30 Extraordinary Albums That Turn 30 Years Old In 2018!

Crumbsuckers – Beast On My Back

All but abandoning their crossover roots, Crumbsuckers went full on metal with B.O.M.B, an album which failed to capitalise on the appeal garnered by debut album Life Of Dreams, despite Crumbsuckers’ obvious musical progression and their burgeoning reputation.

Ultimately, the majority of the hardcore scene were more than little pissed at their change in direction but Crumbsuckers had already released an almost perfect, pioneering crossover record….so why shouldn’t they set their sights on the big time and deliver the kind of metallic masterpiece which (should) have led to greater things?!

As it turned out, Beast On My Back would be Crumbsuckers last hurrah but 30 years later this twisting, turning schizophrenic beast of a record remains a colossal riff feast!

Crumbs? This beast was a real fuckin’ meal!

Incubus (aka Opprobrium) – Serpent Temptation

Not those digerideroo-blowing nu metal wombats, this is the real Incubus; a towering death/thrash colossus who annihilated their 80’s competition with debut album, Serpent Temptation!

Incubus were extreme (in every sense of the word) and they were absurdly talented, tempering their ferocity with intricate riffing and a superb sense of dynamics. It has to be said, this shit was astonishingly heavy back in ’88; a savage re-appropriation of thrash metal’s fundamental’s strapped to death metal’s still to be completed blueprint. The results were almost beyond comprehension, with Incubus paving the way for countless acts who took thrash/death into ever heavier realms as the 90’sdawned and death metal took hold.

A hyper-speed, proto-death metal classic, Serpent Temptation deserves to be considered an equal of Dark Angel’s Darkness Descends, Slayer’s Reign In Blood and Kreator’s Pleasure To Kill!

Riot – Thundersteel

Trust Riot to deliver a balls-out true metal album in an era dominated by thrash. And, trust Riot to outshine practically all those thrash albums with an album that bled molten-hot metal like no other!

If Riot were attempting to outshine Judas Priest on Thundersteel then they succeeded. There are times – particularly on the title track and the ridiculously brilliant “Fight Or Fall” – when you’d be forgiven for thinking that Thundersteel was on repeat play when Priest were recording Painkiller, such is the hyper-speed machismo of this relentless  explosion of an album.

Home to a barrage of blistering riffs, Tony Moore’s air raid siren (and very Halford-esque) vocals and skilled songwriting, this seemingly forgotten classic was one of the finest metal albums of the decade and deserves to be regarded as such!