Testament’s ‘The Legacy’: The Most Underrated Album in Thrash Metal History
I can still vividly remember the first time I heard Testament’s “The Legacy.” July 1987, visiting my buddy Tony in Berkeley. We were both 16,...
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I Tried Explaining the Concept Behind Dream Theater’s ‘Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory’ and Now I Need a Flowchart
It started innocently enough. I was at my friend Rachel’s housewarming party, nursing a craft beer with a name longer than some Russian novels, when...
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The Most Embarrassing Concert T-Shirts I Owned in the 90s, Ranked from Bad to Worse
Look, we’ve all made fashion choices we regret. But as a professional music journalist who spent the 90s convinced his credibility was directly proportional to...
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HammerFall’s ‘Glory to the Brave’: The Album That Revived Traditional Metal When Nobody Wanted It
I still have the exact moment burned into my memory—standing in Amoeba Records in San Francisco, sometime in the summer of ’97, flipping through the...
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In Flames’ ‘The Jester Race’: When Swedish Death Metal Got Melodic and Accessible
I first heard In Flames’ “The Jester Race” in the most clichéd way possible: at three in the morning in a dingy apartment, passed to...
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System of a Down’s ‘Toxicity’: Nu-Metal for People Who Hated Nu-Metal
I have a specific memory from 2001 that perfectly encapsulates what made System of a Down’s “Toxicity” such a game-changing album. I was at The...
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Sublime’s ‘Sublime’: The Posthumous Classic That Defined California Hybrid Rock
July 1996. I was sitting in the offices of Riff Raider, sorting through the week’s new releases, when I pulled out Sublime’s self-titled album. The...
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Soundgarden’s ‘Down on the Upside’: The Underrated Swan Song Before Their Long Hiatus
May 1996. I was sitting in my apartment, windows open to catch the spring breeze, spinning Soundgarden’s just-released “Down on the Upside” for the third...
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The Smashing Pumpkins’ ‘Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness’: The Last Great Double Album of the CD Era
The first time I heard “Mellon Collie and the Infinite Sadness,” I was sitting in the back room of Wax Trax Records in Chicago, October...
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Rancid’s ‘…And Out Come the Wolves’: When 90s Punk Got Ska Rhythms and Mohawk Authenticity
August 1995. I was crashing on a friend’s couch in Berkeley, ostensibly researching a piece about the East Bay punk scene for Riff Raider but...