Most metal bands are lucky enough to have a single great album to their name. So, there’s something extra special about those heavy-music icons that managed to string together album after album after album of certified, 100-percent-fresh bangers.
The great album runs of our times have come in the form of both genre-foundational texts and metal-revolutionizing audio experiences. They can come from plucky metal upstarts, as well as veterans redefining their approach with a brave new ferocity. But the question is: Whose three-album run is the greatest of all time.
With that in mind, we asked Revolver readers to vote on the metal bands with the strongest trifecta of wall-to-wall classic albums, and you ranked them as such.
5. Iron Maiden – Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind, Powerslave
While Maiden’s earliest and scrappiest records with raspy vocalist Paul Di’Anno vaulted the act to the fore of the New Wave of British Heavy Metal, there’s no mistaking how they took themselves to the next level once Samson singer Bruce Dickinson took over in 1981. Armed with an exuberant human air raid siren on the mic, the band blared through the following three years with three albums of their most instantly legendary, ambitiously melodic, and also experimentally epic songs yet.
They got arenas to scream along to hard-galloped anthems, locked into song after song of twin-gunner guitar melodicism, and prophesied their prog-rock long game with the nearly 14-minute “Powerslave.”
Iron Maiden’s album covers tell the tale of their trajectory, too. Though undead mascot Eddie started out as a street-level menace, by 1984 he’d grown into a Pyramidic object of worship. To say the least, Iron Maiden became a towering force on the strength of these records.
4. Slayer – Reign in Blood, South of Heaven, Seasons in the Abyss
Few thrash records are as all-killer-no-filler as Slayer’s unfuckwithable Reign in Blood. Coming off the prog-ish elements of Hell Awaits, Slayer stripped their Reign to the bone, delivering a streamlined, full-speed-ahead, mean-spirited, all-chaos fretboard attack that set the bar for thrash forevermore.
They flipped the script momentarily through the eerie dynamism that begins 1988’s South of Heaven, which ultimately gave way to another thrashterpiece. 1990’s Seasons of the Abyss — the last to feature the classic Slayer lineup for 16 years — might sport one of metal’s most impressive set of bookends, teeing off with the squirrely, high-stakes paranoia of “War Ensemble” and capping with the slow-roiling, supremely sinister title track.
The case is often made that Reign in Blood is the greatest thrash album of all time, but surely South of Heaven and Seasons in the Abyss are not that far behind, either.
3. TOOL – Ænima, Lateralus, 10,000 Days
For TOOL — who had rightfully impressed many with the bleak alt-metal experimentalism of their 1993 debut full-length, Undertow — their greatest musical feats arguably took place once bassist Justin Chancellor entered the fold, replacing previous low-stringer Paul D’Amour.
The awesome moments are innumerable, but let’s bring up a quick highlight reel: the overwhelmingly ominous metal-funk of Ænima’s “Stinkfist,” the quizzically groovy polyrhythmia of “Forty Six & 2,” the blister-popping bass fluttering of Lateralus’ “Schism,” the lenticular prog-blues of 10,000 Days’ “The Pot.”
If Undertow is the sound of a rawer, more stripped-down TOOL, and 2019’s Fear Inoculum is them at their most inflated, this triumvirate represents the band pulling off the brilliant balancing act between both extremes of their vision.
2. Pantera – Cowboys From Hell, Vulgar Display of Power, Far Beyond Driven
It usually takes few practice swings before you hit a home run. Hell, in the case of Pantera, it took nearly a decade and five albums for the Texan metal force to finally find their inner groove.
After spending much of the Eighties sounding like either a glam-sparkled ZZ Top or Priest-ly metallers, the band hit their breaking point. They were feeling fucking hostile, and the three-album run from 1990’s Cowboys From Hell to 1994’s Far Beyond Driven proved this by moving the band into a more extreme, but nevertheless fun-as-hell, direction.
Dimebag Darrell’s mid-scooped squealing set the guitar tone for the decade to come, while he and his bandmates refocused Texas boogie into its logical metal-edged evolution. And once Philip Anselmo adapted his once Halford-like wail into a blunt-force, hardcore-and-death-metal-informed growl, Pantera had claimed their spot in the pantheon.
1. Metallica – Ride the Lightning, Master of Puppets, …And Justice for All
Few metal catalogs are as revered and reviled and forever argued-upon as Metallica’s, but there’s one thing most headbangers can all agree on: the sickest back-to-back-to-back run in the discography has to be Ride, Master and Justice — right?
Kill ‘Em All wasn’t mere child’s play, but ‘Tallica’s 1983 debut remains the sound of a young band on the cusp of something big. It wasn’t until the following year that they transcended Diamond Head and Motörhead worship into becoming the voice of a metal generation. It’s the first to feature a patented, fantastically melodic album intro — which they’d continue on the next two records — while its heavier-edged thrashing is a language we still speak today. Master of Puppets’ title track remains in the running for the world’s most recognizable metal anthem. And coming after the tragic loss of bassist Cliff Burton, Justice is a prog-pivoting masterpiece that closed out the band’s prime Eighties era.
If Metallica had called it a day after this trifecta, they’d still be one of the greatest metal bands of all time. Of course, they went on to become one of the biggest rock bands of all time, courtesy of the “Black Album.” But among our readers, these three loom largest.