Metal
Here you'll find album histories, birthdays, and anniversaries connected to the artists who built metal and its branches, along with vinyl reissue news as titles reappear. Metal has a particularly active underground pressing culture: independent labels regularly issue small runs in colored or splatter vinyl, and older catalog titles get reworked into box sets and remasters aimed at longtime fans rather than casual listeners. The stories here follow how specific records came together — band lineups, studio choices, the scenes around them — and note when a reissue gives an older album a reason to be discussed again.
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Why Did Bullet for My Valentine Make Their Heaviest Album?
Bullet for My Valentine released their self-titled seventh album on November 5, 2021, through Spinefarm Records. Matt Tuck pushed harsh vocals to roughly 60 percent of the mix.
· 4 min read
Why Did Edward the Great Divide Iron Maiden Fans?
Edward the Great, Iron Maiden's third compilation, arrived on November 4, 2002. It drew only on recordings from 1982 to 2002, skipping the Paul Di'Anno era entirely.
· 3 min read
Why Did Dark Tranquillity's Atoma Survive Losing Two Founders?
Dark Tranquillity released Atoma on Century Media Records on November 4, 2016, with a new bassist and a founding guitarist already on the way out.
· 3 min read
X Japan's Dahlia at 30: A Final Album
X Japan's Yoshiki spent three years recording Dahlia at his own North Hollywood studio. The album hit number one in Japan before the band split in 1997.
· 4 min read
Why Did We Came as Romans Call Their Debut To Plant a Seed?
We Came as Romans released To Plant a Seed on November 3, 2009, a ten-track debut on Equal Records that carried the band onto several Billboard charts.
· 3 min read
How Beast in Black Transformed a Manga Obsession into Metal
Beast in Black released their debut album Berserker in November 2017 through Nuclear Blast. Guitarist Anton Kabanen wrote, produced and mixed the record around Kentaro Miura's manga Berserk.
· 3 min read
How Triumph's Rock & Roll Machine Crossed the Border
Triumph's second album, Rock & Roll Machine, was recorded at Phase One Studios in Toronto and released on Attic Records on November 3, 1977.
· 3 min read
I's Between Two Worlds at 20
I's only album, Between Two Worlds, arrived on Nuclear Blast on November 3, 2006, with Abbath writing the music and Demonaz writing every lyric.
· 3 min read
How Nile Created an Album for Those the Gods Despise
Nile released Those Whom the Gods Detest on November 3, 2009, a sixth album built around Karl Sanders's idea of rejecting every god at once.
· 4 min read
How Did Therapy? Sneak Nurse Into the UK Charts?
Therapy? released Nurse on A&M Records in November 1992, a major-label debut built from farmhouse demos, a cello and LSD-warning samples that still reached number 38 in the UK.
· 4 min read
Why Did HIM's "Join Me in Death" Cause Such a Storm?
The song started as a dare disguised as a love letter. On July 11, 1998, at the Ilosaarirock festival in Finland, HIM singer Ville Valo tried out a new ballad t…
· 4 min read
Why Did Katatonia Risk It All on Night Is the New Day?
Katatonia's eighth album Night Is the New Day arrived in Europe through Peaceville Records on November 2, 2009. The Swedish band rebuilt its sound around electronics and acoustic fragility.
· 3 min read
Why Did The Ocean Set a Metal Album in Deep Time?
The Ocean released Phanerozoic I: Palaeozoic on Metal Blade Records on November 2, 2018. The German post-metal band turned the Palaeozoic era into a concept album that critics took seriously.
· 3 min read
Why Did Amorphis Name Their Debut After a Battlefield?
Amorphis took the title of their 1992 debut The Karelian Isthmus from a real Finnish battlefield. The album arrived on Relapse Records on November 1, 1992.
· 3 min read
How Megadeth Built a Studio and Lost the Future on Youthanasia
Megadeth built a South Phoenix studio hoping to record Youthanasia entirely on hard drives. The 1994 Capitol Records album ended up being made on tape instead.
· 3 min read
Immortal: How Pure Holocaust Froze Black Metal Solid
Immortal's second album Pure Holocaust arrived on November 1, 1993, with Grim on the cover but Abbath playing every drum part inside.
· 3 min read
Why Did Testament Split Drumming Duties in London?
Testament's Live in London, released on November 1, 2005, captures a May 2005 Koko club show. John Tempesta and Louie Clemente split the drum stool mid-set.
· 4 min read
How Godsmack's Warehouse Gamble Made Awake a Breakthrough
Godsmack built their own studio inside a Haverhill warehouse for Awake, and the album entered the Billboard 200 at number five on October 31, 2000.
· 3 min read
Why Did Lou Reed and Metallica Make Lulu?
Lou Reed and Metallica released Lulu on October 31, 2011. The double album built from Reed's theatre song cycle and the band's avant-garde metal arrangements still divides listeners.
· 3 min read
Why Did Avenged Sevenfold Bet Their Sound on This Album?
Avenged Sevenfold's self-titled fourth album arrived on October 30, 2007, produced by the band themselves and built on slower grooves meant to fill arenas.
· 3 min read
How Sepultura's Schizophrenia Won the World Without a Single Show
Sepultura's Schizophrenia reached the world through Roadrunner Records, which signed the band without ever seeing them play live.
· 3 min read
How Did Children of Bodom Risk It All on Follow the Reaper?
A studio in the Swedish village of Pärlby sat mostly empty for three weeks while five Finnish musicians recorded their third album without the producer they had…
· 3 min read
Why Did Mastodon Make Hushed and Grim?
Mastodon released Hushed and Grim on October 29, 2021, an eighty-six-minute double album dedicated to former manager Nick John. John died of pancreatic cancer in 2018.
· 3 min read
Why Did Lacuna Coil Re-Record Comalies Twenty Years Later?
In a studio in Hagen, Germany, two singers traded lines in English and Italian while a band built songs around the word 'coma' and the word 'lies.' The Italian …
· 3 min read