Soundgarden

The band's first fully realized album (released in 1991) was a thick, twisted, intelligent collection of bluster and guitars. An honest successor to the bell-bottomed heavy rock of the '70s, Badmotorfinger was smarter, darker, more self-aware and more honest than the majority of albums often lumped in with it.

OK, OK, I admit it. This is a credible metal album, and not because it leads with the credible "Rusty Cage." You can tell from the guitar noise, the main if not only point of contact between metal albums and what most of us want from rock and roll. While Chris Cornell howls on about "lookin for the paradigm" and "your Jesus Christ pose" (I swear, that's the good stuff), Kim Thayil finishes off "Slaves and Bulldozers" with an electrical storm and erects so much razor wire around "Jesus Christ Pose" (right, same song) you might almost want to interview him. Then he writes a lyric himself. It seems to hinge on the word "begat." (Grade - B-)