Symbol of Salvation
Artist: Armored Saint
Community Score: 10.00

Recorded soon after the tragic and untimely death of guitarist Dave Prichard from leukemia, Symbol of Salvation is arguably Armored Saint's finest hour. In what is certainly their best-produced and most diverse album, the band pays tribute to their fallen friend with every performance. And since many of these tracks were co-written by Prichard... Read More

Pop Songs (Greatest Hits)
Artist: Iggy Pop
Wasted in America
Artist: Love/Hate
Community Score: 8.00
Time to Burn
Artist: Giant
Community Score: 7.50

Giant's second effort, 1991's Time to Burn is another excellent, melodic, hard rock album in the vein of Foreigner and Journey, but with the added sting of Dan Huff's incredible chops and blinding technique (especially on the title track). The rest of the band provides equally impressive musicianship throughout, and one is left with the feeling... Read More

The Best of Bob Welch
Artist: Bob Welch

Bob Welch has had an interesting, yet arguably frustrating career. The singer, songwriter, and guitarist spent five years and five albums with Fleetwood Mac in the early 1970s and left just before the band became a superstar act. The 1991 Rhino compilation The Best of Bob Welch collects the highlights of his work from 1976 to 1991. Welch's... Read More

Born to Be Wild: A Retrospective
Artist: Steppenwolf
Community Score: 8.00

Born To Be Wild: A Retrospective was the first attempt at a serious historical overview of Steppenwolf and founder/leader John Kay's career, and considering that the makers limited themselves to two CDs, they did an amazingly good job. A lot of listeners -- even those who were around during the band's heyday -- who think of Steppenwolf as... Read More

Prove You Wrong
Artist: Prong
Community Score: 10.00

On Prove You Wrong Prong began to allow a little more melody to trickle into their depressing urban noisescapes, but the album lacks some of the spark which made the band's breakthrough, Beg to Differ, so surprising. The trio gets right down to business with brutal opener "Irrelevant Thoughts," its tribal drumming and supersonic guitar effects... Read More

Human Factor
Artist: Metal Church
Community Score: 9.33

There's often a fine line between hard rock and heavy metal, but with Metal Church, there was never any doubt -- they were always very much a metal band. When major record companies were quick to sign faceless Warrant clones and Poison imitators, Metal Church stuck to its guns and never lost its integrity. After five or six years with Elektra,... Read More

Faith Hope Love
Artist: King's X
Community Score: 8.20

Although the Jimmy Swaggart/Jim Baker crowd was quick to denounce heavy metal in general as a tool of Satanism, a number of headbangers have used metal to promote Christianity, including Stryper, the Resurrection Band, Contagious, and King's X. Quite often, King's X did so in such a subliminal fashion that they fared as well in the secular... Read More

Extreme II: Pornograffitti
Artist: Extreme
Community Score: 7.71

Extreme came into its own on the concept album Pornograffitti, with the band's strongest set of songs and an intellectual theme revolving around the struggle for genuine love and romance in a sleazy, decadent society full of greed and corruption. The band shows a strong desire to experiment and push the boundaries of the pop-metal format, adding... Read More

Cycle Sluts from Hell
Artist: Cycle Sluts from Hell

Playing fast, simple, thundering heavy metal, the Cycle Sluts From Hell could almost be compared to L7, were it not for the fact that they were so cartoonish. Taking Joan Jett's trashy, badass-mama persona to an aggressive extreme, both musically and attitude-wise, the Cycle Sluts come up with such entertainingly silly anthems as "Conqueress,"... Read More

Adrenalize - JAPAN
Artist: Def Leppard