Author: carl

The first time I heard Saxon’s “Wheels of Steel,” I was crammed into the back room of Dirk’s Records in 1980, a dingy little import shop in LA where the serious metalheads congregated. Dirk—a perpetually grumpy Dutch guy with thinning hair and opinions stronger than his coffee—had this ritual of playing new European imports for his “trusted customers” (i.e., the losers like me who spent way too much time and money in his store).

“This,” he announced with the gravity of someone unveiling a lost religious text, “is the real England, not that punk garbage.” The needle dropped, and the title track’s driving riff filled the room. Four of us stood there, nodding along as Biff Byford’s voice—part street-tough swagger, part operatic power—cut through the mix. By the time “747 (Strangers in the Night)” kicked in, we were all mentally calculating if we had enough cash to buy the import or would have to wait for the American release (which, for several of us, meant mowing additional lawns that weekend).

Saxon’s “Wheels of Steel” arrived at the perfect moment. Heavy metal was undergoing a seismic shift—what journalists were calling the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, or NWOBHM if you were cool enough to use the acronym without explanation. After years of prog-rock excess and punk’s deliberate simplicity, bands like Saxon represented something fresh: technically proficient musicians who weren’t afraid of hooks and choruses, playing with an urgency that punk had reintroduced to the musical landscape.

The tragedy is that while their contemporaries Iron Maiden and Def Leppard would go on to conquer American arenas, Saxon remained primarily a European phenomenon. I’ve spent more hours than I care to admit arguing with fellow metal journalists about why this happened. The simple answer is timing and marketing, but the more complex answer involves a perfect storm of record label missteps, tour support that never quite materialized, and perhaps being a bit too authentically working-class British when American audiences were increasingly drawn to either the theatrical darkness of Maiden or the increasingly polished accessibility of Leppard.

Let me be absolutely clear: “Wheels of Steel” stands alongside “Iron Maiden” and “On Through the Night” as one of the defining documents of the NWOBHM. The difference is, you probably owned those other records if you were an American metalhead in the early 80s. Saxon might have remained an obscure name you’d seen in the import section or in the pages of Kerrang! magazine.

What made “Wheels of Steel” special was its unrelenting authenticity. While other bands were writing fantasy epics or aiming for radio play, Saxon was chronicling life as they knew it—blue-collar existence, motorcycle culture, and the power and freedom that heavy music represented for working-class kids. The title track wasn’t about medieval warriors or mythological beasts; it was about motorcycles, for Christ’s sake. “Motorcycle Man” doubled down on the theme. These weren’t songs written to impress critics or secure crossover appeal—they were anthems for people who worked hard all week and lived for their weekend freedom.

The production—raw but clear, with Paul Quinn and Graham Oliver’s guitars pushed right up front where they belonged—perfectly captured the band’s live energy. Producer Pete Hinton knew exactly what this band needed: just get out of the way and let them play. There’s a physicality to the album that still jumps out of the speakers four decades later. You can hear fingers on strings, the wood of the drum shells resonating, Byford’s voice straining to hit those powerful notes. It has that miraculous quality where it sounds like a live band playing in a room rather than a studio construction.

I finally saw Saxon live in 1982 when they opened for Rush on the “Moving Pictures” tour, playing to a half-empty arena of prog fans who were too busy rolling joints to appreciate what was happening on stage. It was a textbook example of a bad bill pairing. Saxon came out like a heavy metal street gang, all denim and leather and working-class aggression, playing to an audience that was waiting for intricate time signatures and philosophical lyrics. I remember standing (yes, I was the one guy standing during their set) and watching this incredible band giving everything they had to an audience that mostly didn’t care. After they finished “Wheels of Steel,” the guy behind me tapped my shoulder and asked, “Who is this again? They’re pretty good.” Too little, too late, buddy.

The album’s standout tracks remain undeniable. “Wheels of Steel” and “747 (Strangers in the Night)” are the obvious classics, combining memorable riffs with choruses that burrow into your brain and stay there for decades (trust me on this). But deep cuts like “See the Light Shining” and “Street Fighting Gang” showcase the band’s range while maintaining that core Saxon identity—hard-hitting, unpretentious, and built on the chemistry between Quinn and Oliver’s complementary guitar work, Pete Gill’s powerhouse drumming, and Steve Dawson’s rock-solid bass lines.

I’ve always had a particular fondness for “Machine Gun,” with its military-precision riffing and Byford’s tale of warfare that manages to be both anti-war and respectful of those caught in its machinery. It’s a perfect example of how Saxon could tackle a serious subject without sacrificing any of their musical ferocity.

Years later, in the mid-90s, I finally got to interview Biff Byford for a retrospective piece. I admitted that I’d been obsessed with “Wheels of Steel” since my teens, and he laughed that warm, Yorkshire laugh. “We were just trying to capture what we sounded like down the pub, you know? We didn’t know we were making something that would last.” When I asked about their limited American success compared to their NWOBHM peers, he was philosophical. “Different bands, different paths. Maiden had the whole package with Eddie and all. Leppard smoothed out the rough edges. We just kept being Saxon. For better or worse.”

For my money, it was definitely for better. There’s something to be said for a band that never compromised its core identity. While Def Leppard was working with Mutt Lange to create the ultra-polished “Pyromania” and “Hysteria,” Saxon remained defiantly themselves. They evolved, certainly—what band doesn’t?—but they never lost that essential Saxon-ness that made “Wheels of Steel” so powerful.

American audiences missed out, though the band did develop a dedicated cult following here. I remember seeing them headline a club tour in 1985—the contrast with that Rush opening slot couldn’t have been more dramatic. This time, the place was packed with diehard fans who knew every word to “747” and went absolutely berserk when the opening riff of “Wheels of Steel” kicked in. Byford commanded the stage like a general, his voice somehow even more powerful in person than on record. Quinn and Oliver traded solos with the easy confidence of musicians who’d been playing together so long they could anticipate each other’s moves.

Listening to “Wheels of Steel” now, what strikes me is how little it’s aged. While some albums from that era sound hopelessly tied to their time, Saxon’s sophomore effort exists in a kind of timeless heavy metal space. The themes—freedom, working-class pride, standing up for yourself—remain as relevant as ever. The musical approach—straightforward heavy rock with strong melodies and precise playing—never goes out of style.

I’ve introduced countless younger metal fans to this album over the years. My favorite convert was my nephew Tyler, who came to stay with me one summer in the early 2000s. He was into whatever nu-metal was popular that month, all downtuned guitars and angst. I played him “Wheels of Steel” one night while we were driving, and by the chorus, he was air-drumming on the dashboard. “Who IS this?” he asked. When I told him the album was older than he was, he refused to believe me until I showed him the original vinyl at home. He ended up “borrowing” the CD version before he left. Family tradition continues.

The legacy of “Wheels of Steel” is complex. On one hand, it’s a landmark album that helped define an entire movement in heavy metal. On the other, it remains criminally underappreciated in America compared to its cultural impact in Europe. Saxon never became household names here the way Maiden and Priest did, never graduated to the arenas and stadiums that their music so naturally belonged in.

But maybe there’s something fitting about that. Saxon was always the band for the true believers, the metalheads who dug a little deeper, who valued substance over image. “Wheels of Steel” remains a testament to a time when heavy metal was entering a new phase of evolution, when bands from working-class British towns were rewriting the rulebook with nothing but passion, volume, and authentic experience.

If you’ve never heard it, fix that immediately. Forty-plus years on, those wheels are still spinning, and the machine still runs perfectly.

There’s bad timing, there’s really bad timing, and then there’s releasing an album called “God Hates Us All” on September 11, 2001. I remember sitting in the cramped office of Riff Raider magazine that morning, a fresh copy of Slayer’s new album in hand, halfway through writing what I thought would be a straightforward review. Then the world changed.

The TV in the corner that usually played metal videos on mute suddenly became the focus of the entire office as we watched the horror unfold in real-time. My half-finished review of Slayer’s newest sonic assault seemed simultaneously trivial and uncomfortably prescient. I mean, what do you do with an album titled “God Hates Us All” on a day when that sentiment felt a little too on-the-nose?

The review never ran. The next issue was delayed, then heavily revised to address the national tragedy, and by the time we got back to regular music coverage, Slayer’s album had been buried in the avalanche of world events. It wasn’t just our magazine—the entire music press essentially hit pause for weeks, and when the industry finally staggered back to its feet, “God Hates Us All” had missed its moment.

Which is a damn shame, because divorced from its unfortunate release date, this was a legitimately strong late-career Slayer album that deserved more attention than it got.

I first listened to an advance copy about two weeks before the official release. The promotional material proudly proclaimed that this was Slayer’s “return to extremity” after the more groove-oriented approach of “Diabolus in Musica.” That album had left some die-hard fans grumbling that Slayer was watering down their sound or, God forbid, being influenced by nu-metal trends. The horror!

From the opening assault of “Darkness of Christ” and “Disciple,” it was clear that Slayer had indeed recaptured some of their earlier intensity, albeit filtered through their more mature, refined approach to songwriting. This wasn’t “Reign in Blood Part 2″—you can’t go home again, after all—but it was definitely Slayer remembering what made them Slayer in the first place.

The production, handled by Matt Hyde (known for his work with Monster Magnet and Porno for Pyros), was noticeably different from the classic Slayer sound. Gone was the reverb-drenched, almost supernaturally evil atmosphere of the Rick Rubin era. In its place was something more direct, more in-your-face, with Kerry King and Jeff Hanneman’s guitars presented with a raw immediacy that emphasized the physicality of their playing.

