10 of the The Most Underrated Metal Albums (of all subgenres)
“Underrated” is a weird word. While some listeners think their favorite Grammy megahits are underrated, others use the term to describe projects that have never been “rated” at all. To simplify things, we’ll consider any metal albums that have been critically short-changed by a lot of people to be underrated.
Since metal is a broad supergenre, there’s naturally a shitton of work within it that regularly gets ignored. For today, I’ll try to include some big names and some small ones. Each, I think, has been shafted in one way or another.
Endless - Holy Serpent
I have no idea how this band isn’t on the same level as Monolord, Electric Wizard, or Acid Mammoth. It's stonery, well-mixed, and classically doom in a fun, non-depressing way. The best comparison I can give you is that it sounds like a heavier Ty Seagall with doomier themes.
And somehow, nobody knows about it. Even my music has more streams. Maybe there’s such a great live scene in Australia that they don’t need online attention?
In any case, things seem to be turning around slightly. In a rare stroke of luck for the Melborne-based buds’ internet presence, a YouTuber with the on-the-nose handle “Underrated Albums” recycled Endless into the Youtube ether. This made its way onto Reddit, and as far as I can tell, a few more people are listening to it now. The Spotify version seems to have a decent, though still criminally inadequate following.
There’s really not much information out there on this one, but for the love of god, listen to it!
Ordinary Corrupt Human Love - Deafheaven
Is it possible to find critical acclaim and still be underrated? Absolutely. Just check out Ordinary Corrupt Human Love by Deafheaven. For years, the band enjoyed semi-mainstream popularity for its bold mix of black metal and shoegaze. And for its shockingly pink sophomore album, Sunbather.
While the vocals were brutal, the music sometimes resembled My Bloody Valentine or Slowdive. This was the formula, and it was what the people wanted. With New Bermuda, some fans scowled at the introduction of traditional metal chugging, but ticket sales held strong.
Then, Ordinary Corrupt Human Love took an even bigger dump on tradition, and the dam finally burst. The album was almost unanimously praised by critics. It was bold and adventurous and immaculately produced. But this didn’t stop metal hipsters from being annoying about it. Riffs inspired by Japanese hardcore band and touring partner, Envy? Gasp! Warm, uplifting pentatonic solos? Gasp! A goth song with clean vocals? Gasp! Purists everywhere clutched their chests and seized upon the ground.
It’s sad to think that a group could put so much effort into something, just to have it dismissed so easily. I felt sad about this for a while, but then I realized:
If Deafheaven cared about what people thought, they would probably suck. But they don’t, so they don’t.
Dehumanizer - Black Sabbath
For a lot of Black Sabbath fans, the days after Ozzy’s firing and departure were a dark age that only ended when the group got together to record 13. The loss of such a charismatic, eccentric frontman could easily have been the death knell for the band, but Iommy and Butler, the band’s real creative powerhouses, still had a lot more to say.
Iommi himself described the process of finding a replacement vocalist as long and difficult, but they couldn’t have done better than Ronnie James Dio. Dio’s classical talent and falsetto shrieks felt a lot more “80s” than prior Sabbath, but maybe it’s the other way around—maybe Dio so powerfully shaped how we think the 80s sounded that he's embedded in our cultural memory.
Despite the band’s uncertainty about its future, post Ozzy Sabbath was far from unpopular. Heaven and Hell topped the charts for a long while, and tickets sold as well as ever. Still, hardcore fans weren’t all in, and a few mediocre releases called the decision to fire Osbourne into question.
Then came Dehumanizer, an awesome, fun, shredtastic release fronted by an enthsiastic Dio. It was released in the 90s, but it sounds a bit older, and in this case, this is a good thing.
Thaumogenesis - Nadja
Some bands are legendary in their niches but relatively unheard of everywhere else. Nadja is just such an outfit. Despite having released decades of top-quality ambient doom, the duo has still received no real critical attention. Noisy, lo-fi music tend to scare away all but diehard fans.
The thing is, Thaumogenesis and certain other Nadja projects, like Sky Burial, aren’t that inaccessible. Sure, there’s plenty of static and distortion, but it’s mixed properly so the bass pokes out and the drums occupy their own range. Listening, it makes you wonder—why is it that some ultra-low-budget projects, like basement black metal solo artist Leviathan, take off, where others don’t? Blind luck?
My theory is that it’s all about networking. I met Nadja, and they’re nice, shy people who seem like they’d be more at home in a bank office than a dingy Berlin club. Maybe things are cooler that way…
Cold, Dark Place - Mastodon
Mastodon is anything but underrated. They put out consistent hits and some real stinkers—see “Curl of the Burl.” But rarely does anything they do go unnoticed.
That’s why I’m putting Cold, Dark Place here. It’s an EP written entirely by Brent Hinds, the band’s lead guitarist, and nobody seems to know about it or how great it is. Perhaps this is because Brent Hinds has gotten himself into more than his fair share of trouble lately.
Between getting in fights with randos and acting like a drunk dickhead to children trying to learn his music, he isn’t exactly the most popular band member for those familiar with the Mastodon cast.
