Took Nu Metal To Number One
Got the Life, Freak on a Leash, Korn TV and the first Family Values Tour helped take Korn beyond their existing audience.
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Ten years without Tom Searle, and his music still carries us
Architects lost their co-founder and primary songwriter on 20 August 2016. Ten years later, his music still means so much to this scene.
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Bad Omens' debut at ten: before the arenas
Released on 19 August 2016, the self-titled debut captured Bad Omens as a direct mid-2010s metalcore band, years before their sound grew into arenas.
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I Prevail’s True Power At Four: The Last Album With Brian Burkheiser
Four years on, True Power's switches between rap, electronics, big hooks and heavy breakdowns still stand out.
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Twenty-eight years ago, Follow the Leader put Korn at number one
Released on 18 August 1998, Korn's third album connected downtuned guitars, hip-hop rhythm and music-video spectacle at a scale the scene had not reached before.
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Korn At Donington 1996: A First Taste Of Life Is Peachy
On 17 August 1996, Korn headlined the Kerrang! Stage with Life Is Peachy finished but still almost two months from release.
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The Poison: riffs, clean choruses and Bullet before the arenas
Bullet for My Valentine's 2005 debut put twin guitars, huge choruses and romantic disaster inside tightly written metalcore songs.
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The Cleansing, from Unanswered to No Pity for a Coward
Suicide Silence recorded much of their debut as a band in the room, and the physical push of those sessions still comes through.
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Converge’s Jane Doe: The Precision Behind The Chaos
Converge's 2001 album sounds chaotic on first contact. Listen closer and the precision behind every rupture becomes hard to miss.
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Jimmy Eat World’s Clarity Took Years To Find Its Audience
Jimmy Eat World's third album underperformed in 1999, then slowly became a reference point for detailed and emotionally direct guitar music.
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Dookie At 32: Green Day’s Breakthrough Still Feels Personal
Fast, funny and anxious, Green Day's 1994 breakthrough carried punk songwriting into millions of bedrooms.
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Limp Bizkit’s Three Dollar Bill, Y’all$ Is Darker Than You Remember
Before the red cap became a pop culture symbol, Limp Bizkit's debut was abrasive, strange and much darker than memory suggests.
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