Tom Araya’s vocals had evolved too. The banshee wail of the early days had given way to a more controlled aggression—a tradeoff of some youthful wildness for veteran presence. And Paul Bostaph, while not Dave Lombardo (a comparison that dogged his entire tenure with the band), brought his own technical precision to the drums, particularly on tracks like “Threshold” where his double-bass work is absolutely punishing.

I vividly remember playing “Payback” for the first time and having to check if my speakers were blown because of how raw and almost deliberately ugly the guitars sounded. This wasn’t the surgical precision of “Seasons in the Abyss”—this was Slayer embracing a certain sonic brutality that reflected the increasingly harsh worldview in Araya’s lyrics.

Those lyrics were another point of evolution. While early Slayer reveled in supernatural horror and the occult, “God Hates Us All” turned its gaze to human atrocity and religious hypocrisy. When Araya roars “I keep the bible in a pool of blood so that none of its lies can affect me” in “Disciple,” it hits differently than the more cartoonish Satanic imagery of their early work. There’s a genuine anger here, a frustration with organized religion that feels personally motivated rather than shock for shock’s value.

I had the chance to interview Kerry King about a month after the album’s release, when the band was trying to get their tour back on track after the national shutdown of live events. The conversation inevitably turned to the unfortunate timing of the release.

“Yeah, it was… not ideal,” King said, master of understatement that he is. “We thought about delaying it or even changing the title, but ultimately decided against it. The album is what it is. It says what it says. It was done before any of that happened.”

When I asked if he was concerned about the album’s legacy being overshadowed by its release date, he was philosophical in that uniquely Kerry King way. “People who get Slayer are gonna get this record eventually. Might take longer now, but good music finds its audience. And if someone’s gonna be offended by the title, they weren’t gonna be Slayer fans anyway.”

He had a point. Slayer had never been about mass appeal or winning over the easily offended. But still, “God Hates Us All” deserved better than to be lost in the shuffle of global events.

Revisiting the album now, two decades later, what strikes me is how well it holds up as a document of a veteran band refusing to rest on their laurels. Songs like “Bloodline” (which gained some exposure through its inclusion in the “Dracula 2000” soundtrack) showcase Slayer’s ability to maintain their essential heaviness while experimenting with structure and dynamics. “War Zone” delivers the furious thrash that die-hards crave, while “Cast Down” incorporates almost industrial elements into their sonic palette.

Is it their best album? No, that title still belongs to “Reign in Blood” or maybe “Seasons in the Abyss,” depending on which hill I’m willing to die on that day. But it’s a far stronger effort than it’s generally given credit for, especially coming at a point when many of their contemporaries had either drastically changed their sound or become sad parodies of their former selves.

The critical reception at the time was mixed, though it’s hard to separate genuine musical critique from the general pall that hung over everything in those post-9/11 weeks. Rolling Stone gave it a tepid review that seemed more concerned with the album’s timing than its content. Kerrang! was more positive but still spent half the review discussing the awkward release date. Even our own coverage, when we finally ran a truncated review months later, couldn’t help framing it in terms of its unfortunate timing.

I’ve always wondered how “God Hates Us All” would be remembered if it had come out a week earlier or a month later. Would songs like “Disciple” and “Payback” have become setlist staples earlier than they did? Would the album have been recognized as the solid late-career highlight that it was? Or would it still have been overshadowed by the ongoing debate about whether Slayer had “gone nu-metal” (they hadn’t) or if they could still deliver the goods without Lombardo (they could)?

In some ways, the album’s reception mirrors Slayer’s broader career trajectory. They were never the biggest of the Big Four in commercial terms. They never had their “Black Album” moment of crossing over to mainstream success like Metallica, never had the technical virtuosity praise that Megadeth received, never had the youthful punk energy of early Anthrax. What they had was consistency—a relentless commitment to being exactly who they were, for better or worse.

“God Hates Us All” exemplifies that consistency. Even in their third decade as a band, even with lineup changes and shifting musical landscapes, Slayer remained fundamentally Slayer. The album has its flaws—the production occasionally veers into muddy territory, and not every experiment pays off—but its strengths far outweigh them.

I’ve owned the album in multiple formats over the years, from the original CD to a limited vinyl pressing that I probably paid too much for on Discogs during a late-night bout of nostalgic record shopping. Each time I revisit it, I find something new to appreciate—a guitar harmony buried in the mix of “Seven Faces,” a particularly venomous vocal performance on “Deviance,” the way “Here Comes the Pain” manages to be simultaneously groovy and caustic.

One of my favorite memories related to this album came about five years after its release. I was at a small club show in Seattle—not Slayer, some local band I don’t even remember—and ended up chatting with this kid at the bar who couldn’t have been more than 21. He was wearing a worn-out “God Hates Us All” tour shirt, and I commented on it.

“Oh man, this album changed my life,” he said with absolute sincerity. “It was the first Slayer record I ever heard.”

It had never occurred to me that “God Hates Us All” could be someone’s entry point to Slayer, their “Reign in Blood” or “South of Heaven.” But why not? Every fan starts somewhere, and music doesn’t come with an expiration date.

“What grabbed you about it?” I asked, genuinely curious.

“It’s just so… honest, you know? Like they’re not trying to be anything but what they are. I worked backward from there, got into their older stuff, but this one’s still special to me.”

That conversation has stuck with me over the years, a reminder that albums live beyond their release cycles, beyond their critical reception, beyond even the circumstances that might initially overshadow them. Good music finds its audience eventually, just as Kerry King predicted.

As Slayer has now retired from touring, their catalog has naturally entered the phase of historical assessment. When people talk about their legacy, “God Hates Us All” often gets relegated to footnote status—the album with the unfortunate release date, the one with that awkward title given what happened that day.

But it deserves better. It deserves to be remembered as a document of a legendary band still finding new angles on their sound two decades into their career. It deserves recognition for tracks like “Disciple” and “Payback” that stand alongside their classic material. It deserves to be judged on its musical merits rather than its coincidental timing.

So if you’re a Slayer fan who passed on this album back in the day, or if you’ve come to their music more recently and have focused on the classic ’80s material, do yourself a favor and give “God Hates Us All” a proper listen. Divorced from its historical context, from the debates about production and lineup changes and genre purity that dominated metal discourse in the early 2000s, it stands as a testament to what made Slayer special: their absolute commitment to their vision, their unflinching confrontation of uncomfortable realities, and their ability to translate rage and disillusionment into cathartic, necessary music.

The world may have changed on September 11, 2001, but Slayer’s devotion to their craft never did. And two decades later, that counts for a lot.

I first heard Slipknot on a Tuesday night in August 1999, and I nearly crashed my car. Seriously. I was driving home from a late production meeting at the magazine, flipping through radio stations, when KNAC played “Spit It Out.” I remember swerving into the next lane because what the hell was I hearing? The DJ back-announced it as “a new band from Iowa called Slipknot” and said something about them wearing masks. I drove straight to Tower Records, which was thankfully still open, and bought the album based on that one song and that tiny fragment of information.

The cashier—a guy named Pete who’d recommended countless death metal bands to me over the years—saw my purchase and just said, “Dude. You’re not ready.” He wasn’t wrong.

I sat in my car in the Tower parking lot and listened to the entire album straight through. Didn’t even start the engine. Just sat there, getting progressively more wide-eyed as this sonic assault poured through my factory Nissan speakers that were absolutely not designed to handle this level of auditory violence. By the time “Scissors” ended, it was past midnight, the parking lot had mostly emptied out, and I felt physically different—like I’d just witnessed something I wasn’t entirely prepared for but couldn’t possibly ignore.

Let’s be clear: 1999 was not exactly a dead zone for heavy music. Deftones’ “Around the Fur” had rewired my brain two years earlier. System of a Down’s debut had dropped the previous year. Nine Inch Nails released “The Fragile” that same year. But Slipknot was something else entirely—a terrifying amalgamation of extreme metal, industrial percussion, rap-adjacent vocals, and a visual aesthetic that looked like a horror movie come to life. In the late 90s landscape where nu-metal was already becoming a parody of itself and traditional metal was desperately trying to maintain relevance in a post-grunge world, Slipknot arrived like a baseball bat to the side of the head.

The first thing that hit me about the album was its production—specifically, the percussion. Having three drummers (well, one drummer and two percussionists, but still) created this overwhelming rhythmic assault. The beer keg hits, the triggered samples, the layers of tribal-sounding beats beneath Joey Jordison’s already-impressive drumming—it created this dense, chaotic foundation that sounded like a machine shop collapsing during an earthquake. I’d never heard anything quite like it before, and I was a guy who prided himself on being well-versed in metal’s most extreme offerings.

That first proper track, “(sic),” still stands as one of the most effective album openers in metal history. Those 39 seconds of building noise, that eerily mechanical count-in (“The whole thing, I think it’s sick”), and then that explosive entrance—it’s perfect horror movie structure, the musical equivalent of the killer jumping out after minutes of unbearable tension. And Corey Taylor’s vocals, Jesus Christ. The way he switched from those guttural growls to almost melodic sections to unhinged screaming—it was like he was having a full psychological breakdown in real-time.

The thing about Slipknot’s debut that really set it apart was how it straddled multiple metal subgenres without fully belonging to any of them. Too extreme for nu-metal, too groove-oriented for death metal, too experimental for hardcore, too raw for industrial. They existed in this uncanny valley between established styles, creating something that felt both familiar and deeply unsettling in its uniqueness.

