All in all, the record perfectly captures the band live–which, as anyone who saw them on this summer’s Mayhem Fest knows, is an experience in itself.

Royal Thunder display a soulful sonic acumen that's as dynamic as it is compelling.

For all their masks and uniforms, the emotions at the heart of Slipknot’s music have always been real and raw, and as they--and the audience that’s grown up with them--have no doubt discovered, the youthful angst that fired their early records has nothing on the grim realities of adulthood. From that deep well of pain, another great Slipknot record has emerged.

If bong-rattling stoner doom is your cup of flayed meat, you won’t want to miss this demonic feast.

Malkmus remains up to his usual trickery, packing the proceedings with musical plot twists like false starts, abrupt fades, and fake codas. [#4, p.106]

Chalk up a new classic on Abruscato's resume.

Sometimes it sounds like someone grafted the Who's Live at Leeds and the first Minor Threat EP together. Yes, it's that good. [#2, p.103]

Musically, AOI melds the compufunk of 'Stakes' with the soulystics of the trio's earlier work, adding in a healthy supply of guitar twang to boot. [#2, p.109]

Stankonia lays bare the group's desire to be something greater than just rap stars. No two tracks sound alike, and they've taken time in the woodshed to pen rhymes that are even more dexterous and honest than their past work--no mean feat. [#3, p.107]

Five albums in to an unexpected late-career burst of greatness, grindcore pioneers Napalm Death have done it again with this awesomely titled album.

August Burns Red have set their own bar even higher on Leveler, and have done so for all of their scene in the process. The album is certainly among the most memorable releases so far this year.

Although it's been a full decade since their last release, United by Fate, Rival Schools don't miss a beat on this reunion disc. [Mar/Apr 2011, p. 88]

Backed by a bevy of sublime, aggravated tracks, G.O.A.T. is L.L.'s most aggressive, rhyme-centric effort since Radio. [#2, p.112]

As sonically beautiful an album as R.E.M. has made. [May/June 2001, p.114]

Unto the Locust isn't just a great album, it's an important statement that metal doesn't have to fall into trite categories or draw from pre-existing formulas to be accessible.

Touché Amoré’s music has always been intensely autobiographical and that introspection has reached peak levels on its fourth full-length, Stage Four.

X (No Absolutes) is charged with brawn and brains--thrashy dynamics, chunky grooves, ferocious metal energy, and Tommy Victor’s sharp-tongued socio-political observations.

Fire From the Sky is suitably heavy, grim but not ridiculous, and its best songs will remind listeners of Metallica.

It's a surprising, thoroughly consistent return-to-form, and it makes Oddfellows the first contender for hard-rock album of the year.

Nu-metal survivors Papa Roach's sixth full-length is an exhilarating return to form.

Kylesa nods toward their feral past as choruses make muscular concessions to hardcore floor-punches. But other tracks are their artiest and dreamiest yet. [Nov/Dec 2010, p.96]

This is music at a slow simmer, not a fast boil, and as such, takes time and patience to absorb. But the passion and intensity is undeniable.

These five tracks bridge the gap between pop punk and melodic hardcore in a way that’s so infectious that you’ll be too busy singing along to notice.

Guest appearances from Gojira’s Joe Duplantier and Subrosa violinists Sarah Pendleton and Kim Pack add extra nuance to an already dense masterpiece.

Aptly named Queensrÿche, just like the band’s debut was titled 30 years ago, this album is a fresh new beginning of a revamped lineup that we will likely be hearing from for years to come.

Packed with epic melodies, searing solos, and medieval horror imagery, Forever Abomination totally rocks, aided by (finally for these guys!) a perfect production sound.

With this latest (featuring the return of New Found Glory’s Chad Gilbert on vocals), they prove it all still works in a big way, a sign that they’ve been doing it right all along.

The lyrics are in a combination of Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic, so it’s anyone’s guess what Bruun is talking about. Luckily,the music speaks for itself.

It’s weird, it’s creepy, it’s unstable, but man, there’s art here, something that few bands can boast.

No matter how aggressive the instrumentation, the music always manages to push things forward, as showcased by the avant-orchestral finale, "The Abyss."

Warbeast impresses with their modern thrash aesthetics, but Anselmo's contribution is the selling point to War of the Gargantuas.

For all of Recitiation's slow burners, ferocious cuts like "Pieces Of The Moon..." and Worm Heels..." go hard from start to finish, revisiting the band's hardcore roots. [Nov/Dec 2010, p.98]

Lyrical references to Charles Bukowski and Elizabeth Carter score egghead points, but the real smarts are in the taut and tight delivery of the 10 tracks.

Real demonstrates that, even as the group’s chosen subgenre has lost the trendiness it possessed in the ’00s, metalcore can still sound fresh and exciting when done right.

