Black Sabbath
Artist: Black Sabbath
Community Score: 8.51

Black Sabbath's debut album is given over to lengthy songs and suite-like pieces where individual songs blur together and riffs pound away one after another, frequently under extended jams. There isn't much variety in tempo, mood, or the band's simple, blues-derived musical vocabulary, but that's not the point; Sabbath's slowed-down, murky... Read More

The Best of Mountain
Artist: Mountain
Community Score: 9.00

Mountain's meteoric ride through the early '70s was as memorable as it was brief -- so much so that this excellent greatest-hits set was released less than four years after the band had inaugurated their career at Woodstock. In retrospect, its easy to understand why the strange chemistry (pun intended) struck between boogie-loving,... Read More

Back into the Future
Artist: Man

Rock music is littered with bands that wrecked on the studio/live double album concept; Man is rare in that their attempt, despite the departure of Clive John, brought them their first real success. The band's tight performance and increasingly ambitious musical experimentation made Back Into the Future the first Man album to chart in the U.K.;... Read More

Thank Christ for the Bomb
Artist: The Groundhogs

Thank Christ for the Bomb was the first Groundhogs album to indicate that the group had a lifespan longer than the already-fading British blues boom suggested. It was also the first in the sequence of semi-conceptual masterpieces that the group cut following their decision to abandon the mellow blues of their earlier works and pursue the... Read More

In for the Kill!
Artist: Budgie

Budgie's fourth release, In for the Kill! (originally on MCA), confirmed their consistent metal songwriting. Like past releases, the album features huge metal riffs courtesy of guitarist Tony Bourge and wailing vocals from bassist Burke Shelley. "Crash Course in Brain Surgery" (their second song to be covered by Metallica) contains a repetitive... Read More

Demons and Wizards
Artist: Uriah Heep
Community Score: 9.50

This is the album that solidified Uriah Heep's reputation as a master of gothic-inflected heavy metal. From short, sharp rock songs to lengthy, musically dense epics, Demons and Wizards finds Uriah Heep covering all the bases with style and power. The album's approach is set with its lead-off track, "The Wizard": it starts as a simple acoustic... Read More

Led Zeppelin III
Artist: Led Zeppelin
Community Score: 8.20

On their first two albums, Led Zeppelin unleashed a relentless barrage of heavy blues and rockabilly riffs, but Led Zeppelin III provided the band with the necessary room to grow musically. While there are still a handful of metallic rockers, III is built on a folky, acoustic foundation that gives the music extra depth. And even the rockers... Read More

Rock & Roll Outlaws
Artist: Foghat
Community Score: 9.00

After establishing a new level of credibility on record with 1974's Energized, Foghat cranked out another album of boogie rock before the year ended. The result, Rock and Roll Outlaws, is not as consistently inspired as its predecessor but remains a worthwhile listen for the group's fans. This time out, the group settles for a more... Read More

Master of Reality
Artist: Black Sabbath
Community Score: 8.52

With Paranoid, Black Sabbath perfected the formula for their lumbering heavy metal. On its follow-up, Master of Reality, the group merely repeated the formula, setting the stage for a career of recycling the same sounds and riffs. But on Master of Reality Sabbath still were fresh and had a seemingly endless supply of crushingly heavy riffs to... Read More

Paranoid
Artist: Black Sabbath
Community Score: 8.62

Paranoid was not only Black Sabbath's most popular record (it was a number one smash in the U.K., and "Paranoid" and "Iron Man" both scraped the U.S. charts despite virtually nonexistent radio play), it also stands as one of the greatest and most influential heavy metal albums of all time. Paranoid refined Black Sabbath's signature sound --... Read More

UFO 1
Artist: UFO
Community Score: 10.00

Recorded on a shoestring budget, UFO has several challenging sonic moments. The uneven mixes and amateur performances that some listeners might find quaint or innocent could be distracting to others. In their pre-Michael Schenker days, the British band made a much more experimental noise that reflected psychedelic as well as R&B influences... Read More