“Eyeless” demonstrated this perfectly, opening with an almost hip-hop beat before exploding into that frantic verse. The chorus had this weird, unsettling melody that shouldn’t have been catchy but absolutely was. And lyrically, it captured the album’s overall theme of alienation and rage with lines like “You can’t see California without Marlon Brando’s eyes”—the kind of cryptic, disturbing imagery that made perfect emotional sense even if it was logically incomprehensible.

Then there’s “Wait and Bleed,” which somehow became something approaching a hit despite being fundamentally more extreme than anything on rock radio at the time. That track showed the band’s unexpected gift for hooks amidst the chaos. The clean-sung chorus provided just enough of a breather between the verses’ intensity that it created this perfect tension-and-release dynamic. I remember being in a Best Buy months later and hearing it playing over the store speakers, watching confused suburban parents trying to figure out what their teenagers were suddenly into. It was glorious.

Of course, you can’t talk about early Slipknot without addressing the visual component. Those masks and jumpsuits weren’t just shock-value costumes; they were an extension of the music’s dehumanizing intensity. When I finally saw the “Spit It Out” video, it confirmed what I’d imagined while listening in that parking lot—these guys looked like escapees from some experimental psychiatric facility, numbered jumpsuits grease-stained and masks distorting their features into these grotesque caricatures. In a genre that had become increasingly image-conscious with nu-metal’s baggy jeans and backwards caps, Slipknot’s visual approach was both a total rejection of trendy aesthetics and a perfect visualization of their sound.

The Iowa connection fascinated me too. Metal has always had these geographic hotspots—Bay Area thrash, Norwegian black metal, Swedish death metal, Florida death metal. But Iowa? The idea that this sonic monstrosity emerged from America’s heartland added another layer of disturbing irony. I later learned about their earlier demo “Mate. Feed. Kill. Repeat.” and how the band had evolved from local curiosity to Roadrunner Records’ big bet, but in that moment, they seemed to have emerged fully formed from some corn-fed nightmare dimension.

Looking back, it’s easy to forget how genuinely scary Slipknot seemed in 1999. Metal had certainly had its shock elements before—Alice Cooper, KISS, King Diamond, Marilyn Manson—but there was always a theatrical wink behind those personas. With early Slipknot, there was no wink. Their intensity felt pathologically real. The self-harm, the fights within the band, the stories of their early shows devolving into genuine chaos—all of it contributed to this aura of authentic danger that most bands can only pretend to have.

“Surfacing” captures this quality perfectly. When Taylor screams “Fuck it all, fuck this world, fuck everything that you stand for,” it doesn’t sound like calculated rebellion—it sounds like someone who genuinely means it, someone pushed beyond any concern for consequence or self-preservation. The song’s closing refrain of “You can’t kill me because I’m already inside you” wasn’t just a cool metal lyric; it was a mission statement. Slipknot had tapped into something primal and universal: rage as religion.

Then there’s “Prosthetics,” which showcases another element that set the album apart—its willingness to be genuinely unsettling rather than just aggressive. The stalker narrative, the creeping tempo, Taylor’s unhinged whispers—it’s more disturbing than conventionally “heavy.” Metal often aims for darkness, but true psychological horror is rarer. This track achieves it by making the listener uncomfortable in a way that blast beats and growls alone never could.

The album hits its most experimental stride with “Tattered & Torn,” a track that sounds like it was recorded in an abandoned factory while having a collective nervous breakdown. The dissonant guitar, the irregular percussion, the processed vocals—it’s almost anti-music, a deliberate deconstruction of conventional song structure that creates this suffocating atmosphere of dread. Not exactly something you’d put on at parties (unless you’re trying to make everyone leave), but an essential piece of what made this album so boundary-pushing.

What’s remarkable about Slipknot’s debut, listening to it now, is how little it’s aged. So many albums from that era sound painfully dated, tied to specific trends that didn’t survive the decade. But this thing still sounds ruthlessly contemporary. The production—courtesy of Ross Robinson, who deserves immense credit for capturing this controlled chaos—has a rawness that transcends era-specific techniques. The rage still feels authentic rather than performative. The sonic experimentation still pushes boundaries that mainstream metal has yet to fully explore.

I’ve followed Slipknot throughout their career, watching them evolve and mature while maintaining their essential intensity. I was there at the Palladium for their first Los Angeles show, standing in a crowd that seemed genuinely unsure whether we were at a concert or the prelude to a riot. I’ve seen the band members’ side projects, their solo work, their ventures into more accessible territory. I’ve watched them weather lineup changes, personal tragedies, and the inevitable backlash that comes when any extreme act achieves mainstream success. But nothing has quite recaptured the sheer, primal shock of hearing that debut album for the first time.

A few years later, I interviewed Corey Taylor for the magazine. Slipknot was massive by then, “Iowa” had dropped, and we talked about that evolution from local curiosity to global phenomenon. I asked him about those early days, about whether the intensity was calculated or natural. He laughed and said something like, “Man, we were just nine fucked-up guys from nowhere with nothing to lose. That wasn’t an act. That was survival.”

That’s what comes through on “Slipknot,” what makes it stand tall as not just the most terrifying album of 1999 but one of the most impactful metal debuts ever. It wasn’t manufactured darkness; it was authentic catharsis from nine guys channeling their frustrations, their alienation, their rage into something that transcended their circumstances. The masks weren’t hiding their identities—they were revealing something more truthful than their everyday faces could express.

Last year, I played the album for my teenage nephew, who’s just getting into heavier music. I was curious how it would hit someone from a generation where extreme sounds are just a Spotify playlist away. He listened to the whole thing in silence, and when it finished, he just said, “That’s not like regular music, is it?” No, kid. It never was. And that’s exactly why it matters.

I first heard Stratovarius’ “Visions” in the most appropriate setting possible: a tiny, overheated record shop in Helsinki during a brutally cold January. It was 1997, and I was in Finland covering a metal festival for Riff Raider magazine—one of those assignments that sounds glamorous until you’re trying to interview bands in a venue with no heating while your pen freezes mid-sentence.

The shop owner—a tall guy named Mikko with waist-length hair and an encyclopedic knowledge of obscure European metal—saw me flipping through the new releases section and practically sprinted over. “You must hear this,” he said, grabbing a CD with artwork that looked like a sci-fi novel cover. “Local heroes. They are changing everything.” He popped it into the store’s sound system, cranked the volume, and suddenly “The Kiss of Judas” was filling the small space with its symphonic grandeur and Timo Tolkki’s lightning-fast guitar work.

I left that store 60 Finnish markka poorer but clutching what would become one of my favorite albums of the decade. More importantly, I was holding what would eventually be recognized as the blueprint for an entire subgenre’s renaissance. “Visions” wasn’t just another power metal album; it was the moment when European power metal found its modern form.

To understand the significance of “Visions,” you need to understand where metal was in 1997. In America, nu-metal was ascendant—downtuned guitars, angry vocals, and hip-hop influences were dominating the landscape. Traditional heavy metal was considered passé, a relic of the 80s that had been swept aside by grunge and now by Korn and their ilk. Even in Europe, black metal and death metal were the cutting edge of extremity. Power metal, with its soaring vocals and neo-classical influences, seemed like a dinosaur facing extinction.

Enter Stratovarius and “Visions.” While the band had been around since the mid-80s and had released several solid albums previously, this was the record where everything clicked into perfect alignment. The lineup of Timo Tolkki (guitars), Timo Kotipelto (vocals), Jari Kainulainen (bass), Jens Johansson (keyboards), and Jörg Michael (drums) achieved a chemistry that transformed their sound from merely good to genuinely transcendent.

From the opening track “The Kiss of Judas,” it’s clear this isn’t just technically impressive music—though sweet Jesus, is it ever technically impressive. Tolkki’s neoclassical guitar runs make Yngwie Malmsteen sound restrained, Johansson’s keyboard work is like Mozart on amphetamines, and Michael’s double-bass drumming propels everything forward with military precision. But what elevates “Visions” above mere instrumental showboating is the songwriting. These are actual songs, with hooks and choruses that lodge themselves in your brain alongside all that instrumental pyrotechnics.

Take “Black Diamond,” which might be the perfect power metal song. It opens with that ominous keyboard motif before the full band crashes in, setting the stage for Kotipelto’s vocals to soar above the controlled chaos. By the time the chorus hits, with its perfect marriage of melody and power, it’s delivering that rare combination of adrenaline rush and emotional punch that defines the very best metal. I’ve seen grown men in battle vests weep while screaming along to that chorus, which is frankly metal as hell.

Then there’s the title track, a 10-minute epic that showcases everything that makes Stratovarius special. It’s ambitious without being pretentious, complex without being needlessly convoluted. The song shifts seamlessly between atmospheric sections, full-throttle power metal, and moments of surprising delicacy, all in service of a cohesive whole. That’s the trick most technical bands miss—all the virtuosity in the world means nothing if it doesn’t serve the song.

What made “Visions” so influential was its perfect balance of elements. The classical influences were integrated organically rather than feeling tacked on. The production was pristine but not sterile, allowing each instrument space to breathe while maintaining a unified sound. Kotipelto’s vocals were powerful without veering into self-parody (a common pitfall for power metal singers). And the lyrical themes—personal freedom, breaking from societal constraints, cosmic questions of destiny—resonated beyond the usual fantasy tropes of the genre.