Removed from the usual metal trappings to ride Imperfect Harmonies' lofty, trippy soundscapes, Tankian's lyrics carry surprising poetic weight. [Sep/Oct 2010, p.87]

A welcome surprise.

The band’s primary objective is to lift listeners off their feet and keep them floating, with only occasional handholds for stability.

Aftershock is another worthy entry into Motörhead’s long discography, with 14 rollicking tracks of brawn, broads, and blazing riffs.

Folks like to hate on the BDM, labeling them part of the problem because they use neon colors on their T-shirts, but death-metal fans who want something different and exciting need look no further.

Inscrutable concept aside, the new Heavy Rocks doesn't so much redefine heavy music as reconsolidate all the things fans already love about Boris.

In all, Live at the Aragon has plenty for both old and new Mastodon fans to enjoy.

As always, the Kurt Ballou production gives the album the depth and punch that it deserves, making this the band’s most dangerous declaration to date.

Thus rejuvenated and recharged, the Metal God and his cohorts have delivered their strongest record in over a decade.

The band deftly treads the fine line between revival and revision, blasting out fistfighting hard rock anthems like “Dancing with the Wrong Girl” and “Cold War Love” that synthesize Thin Lizzy’s flair for raging riffs, jazzy chords, twin-guitar harmonies, and ruggedly romantic words into something that’s both fresh-sounding and satisfyingly familiar.

The album tells a loose story about a man breaking up with his girlfriend but the songs are written in a way that work outside of the narrative, too.

What drives the music is the tightly synched interplay between drums and guitars, and that, particularly as sharpened by Wes Hauch's surgically precise lead work.

Anyone worried that the last decade had dulled TBS' edge, a listen to the post-hardcore rager "El Paso" confirms that it's never been sharper.

Godless Prophets is as driven and vicious as anything the band has released with disembowlers like “This Is the Truth” and “Those Who Survived.”

On their fourth full-length and first on their own label, jazz-spazz-metal epileptics the Dillinger Escape Plan re-embrace the all-killer, no-filler attitude that made their earlier albums and EPs so simultaneously exhausting and exhilarating. [Mar/Apr 2010, p.88]

Crude, rude, filthy, and more infectious than a bad case of herpes--that sums up Balls Out, the new record from Hollywood's Steel Panther.

Whether Snakes For The Divine is the band's best album yet is open to debate, but it's certainly their biggest, burliest, and most devastating. [Mar/Apr 2010, p.90]

Even at its worst, Darker Handcraft rips harder than almost anything else that has come out this year so far. And for that, it deserves any metal, hardcore, or punk fans' attention.

The band's fourth album sees them further stepping away from their Warped Tour roots to craft a disc that's teeming with emotion without falling on emo clichés.

Cynic’s shredders utilize their skills to construct great melodies and riffs, which often blossom into solid tunes that demand the listener’s attention.

Back to Oblivion backs up the band’s 2012 reunion with a dozen melodically and dynamically diverse tracks.

The second release from TBS’ reunited original lineup sees them getting their groove back.

By turns melodic and thunderous, White Silence churns with 8-minute power dirges and soars with Beatles-esque hooks, making for an exhilarating musical rollercoaster that demands repeat spins.

Calling the album a return to form does Skeletonwitch injustice, but the blackened thrashers definately sound rein quintet definitely sounds reinvigorated here.

Fifth album The Oracle is a much welcome return to form, at least in energy. Ten tracks, no ballads, no bullshit. [May/Jun 2010, p.95]

At Night We Live represents an older, slightly sleazier, but still poetically earnest far. [May/Jun 2010, p.98]

Instead of Meanderthal's rich sonics and expansive melodies, Torche about-faces into bracing, aggressive cuts like "Cast into Unknown" and "U.F.O." and even though "Out Again" delves into sludgy pop, it's done in such a lackadaisical fashion that's it;s clear that Brooks' heart is more in the faster, louder numbers. [Sep/Oct 2010, p.90]

Post-hardcore fans will certainly enjoy what is Falling in Reverse’s strongest record to date.

It's melodic and Malevolent, a relentlessly good disc with an A.D.D. sufferer's list of pop-cultural obsessions ranging from Robocop to werewolves to Judas Priest. [May/Jun 2010, p.100]

No one delivers big, punch-in-the-face motifs better than Amon Amarth, and the Swedish melodic-death-metal titans have excelled themselves on their ninth studio album.

The result: a crushing musical experience easily among the year's best extreme-metal records.

Unsurprisingly, it sounds exactly like Teri Gender Bender fronting The Melvins--a fascinating concept in theory that turns out to be deliriously satisfying in practice.

