Angel Dust
Artist: Faith No More
Community Score: 8.02

Warner Bros. figured that lightning could strike twice at a time when oodles of (most horribly bad) funk-metal acts were following in Faith No More and Red Hot Chili Peppers's footsteps. In response, the former recorded and released the bizarro masterpiece Angel Dust. Patton's work in Mr. Bungle proved just how strange and inspired he could get... Read More

A-Sides
Artist: Soundgarden
Community Score: 7.66

For an act that was one of the definitive album artists of the late '80s and '90s, Soundgarden was a surprisingly effective singles band. Their singles effectively conveyed all of their best ideas, from their sludgy early Sub Pop recordings to the elaborate, post-metal psychedelia of their last two albums, Superunknown and Down on the Upside.... Read More

Urban Discipline
Artist: Biohazard
Community Score: 9.00

Biohazard's Urban Discipline introduced the band's one-of-a-kind, Brooklyn thrash-rap sound to hardcore fans outside the five boroughs. It's an authentic mix of inner-city vocal rhythms with metal's take-no-prisoners attitude, one that granted them international credibility. Urban Discipline is an original hardcore metal-rap album, debuting a... Read More

Sweet Oblivion
Artist: Screaming Trees
Community Score: 8.39

The Screaming Trees one-upped their major-label debut, Uncle Anesthesia, with this solid, vastly underrated effort. Sweet Oblivion's lead single, the jumpy hard rocker "Nearly Lost You," proved itself a highlight on the hugely successful, Seattle-themed Singles soundtrack. But even though the Screaming Trees stacked up quite well against their... Read More

La Sexorcisto: Devil Music, Vol. 1
Artist: White Zombie
Community Score: 7.82

Perhaps co-defining the future of heavy metal, White Zombie's major-label debut nearly equals fellow classics Guns N' Roses' Appetite for Destruction, the Cult's Electric, and Soundgarden's Badmotorfinger in significance. With a funky rap-metal undercurrent, these metal monsters combine Black Sabbath's riff sludge and Metallica's rhythmic... Read More

Bricks Are Heavy
Artist: L7
Community Score: 7.70

Though they hailed from sunny L.A., L7 became the poster girls for grunge, and more specifically the "riot grrrl" movement in 1992, with the meteoric success of their third album, Bricks Are Heavy. While their previous efforts had sounded sloppy and uneven, Nevermind producer Butch Vig helped the girls obtain a tight, compact sound on Bricks,... Read More

Tulip
Artist: Steel Pole Bath Tub
Badmotorfinger
Artist: Soundgarden
Community Score: 7.54

Bidding for a popular breakthrough with their second major-label album, Soundgarden suddenly developed a sense of craft, with the result that Badmotorfinger became far and away their most fully realized album to that point. Pretty much everything about Badmotorfinger is a step up from its predecessors -- the production is sharper and the music... Read More

Mr. Bungle
Artist: Mr. Bungle
Community Score: 8.94

To say that Mr. Bungle is unfocused is like criticizing a rapper for not being able to sing -- it may be true, but it misses the point of the music. Mr. Bungle is a dizzying, disconcerting, schizophrenic tour through just about any rock style the group can think of, hopping from genre to genre without any apparent rhyme or reason, and sometimes... Read More

Eggnog
Artist: Melvins
Community Score: 5.15
Smell the Magic
Artist: L7
Community Score: 7.50

On 1991's Smell the Magic, L7 begins to find the sense of melody to complement its distorted punk guitar assault. The band deserves ultimate praise for writing from a completely female perspective at all times, and the fabulous "Fast and Frightening" just might be the ultimate "riot grrrl" anthem. "Shove" pleads the case for mosh pit etiquette,... Read More

Meantime
Artist: Helmet
Community Score: 7.50

In 1991, Interscope won a ferocious multi-label bidding war (which according to firsthand accounts, pitted an estimated 18 to 22 different labels against each other) and signed Helmet for a reported cool one-million-plus dollars. Under the watchful eye of the record biz, and on the heels of Nirvana's huge commercial breakthrough, Helmet were... Read More