I caught Stratovarius on the “Visions” tour at a club in Stockholm that was so packed, the condensation from the ceiling was literally raining back down on the crowd. The band was astonishingly tight live, recreating the album’s complexity while adding an extra layer of energy that only comes from live performance. Tolkki and Johansson had this competitive camaraderie on stage, each seemingly trying to outdo the other’s solos while grinning like madmen. Kotipelto commanded the stage with a voice that somehow sounded even more powerful than on the record.

Between songs, I remember looking around at the audience—metalheads of all stripes, from longhairs in battle vests to clean-cut guys who looked like they’d come straight from office jobs. Power metal was bringing people back to the fold, offering a fundamentally optimistic alternative to the darkness that dominated much of metal at the time. The joy in that room was palpable.

The ripple effect of “Visions” can’t be overstated. After its release, power metal experienced a renaissance throughout Europe. Bands like Sonata Arctica, Rhapsody (later Rhapsody of Fire), and Hammerfall all emerged or rose to prominence in its wake, each putting their own spin on the template Stratovarius had refined. Labels like Nuclear Blast and Century Media began actively seeking out power metal acts, and festivals devoted to the subgenre started popping up across the continent.

What’s particularly fascinating is how the album’s influence spread geographically. Power metal scenes flourished in unlikely places—not just Germany and Scandinavia, the traditional strongholds, but Southern Europe, South America, and eventually Japan, where Stratovarius would become arena headliners. The template established on “Visions”—that perfect fusion of speed, melody, classical influences, and technical prowess—proved remarkably adaptable to different cultural contexts.

I interviewed Timo Tolkki a few years after the album’s release, and he seemed both proud of and slightly bewildered by its impact. “We were just trying to make the best album we could,” he told me. “We weren’t thinking about creating some new template. But then suddenly there were all these bands that sounded a bit like us, and promoters were talking about a power metal revival.” He paused, then added with a laugh, “I’m still not sure if I should apologize for that or not.”

No apology necessary, in my book. While some of the bands that followed in Stratovarius’ wake were admittedly derivative, the best of them took that blueprint and built something distinctive with it. For every cookie-cutter clone, there was a Kamelot or a Blind Guardian expanding the possibilities of what power metal could be.

What’s remarkable is how well “Visions” holds up nearly three decades later. Unlike some metal from the 90s that’s hopelessly dated by its production choices or stylistic trends, Stratovarius created something that exists outside of time. The musicianship remains jaw-dropping, the songs still connect emotionally, and that pristine production job still sounds fresh and dynamic on modern sound systems.

I still remember introducing my friend Dave—a dedicated death metal guy who generally viewed clean vocals with deep suspicion—to this album on a road trip around 2005. He maintained his skeptical expression through the first track, but by the time “Black Diamond” hit, he was reluctantly nodding along. “Okay, this actually shreds,” he finally admitted somewhere during Tolkki’s solo. By trip’s end, he was unironically singing along to “Forever Free.” Another convert to the cause.

The sad postscript to the “Visions” story is the eventual implosion of the classic Stratovarius lineup. The tensions between band members, particularly Tolkki’s increasingly erratic behavior and eventual departure, meant they never quite built on the promise of this album in the way they might have. There were certainly good Stratovarius albums after “Visions”—”Episode” and “Infinite” both have their moments—but they never quite recaptured the lightning-in-a-bottle perfection of this record.

Yet in a way, that only enhances the album’s legacy. “Visions” stands as this singular moment when everything aligned perfectly—five musicians at the peak of their powers, a collection of songs that showcased every facet of their abilities, and timing that allowed them to revitalize an entire subgenre. Few bands get to claim that kind of impact, even if they go on to have longer, more stable careers.

For anyone exploring the roots of modern power metal, “Visions” isn’t just recommended listening—it’s essential. Those 55 minutes of music fundamentally reshaped an entire corner of the metal world, setting a standard for technical excellence, melodic songwriting, and ambitious arrangements that bands are still measured against today. Not bad for an album I discovered by chance in a tiny Helsinki record shop during a Finnish winter that felt like it would never end.

Just don’t blame me for the wave of dragon-themed power metal bands that came afterward. That part isn’t Stratovarius’ fault either, I swear.

I need to start with a confession that’s going to undermine about 70% of my credibility as a metal journalist: I own five—yes, FIVE—different Iron Maiden t-shirts that I rotate through my wardrobe with embarrassing regularity for a man in his fifties. My current apartment has an entire wall that my last girlfriend referred to as “The Shrine”—a meticulous display of Maiden vinyl, backstage passes, and a framed concert poster from the Seventh Son tour that cost me more than my first car. I once got into a bar argument with a guy who claimed “Somewhere in Time” was overrated, and friends had to physically restrain me from turning it into the least metal fistfight in history. And yes, I was absolutely that insufferable know-it-all who repeatedly, emphatically declared to anyone unfortunate enough to be within earshot that “Iron Maiden cannot fail. It’s literally impossible.”

Which brings us, painfully but inevitably, to “The X Factor.”

October 2nd, 1995. I remember the date because it was my buddy Derek’s birthday, and we’d planned to pick up the new Maiden album and immediately dissect it over beers at his place. I’d been cautiously optimistic about the Blaze Bayley era. Sure, Bruce Dickinson leaving in ’93 had been a gut punch to every Maiden fan on the planet, but I’d convinced myself this could work. Blaze had been solid in Wolfsbane, had the right kind of growly-yet-melodic voice, and hey—Maiden had survived singer changes before, right? They’d be fine. Maiden was Maiden. Steve Harris wouldn’t let us down.

The guy at the record store—Tower Records on Sunset, where I spent roughly 40% of my disposable income throughout most of the ’90s—actually gave me a weird look when I bought it. “Let me know what you think,” he said with this expression I couldn’t quite read at the time but now recognize as pity.

Two hours and three beers later, Derek and I sat in silence in his living room. The last notes of “The Unbeliever” had faded out maybe five minutes earlier, but neither of us had spoken or even moved to lift the needle. Finally, he just looked at me and said, “What the hell was that?” I had no answer. For possibly the first time in my adult life, I was left speechless by an Iron Maiden album—and not in the good way.

“The X Factor” wasn’t just disappointing; it was disorienting, like walking into your childhood home to find all the furniture rearranged and painted in colors you don’t recognize. The songs were long—really long—but without the epic payoffs of something like “Rime of the Ancient Mariner.” The production was muddy and oddly compressed, lacking the dynamic punch that had always been a Maiden trademark. And poor Blaze, man. It wasn’t even that he was bad; it was that the songs seemed written for a completely different vocal range than what he could comfortably deliver.

The opening track, “Sign of the Cross,” actually started promisingly enough. That monastic chanting intro created atmosphere, and when the band kicked in after the extended intro, there was a moment of “OK, here we go!” But then… we didn’t go. The song meandered for over 11 minutes, with sections that felt repetitive rather than hypnotic. By the time Blaze started singing, I was already checking my watch, which is not something I’d ever done during a Maiden song before.

“Lord of the Flies” had a decent groove and was one of the few tracks where Blaze seemed comfortable, but the chorus felt oddly restrained when it should have soared. “Man on the Edge”—probably the album’s high point and eventual single—had energy but lacked the memorable guitar harmonies that defined the band’s classic material. By the time we hit “Fortunes of War,” with its seemingly endless intro, Derek had already gotten up twice to check if the CD was skipping or if the song was actually that repetitive. (It was the latter.)

Look, I know I’m being harsh here, but this is coming from a place of love. The kind of profound disappointment you can only feel when something you care deeply about lets you down. The kind of letdown made worse because I’d been so vocally, insufferably certain that Maiden was immune to the kind of missteps that had befallen other metal bands of the era.

What went wrong? It’s easy to pin it all on Bruce’s departure, but that’s overly simplistic. This was the mid-90s—possibly the most hostile environment for traditional heavy metal in the genre’s history. Grunge had demolished hair metal. Nu-metal was starting its rise. Even thrash was struggling to maintain relevance. The metal landscape had shifted seismically, and many of the giants of the 80s were either radically changing their sound (Metallica) or becoming legacy acts playing increasingly smaller venues.

But beyond the external factors, something had clearly shifted within the Maiden camp itself. Steve Harris had always been the band’s primary songwriter and driving force, but “The X Factor” felt like Harris had taken even more control, crafting songs that indulged his progressive tendencies without the counterbalance that Adrian Smith (who’d left earlier) and Bruce had previously provided. The resulting album was—and I say this with genuine pain—often boring, a word I’d never associated with Iron Maiden before.

The production didn’t help matters. The album sounds oddly flat, with Nicko McBrain’s usually thunderous drums pushed back in the mix and the signature guitar harmonies feeling less distinct. Even the artwork—marking a departure from the Derek Riggs illustrations that had defined their visual identity—felt like a statement that this was a different Maiden. And not necessarily in a good way.

As for Blaze himself—I’ve grown more sympathetic to his position over the years. The poor guy was put in an impossible situation, handed material that didn’t play to his strengths, and then sent out to face audiences who were pre-disposed to resent him simply for not being Bruce Dickinson. I caught the tour supporting this album at the Hollywood Palladium, and the atmosphere was… weird. The crowd response to the new material was polite at best, but when they played the classics, the energy level doubled—while simultaneously highlighting the awkward fit of Blaze trying to sing songs tailored to Bruce’s operatic range.

The concert was actually my turning point toward a more nuanced view of “The X Factor.” Watching Blaze give it his absolute all despite the mixed reception, seeing Steve Harris still playing with his trademark intensity even for these new, less-loved songs—it reminded me that bands aren’t static entities. They evolve, sometimes stumble, occasionally fail. And yes, even Iron Maiden could fail.