Like the classic horror movies that have inspired so much of Danzig's work, the new record delivers the thrills and chills that fans would hope for, and that Danzig, at his best, is so good at serving up. [Jul/Aug 2010, p.88]

Standards is a mature work in the best sense, an example of a rock band--yes, a rock band--that has grown into its sound and is now relaxed enough to have fun with it. [#4, p.107]

Their third album takes the stylized blur of their previous LPs, and somehow finds new room for Circle Jerskian hooks, mid-tempo suckerpunches, and one Neurotic sludge workout. p[Jul/Aug 2010, p.90]

Sure, White Crosses is the most polished and pop-inflected album of Against Me!'s polarizing punk career--but underneath the studio sheen, the Butch Vig-produced disc also contains some of the band's best material to date. [Jul/Aug 2010, p.92]

On their eleventh studio album, CoF’s schlock-black metal sound is more alive than it has in a while.

Alternating between unsettling dissonance and bludgeoning force, the North American act’s sophomore effort showcases a crossbreed of stoner metal, sludge and noise that both enthralls and frightens the listener.

They might be one drummer short of a full Melvins deck, but the resulting hand is almost entirely aces.

Between the Stars is tight and melodic and unrelentingly hook-driven, poppy enough in places to recall Paramore or even (on the great new single “Set Me on Fire”) a more ferocious No Doub

Probably the best indie drone rock since Galaxie 500 put the Velvets jangle to hypnotic use (although Low reach even greater peaks of elegant sublimity). [#4, p.106]

The Fire showcases an immense growth in both the band's songwriting and arrangements, proving that these scenes stalwarts are not about to rest on their laurels. [Nov/Dec 2010, p.98]

Matthews finally takes a full-body plunge into the rock mainstream he'd only dipped a toe into before. [#4, p.105]

The result of all these change-ups is an album that is both aggressive and progressive, while still maintaining Linkin Park’s innate pop sensibility.

Is Survived By isn’t all pit-fodder; the cinematic-sounding “Non Fiction” showcases a mastery of dynamics that’s equally as impressive as the heavy stuff.

The Tyranny of Will is all aces, too: From politically-charged rippers (“In Greed We Trust,” “Patriotic Shock”) to pants-pissing punk mischief (“Eyeball Gore,” “Your Kid’s an Asshole”), Iron Reagan have got you covered.

They sound utterly repellant, and it suits them perfectly.

Vocalist Travis Ryan fully comes out of his shell with his, ahem, "melodic" "singing" and the Jeff Walker–esque tone sounds great (see "Lifestalker"). Elsewhere, the band shred harder than ever but with lots of cool twists.

Bleeder is equal parts musical acrobatics and strong songwriting that strikes an off-kilter balance somewhere between Queens of the Stone Age and The Dillinger Escape Plan.

While She Sleeps have delivered the best album so far about post-Brexit/post-election anxiety. You Are We is frantic and grim, preoccupied with personal and political disintegration, but it’s also huge.

Ultimately these well-place segues are but a welcome respite from the pummeling power of the riff.

TesseracT’s real strength is that they focus on the whole instead of getting bogged down with the intricacy of the parts.

From the anthemic confidence of “Back in the Game” to the speed-metal boogie of “Hungry,” frontman Joel O’Keeffe rasps out memorable, bluesy melodies without sacrificing the AC/DC-inspired passion of 2007’s Runnin’ Wild.

Across 17 tracks with titles like “Dark Brown Teeth,” “The Blithering Idiot,” and “Drunken Baby,” Osborne delivers concise down-tuned ditties full of booming vocal melodies and bizarro humor.

In terms of its sound, it is far less exuberant than 'Bringing Down the Horse,' far more stripped-down and varied in its arrangements.

Our Own Masters delivers all the hairy, sweaty, twin-guitar insanity of their live shows, yet also contains some of their most unabashedly sophisticated moments.

Dark Roots offers shred-heavy political statements ("True American Hate"), hook-laden power-jags ("Native Blood"), and straight-up rippers ("Man Kills Mankind"), slipping only on slower material like the title track and quasi-ballad "Cold Embrace."

Russian Circles deliver seven glorious cuts of cinematic elegance and regal thunder. Not to mention what might be its best album yet.

On this solid, moving album, Wolves Like Us keep that tradition alive.

It’s all the necessary B-adjectives–bludgeoning, brutal, burly--but it’s something else too; Bloodcurdling.

Bolstered further by very solid production, clever use of effects, and strong clean vocals, The Hollow is quite simply one of the best metalcore albums in a long time.

There's a real sense of hip-hop culture in the lyrics, and there's a sophistication in the way that the rap is made rock here-in other words, this isn't just whiney frat-boy rhymes slapped on top of generic, down-tuned riffs.

Apocalyptic Love is at heart a collection of lean, high-octane rock-and-roll tunes built to be blasted out of open-top sports cars or, more suitably, open-air stadiums.

Shone saws off a series of heaving, mechanized drones with names like “The Barge,” “Cauterize” and “Teething,” each a dizzying, pulsating and pounding exposition of man’s ultimate sonic collusion with machine.