Machine Head

Topping critics' polls when it was released in 2007, The Blackening drew comparisons to Metallica's Master of Puppets through a near non-stop barrage of freight train groove riffs and spark-spraying guitar leads. Singer-guitarist Robb Flynn pays tribute to Dimebag Darryl with "Aesthetics of Hate" (awesome, awesome, awesome mosh) and Phil Anselmo with the punching-old-ladies level of multi-directed rage he informs his lyrics with whenever he barks, growls and shrieks them. There's a reason Machine Head has appeared at just about every major metal festival of the early '00s.

More than two decades of thrashing around the Bay Area's heavy-metal scene has done
little to dull Machine Head frontman Robert Flynn's raw anger. Flynn's past targets have
often been those in his personal life -- such as his birthparents, who gave him up for
adoption -- but this time he's aiming most of his venom toward the war in Iraq and the Bush
administration. The Blackening features more of the band's thrash-metal roots (t... More >