I ran into Dave Murray years later at a guitar show in Anaheim. I was there covering it for a magazine, and he was checking out some vintage Strats. I worked up the courage to say hello and mentioned I’d been a fan since “Killers.” We chatted briefly about guitars, and then, because I apparently have no filter when nervous, I asked him about “The X Factor” era. I expected a defensive response or a quick subject change, but instead, he just said, “Tough time for the band, tough time for metal. We were trying to find our way forward. Some things work, some don’t, but you have to keep moving.” There was no bitterness, just the perspective of a musician who’d been through enough career highs and lows to take both in stride.

Time has been interesting to “The X Factor.” It’s still not regarded as a classic Maiden album by any stretch, but there’s been a small but vocal reassessment among some fans who appreciate it for what it is rather than criticizing it for what it’s not. Songs like “Blood on the World’s Hands” and “The Aftermath” have aged better than I initially thought they would, revealing layers that weren’t apparent on those first disappointed listens.

For me personally, the album has transformed from an active disappointment to a fascinating document of a band in transition. It’s Iron Maiden’s “Creatures of the Night” or “Turbo”—the album where a legendary band momentarily lost the thread of what made them special while searching for a path forward in changing times. And just as those albums have found their defenders over time, “The X Factor” has its champions (though they remain a distinct minority among the Maiden faithful).

I still pull out my vinyl copy about once a year, usually late at night after a few drinks when I’m doing one of those chronological discography deep-dives that my neighbors just love. And while it still strikes me as the clear low point in the band’s catalog, I’ve developed a strange appreciation for its ambition, if not its execution. There’s something almost admirable about a band refusing to play it safe or simply rehash past glories, even if the results don’t quite work.

The ultimate vindication, of course, came in 1999 when Bruce returned to the fold (along with Adrian Smith), and Maiden reclaimed their place in metal’s upper echelon with “Brave New World.” That album felt like reuniting with an old friend after years apart, finding that despite some new wrinkles and gray hairs, the essential connection remained undiminished.

So yes, I was wrong. Iron Maiden could fail. They did fail. “The X Factor” was the moment when even their most ardent defenders (like yours truly) had to confront the band’s fallibility. But you know what? There’s something almost comforting in that recognition. It makes their subsequent renaissance all the more satisfying, a reminder that even legends stumble, but the great ones find their feet again.

I’ve still got those five Maiden t-shirts in regular rotation. “The Shrine” still dominates my living room wall. But these days, when someone at a show or a record store engages me in one of those passionate metal debates that I live for, I’m a little less absolute in my pronouncements. Because if Iron Maiden taught me anything, it’s that even the most seemingly immutable forces in metal can have their X Factors—those moments of uncertainty when the future looks unclear and the magic seems temporarily out of reach.

Though I did eventually win that bar argument about “Somewhere in Time,” for the record. That album is a masterpiece and I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise. Some things never change.

Let me start with a confession that might get my metal credentials permanently revoked: I know every word to Phil Collins’ “No Jacket Required.” Not just the hits—I’m talking deep cuts. “Inside Out”? Got it. “Who Said I Would”? Yep. “One More Night”? I might have slow-danced to it at my senior prom, and I’m not entirely convinced I didn’t attempt the drum fill from “Take Me Home” on the punch bowl table using plastic spoons.

And here’s the truly scandalous part—I’m not alone. I have caught some of the most diehard metalheads I know secretly grooving to “Sussudio” when they thought no one was watching. The same guys who publicly pledge allegiance to Slayer and would rather be caught wearing a Backstreet Boys shirt than admit to owning anything remotely pop… these are the guys who know all the synth parts to “Don’t Lose My Number.”

Metal culture has always defined itself partly by what it stands against. In the 80s, nothing represented the enemy more perfectly than Phil Collins. He was massively commercial, favored drum machines over thunderous acoustic kits, used keyboards unapologetically, and sang in a clean, emotive voice about (gasp) feelings. On paper, Phil was everything metal wasn’t. And yet…

“No Jacket Required,” released in 1985, arrived at this perfect cultural moment. MTV was at its peak influence. Miami Vice was defining visual aesthetics. And Phil Collins—already a respected musician from his Genesis days and solo breakthrough—delivered a pop album so perfectly crafted, so irresistibly hook-laden, that it penetrated even the most carefully constructed metal defenses.

I bought my copy somewhat furtively at the same record store where I’d proudly purchased Metallica’s “Ride the Lightning” a few months earlier. The clerk—a guy named Ray who had memorably once lectured me for 20 minutes about the superiority of Venom over Raven—gave me this look of profound disappointment, like I’d just told him I was joining a monastery and donating my metal records to the church rummage sale. I mumbled something about it being for my mom’s birthday. Ray wasn’t buying it, but he took my money anyway. “We all make mistakes, kid,” he said, with the gravity of someone witnessing a moral failing of biblical proportions.

I waited until I was alone in the house before playing it. This wasn’t just casual listening; this was contraband. My walls were covered in Iron Maiden and Judas Priest posters that I swear were staring at me accusingly as the opening synth line of “Sussudio” filled my bedroom. I felt like I was cheating on metal itself… and yet, by the first chorus, I was fully converted.

What makes “No Jacket Required” so effective—and so difficult for metal fans to resist despite its opposition to everything we supposedly stood for—is its absolute confidence. This is Phil at the absolute peak of his powers, having mastered a production approach that perfectly balanced organic and electronic elements. Those gated reverb drums (a technique he helped pioneer with “In the Air Tonight”) gave even the most dance-oriented tracks a muscular foundation. The horn arrangements added organic warmth to counter the synthesizers. And Collins’ voice—blue-eyed soul with just the right amount of grit—delivered lyrics that were straightforward yet genuinely affecting.

Take “One More Night”—a song that, let’s be honest, any self-respecting metalhead should despise on principle. It’s a tender plea for reconciliation with an ex, set to a gentle backdrop that’s about as far from “Angel of Death” as you can get. And yet… there’s something so nakedly honest about Collins’ delivery, so unpretentious about the entire production, that it bypasses all your defenses. I’ve watched guys with Cannibal Corpse tattoos unconsciously nod along to this song in bars, caught in its emotional undertow before they realize what they’re doing.

Or “Sussudio”—a song about nothing (Collins has admitted the title is just a made-up word) that somehow became everything. That opening synth line, the perfectly calibrated horn stabs, the call-and-response vocals—it’s a masterclass in pop construction. Metal prides itself on technical proficiency, and there’s a different but equally impressive technical precision to how this track is built. Every element is exactly where it needs to be, creating a whole that’s irresistible even to listeners whose musical identity is built around resistance.

What metal fans secretly respond to in “No Jacket Required” is its absolute lack of pretension. Phil Collins never tried to be anything other than Phil Collins. There’s a lesson there that the best metal bands understand—authenticity transcends genre. Collins might have been making commercial pop, but he was doing it with complete conviction and genuine skill. There’s no winking, no ironic distance, no self-consciousness—just a master craftsman delivering exactly what the material demands.

I interviewed Sebastian Bach from Skid Row once in the mid-90s, back when grunge had made his brand of metal commercially toxic, and we got to talking about musical guilty pleasures. After extracting a blood oath that I wouldn’t print this part of our conversation (sorry, Sebastian, the statute of limitations has expired), he confessed to me that “Take Me Home” was “maybe the perfect pop song.” When I admitted I owned the album, he high-fived me and proceeded to sing most of the chorus before catching himself. “If you tell anyone about this, I will find you,” he said, only half-joking.

The ultimate irony is that Phil Collins has more legitimate metal connections than most people realize. He was friends with Ronnie James Dio. He played drums on Brian Eno’s “Another Green World” alongside Robert Fripp and Phil Manzanera. The man was (and remains) a phenomenal drummer, something even the most dedicated metalhead can appreciate. His early work with Genesis—particularly on albums like “The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway”—demonstrates a technical proficiency and willingness to explore unusual time signatures that would be right at home in progressive metal.

But “No Jacket Required” isn’t great because of any metal connection; it’s great because it’s a perfectly realized pop album by an artist operating at the peak of his powers. The songwriting is impeccable, the production pristine without being sterile, and the performances—from Collins’ vocals and drums to the studio musicians like Daryl Stuermer and the Earth, Wind & Fire horn section—are flawless throughout.

I’ve watched the cycle of ironic appreciation to genuine reevaluation play out with Phil Collins over the decades. In the 90s, admitting you liked his music was social suicide in certain circles. By the early 2000s, there was this wave of “ironic” Phil Collins appreciation—hipsters wearing Genesis T-shirts “as a joke,” DJs slipping “Against All Odds” into sets for a knowing laugh. But we’ve finally reached the point where people can just admit the truth: Phil Collins made some genuinely great music, and “No Jacket Required” stands as his commercial and artistic peak.

I had this moment a few years back at a house party. It was about 2 AM, the serious drinking had been done, and we were in that reflective phase of the night. My buddy Steve—a guy who played in death metal bands for most of the 90s and has the hearing damage to prove it—was in charge of the music. He had been playing a carefully curated selection of credibility-maintaining deep cuts all night. Then, after checking to see who was still awake, he quietly put on “Take Me Home.”

As the song’s gorgeous, melancholy synth intro filled the room, I watched various metal and punk veterans around the room have the same reaction—first the recognition, then the internal struggle (“Do I acknowledge I know this?”), and finally the surrender. By the chorus, four of us were singing along, air-drumming the fills, completely unselfconscious in our enjoyment. When it ended, there was this moment of slightly embarrassed silence before Steve said, “That song is fucking perfect and I don’t care who knows I think that.”

