0 LIST MANIA: Matt's Top 10 Rock and Metal Records of the Decade Part 2

List by Matt Abramson

The conclusion of Matt's rock and metal decade list. Excellent picks if I do say so myself, and I do.


5. Queens of the Stone Age – Songs for the Deaf (Interscope – 2002)

Perhaps the only stoner rock album to achieve significant critical and commercial success, due in no small part to putting Dave Grohl back where he belongs – kicking ass behind a drum kit, the tandem of Josh Homme and Nick Oliveri completely killed it with ‘Songs for the Deaf’. Queens had been flirting with success prior to this album and were catapulted into the stratosphere with its release. Not only that, it was a really fucking good album cover to cover – making it one of the few times that fans, critics and the commercial public all agree on an album. It takes every once of self-restraint I have to keep from starting a mosh pit whenever I hear “Go With the Flow”.

4. Deftones – Saturday Night Wrist (Maverick – 2006)

It was really hard to pick between this and ‘White Pony’ for a spot on the list. After careful consideration, I decided that ‘White Pony’, even though it was released in 2000 and is an undisputed classic, was more of a capstone for 1990-1999 than 2000-2009. The Deftones are consistently good, but ‘Saturday Night Wrist’ was such a surprisingly passionate work of ethereal heaviness that even long time fans like myself were caught off guard its greatness. I still get shivers when I put this album on.

3. Botch – We Are the Romans (Hydra Head – 2000)

Here, in fifty-three minutes, is the blueprint for exactly what heavy music should be. ‘We Are the Romans’ is a dense, brutal, atmospheric assault on your psyche that leaves you scratching your head wondering what the fuck just happened. The delay-pedal tapping guitar heroics of Dave Knudson may stand out the most, but every member of Botch kills it. Matt Bayles, who has produced too many great albums to mention, does an awesome job of wrangling in and presenting the destruction of waveforms that is Botch. This album was introduced to me as “the soundtrack to the apocalypse” – almost ten years later, I still agree.

2. Mastodon – Leviathan (Relapse – 2004)

Guitar fireworks. Mastodon sounds like guitar fireworks. The first time I ever heard this concept album based on ‘Moby Dick’ I remember yelling “Holy shit! Are you fucking kidding me!” at my car stereo. The riffs are sheer brilliance and the musicianship is immaculate. Mastodon is the band that makes me feel like Metallica made me feel when I was twelve, which is completely in awe of the awesomeness that is metal. There is no band that can touch what Mastodon does, and when you reach the guitar solo at the 10:30 mark of “Hearts Alive” – a track easily in the same league as “Freebird” and “Stairway to Heaven” – you will be a believer.

1. High on Fire – Blessed Black Wings (Relapse – 2005)

I have lost so many fucking eBay auctions trying to get this thing on vinyl. High on Fire sound like a herd of charging rhinos on acid, and this Steve Albini-produced gem is their finest hour. Matt Pike is without question the best metal guitarist on the planet, an unshaven, tattooed sage in the vein of Miyamoto Musashi, the greatest samurai ever. Musashi lived in a cave and fought his last duel with a giant piece of wood. He fucking killed the guy. Matt Pike could kill you with a Les Paul. See the similarity? If there were such a thing as the quintessential metal band, it would be High on Fire. If I could only give someone one album to teach them what metal is, it would be ‘Blessed Black Wings’.