Still, it’s tough to argue that he isn’t talented. Brent Hinds’ guitar licks are among the toughest, most satisfying ones you can play, and his solos seem to have been beamed down from another dimension. Cold, Dark Place is a liquor-infused, banjo-inspired shred fest that rivals any of Mastodon’s other work. While it’s just an EP, it punches above its weight in good moments per second of playtime.
It’s never a bad time for more Mastodon, so pick it up on iTunes or steal it or go on YouTube or do whatever you kids do nowadays.
Thrice Woven - Wolves in the Throne Room
In the late 2000s, Wolves in the Throne Room took the atmospheric black metal world by storm by not engaging in any weird, violent, racist, or otherwise questionable behavior. And also by creating complex, orchestrated, beautiful music. With a sick name and a cool Pacific Northwest origin story, everything they touched seemed to turn to gold.
Then, they put out Celestite, an ambient synth album that was a total departure from their regular formula. A commotion was stirred, and fans began to question whether Wolves had the judgment to keep putting out hits.
When Thrice Woven dropped, many fans saw what they expected to see: a decent effort but a significant decline from the heights of Diadem of 12 Stars.
It’s only with the benefit of hindsight that we can grasp the truth of the matter — Thrice Woven was great, and Celestite was a weird diversion, not a sign of an ailing future.
Esoteric - Skyfire
Skyfire is a Swedish melodic death metal band that loves synthesizers, screaming, and mathy riffs. It's a niche band that you’re unlikely to hear about on all but the most specific subreddits or forums.
Esoteric is the five-piece’s first album following a five-year hiatus. Usually, after such a leave of absence, bands tend to suck. Not so here, and things seemed to have gone without a hitch.
In the Swedish melodic tradition, it's pretty tough to take the album seriously, with its cheesy synth breaks and orchestral sweeps, but that doesn’t mean it’s musically flawed. Almost every moment is perfectly conceived, and all of the instruments, pads, and vocals occupy their own ranges in the mix.
New to melodic death? Give it a shot.
Sturm und Drang - Lamb of God
Lamb of God was a lot of metalheads’ favorite band back in the early days of the Global War on Terror. What a time, amirite?
The band could be spotted touring with everyone from Slipknot to Children of Bodom, and they appealed to a mix of mainstream metal part-timers and hardcore death metalheads.
For a while, everything they did was incredible. The riffs flowed like fine wine, and Randy Blythe somehow managed not to thrash his throat. But in 2010, at a Prague club, a fan charged onstage, and Blythe pushed him off, causing a head injury that would eventually prove fatal.
As you might expect, he and the rest of the band dealt with years of legal paperwork, bail, and indictments until a final verdict was reached. Interestingly, the US played no part in the trial and wasn’t interested in forcing the singer of a metal band to stand trial for an accidental death. Blythe attended entirely on his own volition.
In the end, the Czech court determined that Blythe might have mistaken the fan for another, more aggressive member of the crowd, and that he couldn’t have known the fan would die as a result of his injury. Therefore, he bore no legal responsibility for the death, though he still bore the moral weight of the incident.
A lot of what happened made U.S. headlines, though it was often distorted by language barriers. Naturally, many Americans assumed that Lamb of God was over, or that in the best scenario, its golden era was behind it.
What few expected was that some of Lamb of God’s best work was still to come. Sturm und Drang, the band’s next full album, featured a number of tracks that rivaled the even highlights of Sacrament. It was crushing, brutal, and perfectly mixed. Blythe incorporated Czech themes he picked up while awaiting trial, and much of what resulted was lyrically engaging and complex. Admittedly, certain segments featuring Blythe’s trademark dramatic talking might have been a little much, but what do you expect? It’s Lamb of God.
The album never received the acclaim or attention it deserved, so go ahead and check it out.
Terra Incognita - Gojira
Finding a unique, instantly recognizable sound in the metal world is tough. When everybody has the same guitars, amps, and pedals, talent is all that separates you from the rest.
In the early mid-2000s, French death outfit Gojira started putting out distinctive, environmental-themed metal that was as heavy as anything around at the time. The band’s golden age yielded tons of catchy riffs and crazy themes like whales and interstellar matter.
But before Duplantier and friends honed their sound, they made Terra Incognita, a raw, bass-drum-heavy effort that solidified their place in metal history.
It’s an awesome debut, and it stands the test of time. It isn’t as accessible as some later albums, but it embeds itself in the psyche after multiple listens. It might not be Gojira’s masterwork but it still beats most other releases by a landslide.
Turbo - Judas Priest
Judas Priest has long been known for its face-melting guitar solos and blunt themes, like “breaking the law.” But that doesn’t mean it wasn’t susceptible to the pull of the hair metal craze in the mid-80s.
Turbo is known as the end of Judas Priest’s real metal era and the beginning of a foray into glam rock.
Despite selling well initially, the album and subsequent tour found little enthusiasm among confused fans. It’s a classic example of “selling out,“ and how fickle metal listeners can be.
The album had as much mind-bending guitar as anything else the group ever did, but it was just too poppy for some. Only with the clarity of hindsight can we see that it was a great album and not much more eccentric or catchy than previous efforts. Today, the addition of synthesizers and lyrics about love just seem campy and fun.
He really wants to be your turbo lover.
And that’s it for today’s list. If you like what you read, subscribe below and keep browsing Metalblog.