That’s the final stage of Phil Collins appreciation: the acknowledgment that great music transcends genre boundaries and tribal allegiances. “No Jacket Required” may be the polar opposite of metal aesthetically, but it shares the qualities that make the best metal endure—it’s made with conviction, it’s crafted with genuine skill, and it connects emotionally with listeners.

I still have my vinyl copy, now well-worn from countless plays. It sits on my shelf between Celtic Frost’s “To Mega Therion” and Corrosion of Conformity’s “Deliverance,” an arrangement that would have seemed sacrilegious in 1985 but now just feels right. Great music is great music, regardless of its packaging or cultural associations.

So to all my metal brothers and sisters secretly bopping to “Sussudio” in your cars when no one’s watching: it’s time to come out of the shadows. Embrace your inner Collins fan. Let that air drum fill during “Take Me Home” fly proudly. Life’s too short to deny yourself music that brings you joy just because it doesn’t fit your carefully constructed identity.

Just maybe don’t mention it to Ray at the record store. Some wounds never fully heal.

I first encountered Paradise Lost’s “Draconian Times” in the spring of 1995 at a listening station in Tower Records. I remember standing there with those flimsy headphones clamped to my ears, the outside world reduced to muffled background noise as “Enchantment” swirled around my brain and reconfigured my understanding of what heavy music could be. Three minutes in, I was already mentally calculating how many meals I’d need to skip to afford buying the album right then. By the time track two, “Hallowed Land,” kicked in with its perfect marriage of crushing guitars and haunting melody, skipping lunch seemed like a small price to pay for this revelation.

“Draconian Times,” Paradise Lost’s fifth studio album, landed at a pivotal moment both for the band and for metal as a whole. Released in June 1995, it emerged during one of metal’s most uncertain periods—grunge had dismantled hair metal’s commercial dominance, nu-metal was beginning its ascent, and extreme metal was splintering into increasingly specialized subgenres. The landscape was fractured, with no clear path forward for bands unwilling to chase trends.

Into this chaotic environment stepped five guys from Halifax, England, with an album that somehow managed to be both uncompromisingly heavy and unexpectedly accessible, both distinctly of its moment and curiously timeless. “Draconian Times” wasn’t Paradise Lost’s heaviest work—that honor belongs to their death/doom origins on “Lost Paradise” and “Gothic.” Nor was it their most experimental—they would push those boundaries on later releases like “One Second” and “Host.” But it was unquestionably their most perfectly balanced creation—the rare album where a band finds the exact sweet spot between their underground roots and their more mainstream ambitions.

The album opens with “Enchantment,” which serves as both mission statement and perfect entry point. Nick Holmes’ vocals immediately signal the evolution from his earlier death growls to a more melodic approach, though still delivered with unmistakable grit and gravity. The guitars of Gregor Mackintosh and Aaron Aedy establish the album’s signature sound—massive, down-tuned riffs contrasted with ethereal lead lines that seem to float above the heaviness like ghostly countermelodies. It’s a formula that sounds simple on paper but proved devilishly difficult for imitators to replicate.

What struck me most on that first listen—and what continues to impress revisiting the album nearly thirty years later—is how confidently Paradise Lost balanced seemingly contradictory elements. “Draconian Times” is simultaneously gothic and metal, melancholic and aggressive, introspective and anthemic. It draws from death metal, doom, gothic rock, and even traces of pop sensibility without ever feeling like a calculated hybrid. This wasn’t a band awkwardly trying to broaden their appeal; this was a band discovering their definitive voice.

The production, handled by Simon Efemey (who had worked with Napalm Death and later with The Wildhearts), deserves special recognition for capturing this balance. The guitars have remarkable weight and density but never become murky or indistinct. The drums sound powerful but natural, not triggered into mechanical precision like many metal productions of the era. And Holmes’ vocals sit perfectly in the mix—present enough to carry the melodies but never so dominant that they overshadow the instrumental textures.

Track three, “The Last Time,” showcases the album’s approach to tempo—mid-paced and deliberate, creating a sense of inexorable momentum rather than frantic speed. This measured pace allows the melodies room to breathe and the emotional weight of the songs to fully register. It’s metal that values atmosphere and mood as much as aggression or technical prowess.

Then there’s “Forever Failure,” perhaps the album’s emotional centerpiece and a song that exemplifies Paradise Lost’s unique approach to heaviness. Opening with samples from Charles Manson interviews (a decision that feels dated now but was genuinely unsettling in 1995), it builds around a central guitar motif that’s simple but devastatingly effective in its melancholy. Holmes delivers some of his most affecting vocals, conveying a weary resignation that hits harder than any death growl could in this context. The song creates a profound emotional weight without resorting to extreme tempos or vocal techniques—a different kind of heaviness than metal typically employed.

This capacity for emotional resonance beyond anger or aggression is what separated “Draconian Times” from many of its contemporaries. Songs like “Shadowkings” and “Elusive Cure” tackle themes of disillusionment, loss, and existential questioning with uncommon nuance. The lyrics avoid both the cartoonish extremity of death metal and the self-pitying directness of grunge, instead offering poetic ambiguity that allows listeners to project their own experiences onto the music.

Musically, the album draws from a surprisingly diverse palette. “Yearn for the Endless Shores” incorporates subtle keyboard textures that enhance the atmosphere without compromising the guitar-driven foundation. “Shades of God” features these haunting clean guitar arpeggios that could have come from a Sisters of Mercy album before erupting into one of the record’s heaviest riffs. The title track balances pummeling verses with a chorus that’s almost… dare I say it… catchy?

That willingness to embrace melody and memorability without sacrificing authenticity is what made “Draconian Times” such a breakthrough. Paradise Lost recognized that accessibility didn’t have to mean compromise—that you could write songs with genuine hooks and still maintain your artistic integrity and heaviness. This approach would prove enormously influential, particularly in European metal scenes where bands like Katatonia, Amorphis, and Anathema would follow similar trajectories from their extreme roots toward more melodic territory.

The album’s impact was immediate in Europe, where it sold over 100,000 copies in its first year, earned the band magazine covers, and expanded their audience far beyond the death/doom underground that had embraced their earlier work. In America, the reception was more muted—partly due to less promotional support and partly because the U.S. metal scene was moving in a different direction with the rise of nu-metal and metalcore. But even stateside, “Draconian Times” became an important cult favorite, influencing a generation of bands that would emerge in the early 2000s.

I had the chance to interview guitarist Gregor Mackintosh in 2007 when Paradise Lost was touring for their “In Requiem” album, which marked something of a return to the “Draconian Times” sound after their more experimental period. When I asked about the 1995 album’s creation and impact, he seemed both proud of and slightly bemused by its legacy.

“We were just trying to write the best songs we could,” he told me backstage at a club in Chicago, surrounded by the kind of vintage amplifiers that gear nerds would sacrifice limbs to own. “We’d been moving away from the pure death/doom thing for a couple albums already. But something clicked on ‘Draconian Times’—we found this balance that felt right. We didn’t realize at the time that we were helping create a template for gothic metal. We were just making the music we wanted to hear.”

That lack of calculation is perhaps what makes “Draconian Times” feel so genuine even decades later. This wasn’t a cynical bid for mainstream success or a carefully focus-grouped musical direction. It was simply the sound of a band evolving naturally, finding precisely the right balance between their extreme roots and their broadening musical vision.

The album’s influence extended beyond the purely musical realm. The artwork—that iconic cover featuring a graveyard angel statue photographed from below against a twilight sky—helped establish the visual aesthetic that would become associated with gothic metal. The band’s fashion sense, which had evolved from death metal’s jeans-and-band-shirts uniformity to a more stylized look incorporating gothic elements, similarly provided a template that countless bands would follow.

For many listeners, including myself, “Draconian Times” served as a gateway between worlds—a bridge from more mainstream metal to the more extreme variants, or conversely, a path for death and doom metal fans to discover more melodic approaches without feeling like they were abandoning their extreme roots. It occupied a unique middle ground in metal’s increasingly fragmented landscape, drawing from disparate influences while creating something cohesive and distinctive.

The years following “Draconian Times” saw Paradise Lost continue their evolution, moving toward an increasingly electronic and gothic rock-influenced sound on albums like “One Second” and “Host”—developments that alienated some fans of their heavier work but introduced them to entirely new audiences. They would eventually circle back toward their metal roots in the 2000s and 2010s, most recently finding a compelling balance between their various eras on albums like “Obsidian.”

But “Draconian Times” remains the album most f

I still remember exactly where I was when I heard Randy Rhoads had died. March 19, 1982. I was flipping through the used vinyl bin at Sound Garden when the store’s PA system cut off Black Sabbath’s “Sabbath Bloody Sabbath” mid-riff. The owner, Dave—a guy who looked like he’d been at Woodstock but exclusively listened to Judas Priest—grabbed the microphone and just said, “Hey, uh, just got a call that Randy Rhoads died in a plane crash. Shit’s fucked up.” Then he put on “Crazy Train” and cranked it so loud the record sleeves vibrated. Nobody spoke. Nobody shopped. We all just stood there, a congregation of metalheads having an impromptu funeral among the cardboard dividers and band tees.

That’s the thing about guitar heroes—they don’t just play music; they become part of your identity. Randy wasn’t just Ozzy’s guitarist; he was this beacon of hope that metal could be both technically brilliant and emotionally resonant. I’d spent countless hours with my cheap Harmony guitar trying to nail that “Mr. Crowley” solo, succeeding only in annoying my parents and making our cat develop an impressive repertoire of disapproving facial expressions.

