Stephen Hill

Bands need to evolve to survive, and these classic albums by Metallica, Avenged Sevenfold and Sepultura are masterclasses in switching everything up

Where to start with New York's most influential 'underground' guitar band since The Velvet Underground

There was much more to Outbreak and Supersonic than white men with guitars, and the UK festival scene now feels vital and vibrant again

In 2000, Alien Ant Farm were nu metal also-rans struggling to find their place. Then an endorsement from Papa Roach and one hard-rocking Michael Jackson cover thrust them up the charts

Metallica, Slipknot and Avenged Sevenfold are all hugely reliable bands – apart from on one painful occasion

Roots Bloody Roots made Sepultura one of metal’s biggest bands in 1996. Not even a year later, the lineup that made it imploded.

In the late ’90s, Iron Maiden were creatively flagging and unable to fill venues. Then two of their most adored members, Bruce Dickinson and Adrian Smith, returned to make them megastars again.

Metallica wanted to make their answer to Pink Floyd’s The Wall and Led Zeppelin’s The Song Remains The Same, and even hired future Spider-Man star Dane DeHaan to help. But then Metallica: Through The Never became one of the band’s most costly misadventures.

Joe Duplantier is one of metal's most thoughtful and widely respected figures. This is what he's learned through a career in music

Released on August 25, 1998, Elliott Smith's XO is a treasure-trove of brilliance from a true cult artist

Think deathcore is a bit one-note? Think again. Here are five albums that perfectly chart its evolution over the past two decades

A salute to the power and majesty of The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill as its 25th anniversary approaches

Classic songs by Foo Fighters, Red Hot Chili Peppers and Slipknot have all been taken off the airwaves with the most frivolous excuses

Wait And Bleed was just a demo in dire need of a chorus in 1998. One year later, it was a cornerstone of Slipknot’s stunning debut album and on track to become a megahit.

How Biffy Clyro members Simon Neil and Mike Vennart joined forces to make one of 2023's most extreme metal debuts

With the likes of Beavis and Butt-head and Headbanger's Ball disappearing from TV, metal needed some new representation on the small screen. Enter a goofy, animated extreme metal band named Dethklok

One of UK metal's national treasures, here's every Architects album in reverse order of awesomeness

From Metallica to Slipknot, Sylosis frontman and guitar virtuoso Josh Middleton picks 10 heavy riffs that are far harder than they sound

Metallica, Megadeth and Exodus all have some clangers in their catalogue – but at least these songs saved them from being total write-offs

Headbangers Ball, Raw Power and Metalocalypse blasted heavy, nasty music into everybody’s living rooms – and we need them back

In 2005, Iron Maiden and Black Sabbath co-headlined Ozzfest for what should have been a dream festival tour. It became infamous for one of the most public spats in metal history

From nu metal classics by Slipknot, Linkin Park and Limp Bizkit to metal legends like Iron Maiden and Judas Priest bouncing back in style, these are the albums that defined the 2000s

From the ferocity of Slayer to Amon Amarth’s viking melodeath, Metal Blade Records are masters of getting in on the ground floor with the next big thing