The Other Classic Vol 2
The Other Classic Vol 2
Rory Bentley
Welcome back to the second edition of my deep dive into classic albums that don’t get glazed by the big publications when they release a click-baity list like this one. These are the albums that are every bit as good as a band’s most heralded releases, but they don’t get the same shine. This is where we right those wrongs, give the albums their flowers, and encourage listeners at the start of their journey to dig a little deeper into a catalog and find more audio gold. These are The Other Classics!
Pantera- The Great Southern Trendkill
It’s hard work being nice about Phil Anselmo in 2026, and it’s a can of worms I’m not opening right now, but Pantera’s 1996 follow-up to the chart-topping “Far Beyond Driven” is about as good as Metal gets. It’s the ball-knower’s choice of Pantera album and far and away my favourite of their classic 90s run.
Bristling with scabrous aggression, the band never sounded heavier and meaner than on here. Although the Abbott brothers’ Texas grooves are the backbone of the band, it is Anselmo’s sludgy hometown of New Orleans that envelopes the album in a swamp of filthy riffs and tortured shrieks above all else. The opening title track is frankly horrifying in its intensity and has more in common with Napalm Death than a chart-topping Groove Metal band, despite closing out with one of Dimebag’s funkiest riffs.
Elsewhere, Anselmo’s demons really come to the fore, whether it be his volatile relationship with the Metal press on ‘War Nerve’ (we are terrible cunts, so I get it), or his harrowing struggles with addiction on ‘Living Through Me (Hell’s Wrath)’, the man is a wide-open wound that’s constantly being topped up with salt throughout the runtime. The yin and yang of despair and traumatic rage comes to a head on the disturbing ‘Suicide Note’ tandem of songs. One of them is a desolate, crooned dark night of the soul; the other is the most violent and punishing song the band would ever write.
Throw in Dimebag’s finest ever solo on the incredible ‘Floods,’ and you’re looking at the very definition of a classic. We all like to sing along to the tough guy anthems of ‘Walk’ and ‘I’m Broken’, but this album is an emotional gut punch hitherto unseen.
Type O Negative- World Coming Down
Fittingly, I’m writing this piece in October, which, as we all know, is Type O Negative month. Of course October Rust is the ‘classic’ Type O record, along with “Bloody Kisses”, but for me “World Coming Down” is my favourite; and every bit as good as it’s acclaimed predecessors. The gallows humour associated with The Drab Four is pitch black on this thing, and often completely devoid of mirth and just plain tragic.
I don’t know how a song as relentlessly bleak as ‘Everyone I Love is Dead’ can be so darn catchy but the “Goddamn it!” shout before the killer Kenny Hickey riff kicks in is something I chronically have to prevent myself from shouting in a myriad of public contexts. Meanwhile, the skits in between depicting different addictions are pretty horrifying. ‘Sinus’ in particular, with its simulation of a cocaine fuelled heart attack, is a hard listen, particularly considering Steel’s premature passing.
There are genuinely beautiful moments within the melancholy, such as the gorgeous melodies on the title track that stop things going too far into the void, showing that even at peak depression the band’s songwriting flair always shines through. ‘Pyretta Blaze’ is the token mean Goth girl song on the album, depicting a sexy pyromaniac that you shouldn’t want anything to do with but your stupid biology overrides your brain. We’ve all been there. Then there’s ’All Hallows Eve’, which is everything you’d want from a Type O Samhain-based epic, not an easy bar to clear.
The closing medley of Beatles songs played like the record’s at the wrong RPM is also a joyful way to end things, paying homage to a huge inspiration for the band’s unique sound. The band never did anything approaching a bad album for their whole career, but they would never be on such towering form again.
Entombed- To Ride Shoot Straight and Speak The Truth
Right, get me my soap box and my knuckleduster, cos I got some shit to say- and I’m willing to fight to the death for it!This is the best Entombed album. Not “Left Hand Path”, not “Wolverine Blues,” but this grimy, slick, cool as fuck slice of Rock and Roll.
Having already flipped the genre on its head and inspired a thousand Metal and Hardcore bands with a guitar tone and approach that is still pervasive to this day, Entombed took the groundbreaking swaggering approach on “Wolverine Blues” and went to the next level, dialling up the Rock factor whilst still keeping that disgusting tone. The whole ‘Death and Roll’ thing was always a cool idea, but a very difficult thing to get spot on. You need to keep the intensity and brutality, but it has to have swagger and groove; otherwise it just sounds like growling over simplistic riffs. Which is why Six Feet Under have never clicked, even before Chris Barne’s dramatic and hilarious vocal deterioration (EEEEEEEEE etc).