So when Ozzy announced Jake E. Lee as Randy’s replacement (after the brief Bob Daisley stint that nobody talks about), the general consensus among my circle of metal obsessives was, “Who the hell is this guy, and how dare he?” It didn’t matter that Jake had credentials from Ratt or that he could obviously play. He wasn’t Randy. End of discussion.

Which brings me to “Bark at the Moon,” an album I initially approached with the kind of skepticism usually reserved for gas station sushi or guys who wear sunglasses indoors. I found my copy in the new release section at Tower Records, the iconic werewolf cover staring up at me. Twenty minutes of intense internal debate later, I handed over $7.99 with the grim determination of someone expecting disappointment but professionally obligated to experience it firsthand.

I still have that vinyl copy. It’s sitting about eight feet from me as I write this, nestled between “Diary of a Madman” and “The Ultimate Sin” in the chronologically organized Ozzy section of my collection (yes, I organize by band, then chronologically within each band’s discography, a system that has survived multiple relationships precisely because it’s objectively correct and I will die on this hill). The edges are frayed, and there’s a coffee ring on the back cover from a legendary 3 AM listening session in ’89 when my roommate and I got into an actual shouting match about whether Lee or Rhoads was the better technical player. These are the kinds of ridiculous yet deadly serious debates that define true music obsession.

First spin of “Bark at the Moon,” and I was… confused. Because it was good. Not good in a “well, this doesn’t completely suck” way, but legitimately, undeniably good. The title track kicked off with that horror movie synth before launching into one of the most perfectly constructed metal songs in Ozzy’s catalog. Jake’s riff work was phenomenal—aggressive and technical but with this bluesy undercurrent that gave everything a grounded feel. The solo? Fast but melodic, shreddy but purposeful. It wasn’t Randy, but it wasn’t trying to be, and that’s where Jake won his first points with me.

“You’re No Different” followed with this moody, almost prog-rock feel that showcased a different side of what this new partnership could do. Jake played with dynamics here in a way that showed he wasn’t just a shredder—he understood how to serve the song. And then “Now You See It (Now You Don’t)” came on with that circular riff that still pops into my head at random moments like when I’m waiting in line at the grocery store, causing me to air-guitar in public like the mature adult I clearly am.

What struck me then—and strikes me even more now, looking back—is how Jake managed the impossible task of stepping into a legacy without being consumed by it. He wasn’t trying to out-Randy Randy. He brought his own style—a bit more blues-influenced, a bit more hard rock than classical—and created something that honored what came before while establishing its own identity.

Let’s talk about “Rock ‘n’ Roll Rebel” for a second, which might be the most underrated track on the album. That opening riff is pure adrenaline, and the way Jake constructed his guitar parts through the verses—little harmonics and fills that dance around Ozzy’s vocal—shows a maturity beyond what most people gave him credit for. This wasn’t just flashy playing; this was thoughtful arrangement.

Of course, the album wasn’t perfect (what album is?). “Slow Down” always felt like filler to me, and “Spiders in the Night” had this weird disco-metal thing happening that I wasn’t entirely on board with. But even these tracks had moments—a blistering run here, an interesting chord voicing there—that showed Jake was the real deal.

What I think most critics missed at the time—myself included, if I’m being brutally honest—was that comparing Jake to Randy was always a losing game, not because Jake wasn’t excellent, but because grief and nostalgia are powerful distorting lenses. Randy had become mythologized by his tragic death, elevated from “amazing guitarist” to “irreplaceable legend.” How do you follow that? The miracle isn’t that Jake E. Lee didn’t measure up to that impossible standard—it’s that he managed to create something worthwhile at all.

I ran into Jake once, years later, at NAMM in 1998. I was there covering the show for a magazine (which shall remain nameless because I still occasionally freelance for them, and they still owe me money for that particular assignment). He was hanging around the Charvel booth, looking simultaneously bored and intimidating in that way only veteran rock guitarists can manage. I worked up the courage to tell him how much I appreciated his work on “Bark at the Moon,” particularly the way he incorporated bluesy elements into metal framework.

He looked surprised, then genuinely appreciative, saying something like, “Thanks, man. Not many people noticed that stuff.” We talked for maybe five minutes about tone and his approach to solos. He mentioned that he’d composed a lot of the tracks on “Bark” but didn’t get proper writing credits, which later became a well-documented grievance. I asked him if he ever got tired of the Randy comparisons, and he just shrugged and said, “It was always gonna be that way. He was special.” No bitterness, just acknowledgment of reality.

That conversation changed how I heard the album. Next time I played it, I wasn’t subconsciously looking for ways it didn’t measure up to “Blizzard of Ozz” or “Diary of a Madman.” I was hearing it on its own terms—as a solid metal album from a time when metal was simultaneously gaining mainstream appeal and splintering into countless subgenres.

Forty years after its release, “Bark at the Moon” holds up remarkably well. That title track remains a staple on rock radio and in Ozzy’s live sets. Jake’s guitar work, once unfairly dismissed as not-Randy-enough, now stands as a testament to finding your own voice even when standing in the longest shadow imaginable.

The production—by Ozzy and Bob Daisley—has this early 80s density to it that I actually prefer to a lot of the overly polished metal that followed in the later 80s. Sure, there’s that very-of-its-time gated reverb on the drums, but the guitar tones are crisp and present, the bass provides actual countermelodies rather than just following the guitars, and Ozzy’s vocals sit in this perfect pocket where he sounds engaged and powerful.

When I play “Bark at the Moon” for younger metal fans—which I do with evangelical regularity, because passing down metal appreciation is basically my love language—they’re always surprised by how contemporary parts of it still sound. That title track could come out tomorrow, and it would still rip faces. “Centre of Eternity” has this epic quality that bands are still trying to capture. And “Waiting for Darkness” creates an atmosphere that any modern doom metal outfit would kill to achieve.

I’ve got this ritual now where every March 19th, I play “Crazy Train” for Randy, then immediately put on “Bark at the Moon” for Jake. It’s my small way of acknowledging that while legends may be irreplaceable, that doesn’t mean what follows can’t be its own kind of special. Jake E. Lee took on the most thankless task in metal history and didn’t just survive it—he created something enduring.

Not bad for the guy we all doubted, huh?

I’ve got this theory about reunion tours, forged from about three decades of watching bands get back together and try to recapture whatever lightning they once had in the bottle: most of them are tragedy masquerading as triumph. I mean, I’ve seen it happen too many times—the awkward spectacle of middle-aged men attempting to inhabit songs written by their younger, hungrier selves, serving up warmed-over versions of classics to audiences who are there more for nostalgia than music. It’s depressing as hell, if we’re being honest.

So when Maiden announced they were bringing Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith back into the fold, I was… skeptical. Yeah, that’s a diplomatic way of putting it. I was actually borderline hostile to the idea. Look, I’d been there for the Blaze Bayley years—two underrated albums that suffered mainly from being, well, not Bruce. I’d defended “The X Factor” to people who dismissed it without even listening to it (that dark, grinding album fit perfectly with my mid-90s mindset, thank you very much). And now here was the classic lineup reforming, and my cynical music journalist brain immediately went to: “Cash grab.”

God, I love being wrong sometimes.

I remember exactly where I was when I first heard “Rock in Rio.” April 12, 2002. I was driving my beat-up Subaru from Seattle to Portland to cover a festival for the magazine. I’d picked up the CD the day before but hadn’t had time to listen to it. Five hours of highway ahead of me, I slid the disc in and braced myself for disappointment.

By the time “The Wicker Man” kicked in—three minutes into the first disc—I was hitting the steering wheel in rhythm and probably terrifying other drivers with my expressions of metal ecstasy. By “Brave New World,” I was singing along loud enough to drown out my car’s worrying engine noises. And when they launched into “Fear of the Dark” with that crowd singing every note of the guitar intro, I had to pull over at a rest stop because I was getting too amped up to drive safely. Sitting there in a parking lot off I-5, surrounded by truckers and families on road trips, I listened to 250,000 Brazilian fans losing their collective minds, and I realized I’d been completely, utterly wrong.

This wasn’t a reunion tour. This was a fucking resurrection.

“Rock in Rio” captures something I’ve experienced maybe five times in all my years of concert-going—that magical moment when a band isn’t just playing well, they’re playing like their lives depend on it. There’s an urgency to this performance that bands half their age rarely achieve. Bruce’s voice isn’t just back; it’s somehow stronger, more controlled than in the ’80s. The three-guitar attack of Adrian, Janick, and Dave creates a wall of sound that’s both precise and overwhelming. And Steve and Nicko lock in with the kind of telepathic rhythm section communication that only comes from decades of playing together.

The setlist is the perfect mix of brave and crowd-pleasing. Leading with three tracks from “Brave New World” was a statement of intent—this isn’t just about revisiting past glories. But then giving the fans “Wrathchild,” “2 Minutes to Midnight,” and “Iron Maiden” shows they’re not running from their history either. It’s the perfect balance.

And then there’s that crowd. Jesus Christ, that crowd. I’ve been to shows in Brazil—covered a festival in São Paulo back in ’98—and there’s nothing like a South American metal audience. The passion borders on religious. When 250,000 people sing “Blood Brothers” like it’s a sacred hymn, it creates a lump in my throat even on the hundredth listen. The “woah-oh-oh” part in “Heaven Can Wait” sounds like the world’s largest choir.