This is 40 minutes of fist-pumping riffs, swinging drums, and LG Petrov having the time of his life roaring “Y’know how they say ‘hey don’t rock the boat while you’re in it’ well the ship we’re all in babe is sinking’ by the minute!” like the coolest fucker that ever walked the earth. I love David Vincent and his esoteric vibe, but LG’s taking his lunch money and riding off in a Lamborghini wearing shades. Death Metal has never been cooler.
Mastodon- Blood Mountain
Real borderline call on this one, it featured in plenty of album of the year lists at the time and represented the band’s major label debut, but as the years have gone on it’s not been given anywhere near the iconic status of the albums either side of it.
For many, though “Blood Mountain” is the Goldilocks zone for Atlanta’s finest. It retains much of the punishing rawness of “Leviathan”, albeit a little more polished, and the expansive Prog of “Crack The Skye” without going to the absolute extremes of either sonic palette. In fact, in many ways it is the archetypal ‘Other Classic’. There is not a single second on here that isn’t off-the-scale fucking incredible- it has massive bangers like ‘Colony of Birchmen’, ‘Sleeping Giant’ and ‘Crystal Skull’, an all-timer opener in ‘The Wolf Is Loose’ (what a tune!), and feels like it sits in its own weird little universe unlike any other album in their (or anyone else’s) discography. It is a legitimate 10/10 that’s better than most revered metal bands’ best work, yet its greatness remains undersold in the wider Metal consciousness.
Essentially it is a victim of Mastodon being the greatest Metal band of the 21st century, almost lost in the shuffle of sustained brilliance; and honestly, I could make a case for every post- “Crack the Skye” release, including the new one! Whilst we’re all doing jumping jacks when Lamb of God or Killswitch Engage release something that sounds like it’s got a bit of the old spark to it in 2026, Mastodon have never stopped being totally essential.
Faith No More- King for a Day Fool for a Lifetime
Thankfully there’s an ever-increasing collective of guys and gals of the cloth that know what’s up and recognise the brilliance of Faith No More’s 5th album- and not before time! “The Real Thing” is the hit factory (despite Mike Patton’s bizarre decision to affect a strange nasal tone that he thankfully dropped for subsequent releases) and “Angel Dust” is the galaxy-brained magnum opus that changed Rock forever, but KFAD might be the best album FNM ever made.
To me it is the sound of a band doing whatever the fuck they want, and what they want to do often involves being contrarian pricks. For the benefit of our younger readers, the 90s were a far less genre-fluid time than the one we live in these days, where streaming and the positive side of social media (there is one, believe it or not) have broken down a lot of tribalism and barriers (though clearly not for the subhuman perma-virgins clacking their fat fingers raw on the Metal Hammer Facebook page, who I’d wish death on were it not for the fact that continuing to exist as the people they are is a more severe and sustained form of suffering). An album that veers between vile scatological Noise Rock, Bossa Nova, Swing and ice-cool Soul Funk has the potential to annoy multiple subcultures, and it kind of did. Though none of this stops every single genre-spanning song on here being unbelievably brilliant.
It perhaps offers the most complete document of Patton’s astonishing vocal ability of any of the probable hundreds of products he’s been involved in, with the horrific shrieks on ‘Ugly In The Morning’ and the stirring blue-eyed soul of ‘Just A Man’ representing the outer extremities of his limitless versatility. Despite this, the album did not do well at the time, largely because the world is a shit tip and we’re not allowed nice things. But none of that matters because work of this quality stands the test of time, and there’s nothing wrong with learning “The Gentle Art of Making Enemies”!
Okay, that’s a wrap on this instalment of ‘Other Classics’. Let us know what your picks would be; no arguing with each other, please, we’re here to have fun. I also could not give a fuck if you don’t like my picks; I’m listening to “Circle of Cysquatch” and doing deadlifts so I can carry your mum to bed.
Disclaimer: This article is solely the property of Rory Bentley and Ever Metal. It is strictly forbidden to copy any part of this article, unless you have the strict permission of both parties. Failure to adhere to this will be treated as plagiarism and will be reported to the relevant authorities.