I’ve had heated arguments about whether this or “Live After Death” is Maiden’s definitive live document. My take: they’re bookends to different eras. “Live After Death” captured them conquering the world the first time around, at the absolute peak of their ’80s powers. “Rock in Rio” captures them reclaiming their throne after years in the wilderness—older, wiser, but somehow just as vital. It’s the difference between the confidence of youth and the confidence that comes from surviving storms.

There’s a moment during “The Evil That Men Do” where Bruce hits a note that he probably had no business attempting at his age (or anyone’s age, for that matter), and you can hear in his voice a kind of joyous disbelief that he pulled it off. That’s what this whole album feels like—a band surprising even themselves with how good they still are, how much they still have to give.

I’ve got about 74 live albums in my collection (my ex-wife once called this “hoarding,” I prefer “comprehensive archival tendencies”), and most of them fall into the “nice document of a tour” category. A few are genuine game-changers that stand as essential works in a band’s catalog. “Rock in Rio” belongs firmly in that second category. It’s not just a great live Maiden album; it’s one of the best metal live albums ever made, period.

The production is outstanding, especially considering the scale of the event. Recording a show this massive, with this many variables, and making it sound this immediate is a minor miracle. Kevin Shirley captured not just the band but the entire experience—you feel like you’re there in that massive crowd, swept up in something bigger than yourself.

After “Rock in Rio,” Maiden could have coasted on nostalgia tours for the rest of their career, and nobody would have blamed them. Instead, they’ve delivered some of the most ambitious work of their career in the years since. “A Matter of Life and Death,” “The Final Frontier,” “The Book of Souls”—these aren’t the works of a band trading on past glories. They’re the works of artists still pushing themselves, still hungry after all these years.

Last summer, I took my nephew (the same one I mentioned earlier—the kid’s now a full-blown Maiden fanatic, my proudest achievement as an uncle) to see them on the “Legacy of the Beast” tour. Watching his face during “Flight of Icarus,” seeing the same wide-eyed wonder I felt at my first Maiden show decades ago, I realized something important: great bands don’t just create music; they create continuous chains of connection across generations.

“Rock in Rio” marks the moment when Iron Maiden transformed from a legendary band with an uncertain future to something nearly unprecedented in heavy music—elder statesmen who refused to fade away, who found a second wind strong enough to power them for another twenty years and counting. It’s living proof that sometimes, the sequel actually is better than the original.

I’ve still got that scratched-up first-pressing CD in my car six cars later. It’s become something of a ritual—any road trip longer than an hour means “Rock in Rio” gets played. That crowd in Brazil, Bruce’s banter, the sheer life-affirming energy of it all… it’s better than coffee for staying alert at the wheel. And every single time, when those 250,000 voices come together during “Fear of the Dark,” I still get goosebumps. Some magic just doesn’t fade, no matter how many times you experience it.

In an industry built on planned obsolescence, where bands are expected to burn bright and fade quickly, “Rock in Rio” stands as a glorious middle finger to the very concept of diminishing returns. It’s the sound of Iron Maiden not just returning, but returning stronger—battle-scarred, perhaps, but all the more powerful for having survived the journey.

The first time I heard Iron Maiden’s debut album, I was actually pissed off. Not because it was bad—quite the opposite—but because some jackass at my high school had been walking around in an Eddie t-shirt for months claiming to be Maiden’s biggest fan, and I’d nodded along assuming they were just another NWOBHM band I hadn’t gotten around to yet. Turns out, I’d been living in ignorance of what would become my musical north star for the next four decades. I mean, talk about a missed opportunity. Could’ve discovered them six months earlier if I wasn’t so busy pretending I already knew every metal band worth knowing. Pride makes fools of us all, especially teenage metalheads.

It was spring of 1987, and I was digging through the used bin at Sound Garden Records when I found it—that iconic cover with Eddie’s streetlamp-lit grimace staring back at me. Seven bucks later (which was exactly $2 more than I’d budgeted for record shopping that day, meaning I’d be walking the three miles home instead of taking the bus), I was clutching what I assumed was just another cool addition to my growing collection. I had no idea I was holding a piece of music that would still be part of my life when I had gray hair and reading glasses.

That first listen was… confusing, if I’m being honest. Where was the soaring operatic voice I’d heard when older kids played “Number of the Beast” or “Powerslave”? Who was this snarling punk-adjacent vocalist? And where were the sprawling epic compositions? This was lean, mean, and surprisingly direct. It sounded more like a pub band with unusually ambitious guitarists than the symphonic metal titans I’d been expecting. I almost felt cheated, like I’d picked up the wrong band’s record by mistake.

But then “Phantom of the Opera” kicked in around the middle of Side One, and I got it. I fucking got it. That track was the bridge between what they were and what they would become—a perfect snapshot of a band with one foot in the gritty London metal scene and the other already reaching for something grander. The instrumental section in that song still gives me goosebumps when I play it now, even on my stupidly expensive turntable that reveals every production limitation of that 1980 recording.

Paul Di’Anno’s voice is the thing most people fixate on when comparing early Maiden to the Bruce Dickinson era, and yeah, it’s the most obvious difference. But what fascinates me more is how the band was already structurally ambitious while working within a raw, almost primitive sound palette. Listen to “Strange World”—there’s a delicacy there that feels almost fragile compared to the rest of the album’s street-fighting energy. Even back then, these guys weren’t content to stay in one lane.

I’ve had this argument with fellow Maiden obsessives approximately 349 times (most recently last month at a bar after seeing a Maiden tribute band, where I nearly lost my voice trying to make this point over both the crowd noise and the alcohol): the debut isn’t a primitive version of what would come later; it’s its own fully realized thing. It’s not Iron Maiden failing to be the epic metal band they’d become—it’s Iron Maiden succeeding brilliantly at being a hungry, fierce band with something to prove.

The production—by Will Malone, who seemingly set up microphones in approximately the right direction and then went to lunch—is both the album’s limitation and its strength. You can practically smell the sweat and beer of those small club gigs where they honed these songs. There’s an urgency here that sometimes got lost in their more polished later work. Don’t get me wrong, I love the expansive sound they developed, but there’s something special about the way this album feels like it might go off the rails at any moment.

My original copy of the debut got played so much that by 1990, it sounded like someone was frying bacon in the background of every track. I’ve replaced it twice since then, most recently with that 2014 remaster that finally gave the bass some presence in the mix. My current copy lives in a special section of my vinyl shelves that I call the “Desert Island Dozen”—the records I’d grab first in a fire, the ones I know note for note, word for word.

“Running Free” was my gateway drug into this album. It’s the most immediate track, the one that grabs you by the throat from the first listen. But the album’s staying power comes from its deeper cuts. “Remember Tomorrow” reveals more with every listen, that quiet-loud dynamic showing an emotional range most of their contemporaries couldn’t touch. And “Transylvania” might be the most underrated instrumental in metal history—those galloping bass lines from Steve Harris were revolutionary. Nobody was playing bass like that in metal before him, and his influence still echoes through the genre forty-plus years later.

I took my nephew to his first Maiden show in 2018—the kid was 16 and had only ever known the later epic stuff. He’d listened to the debut a few times on my recommendation but didn’t really get it. “It’s too punk or something,” he said, which both made me feel ancient and oddly proud of his musical discernment. After the show (where they played “Iron Maiden” from the debut as part of the encore), he looked at me with new understanding. “I heard it,” he said. “That old stuff—it’s like the DNA of everything they did after.” Smart kid. Smarter than I was at his age.

The thing about this album that keeps me coming back—beyond nostalgia, beyond my completist tendencies, beyond my irritating habit of insisting that every band’s early work was their best (I’m working on this character flaw, I swear)—is its perfect capturing of potential energy. It’s like listening to a coiled spring. You can hear exactly what they are in that moment, but you can also hear everything they could become.

I’ve seen Maiden live 27 times now, starting with the Seventh Tour of a Seventh Tour in ’88 (yes, I missed the Di’Anno era entirely—I’m not THAT old, despite what my lower back tells me after concerts these days). Each time they play anything from the debut, there’s a rawness that cuts through even their most elaborate stage productions. “Prowler” still sounds dangerous. “Running Free” still feels like a jail break.

My most treasured piece of Maiden memorabilia isn’t my signed Piece of Mind LP or my backstage pass from the Fear of the Dark tour. It’s a beaten-up t-shirt from their 1980 British tour that I found at a vintage clothes shop in Camden when I was in London covering a festival for Riff Raider in ’95. The original owner had apparently worn it to death—it was faded, had cigarette burns, and smelled vaguely of beer despite multiple washings. But holding it was like touching a piece of history, a physical connection to those hungry early days captured on the debut. I paid £75 for it, which was about £74 more than I should have spent given my journalist’s salary, but some purchases transcend financial sense. I’ve never worn it—it’s framed on my wall next to a UK pressing of the album.

The debut album reminds me of something I try to keep in mind whenever I’m reviewing new bands: greatness rarely arrives fully formed. Sometimes it comes disguised as something rougher, simpler, and less polished than what we eventually recognize as a band’s definitive sound. Iron Maiden taught me to listen for potential as much as polish, for hunger as much as technique. That lesson has served me well through decades of watching bands evolve, falter, and sometimes surpass all expectations.

So here’s to Iron Maiden’s self-titled debut—not just the start of something that would become immense, but a brilliant snapshot of a moment when metal was still being defined, when the barriers between punk energy and metal ambition were more permeable, and when a group of East London lads laid the cornerstone of what would become one of metal’s most enduring empires. It wasn’t just the dawn—it was a perfect sunrise in its own right.