Top 10 Industrial Metal Albums

Though Skinny Puppy made many good records during their career, 'Rabies' stands out as one of the heaviest in their catalog. The crushing highlight 'Tin Omen' was inspired by the 1989 Tiananmen uprising and massacre in China. Skinny Puppy's entire aural and visual aesthetic was designed to disturb the audience. Listening to 'Rabies,' you get the sense that you are listening to a group of bad people doing bad things.

Essential Track: 'Tin Omen'

Nailbomb was a collaborative project between Sepultura's Max Cavalera and Fudge Tunnel's Alex Newport. When their respective bands toured together, Cavalera and Newport found that they shared an affinity for many of the artists included on this list. Although it's not terribly original, this record delivers the goods if you want a heavy, animalistic album with lots of samples and programmed drums.

Essential Track: 'Religious Cancer'

This short-lived and unlikely collaboration between Ian Mackaye (Minor Threat, Fugazi) and Al Jourgensen (Ministry) produced the 'I Will Refuse/No Bunny' single and the 'Trait' EP. A Wax Trax CD version includes both records, thus qualifying it for this list. Pailhead's blood-curdling blend of hardcore and industrial coincided with Jourgensen's renewed interest in heavy metal-style guitar, which factored heavily into the rest of Ministry's career.

Essential Track: 'I Will Refuse/No Bunny'

We found out about this band back in the day, when Thrasher magazine included cassette samplers with some of their issues. The God Machine were packaged on a tape with songs by Wool and Quicksand. The God Machine's 'Black Car' blew the other tracks away. Their addictive mix of sludgy guitars and ethereal vocals could not be denied. From there, we picked up 'Scenes from the Second Story' and obsessed over 'The God Machine' for the entire following year.

Essential Track: 'Home'

Early Ministry found Al Jourgensen singing in a fake English accent over music that was steeped in the synth pop trend of the early '80s. By 1994's 'Psalm 69,' Ministry had already developed into the unofficial leaders of the industrial metal movement. For a record that was commercially embraced by the Lollapalooza crowd, the material on 'Psalm 69' actually dishes out quite a few Slayer-esque guitar riffs, dance club samples, and discordant drum machines. In some ways, it had the feeling of a product developed specifically to target mainstream music listeners who wanted to be extreme, but weren't ready to take the full plunge into groups like Entombed and Carcass.

Essential Track: 'Psalm 69'

Between playing guitar on Napalm Death's 'Scum' and forming Godflesh, Justin Broderick played drums in Head of David. Their first album, 1986's self-titled, combined elements of first wave industrial music, heavy metal, and their own UK-inspired depression. 'Snuff Rider M.C.' is an exercise in tension with a pounding drum beat, dissonant guitars, and a barely discernible bass line. 'Head of David' casts a dreary and grey gloom over the listener, evoking the factory-lined streets of the band's native Birmingham, England.

Essential Track: 'Smears'

Essentially a solo project by a French musician who calls himself Vindsval, 'The Work Which Transforms God' is a nihilistic and sinister piece of music. Its influence on the current industrial and black metal scene is undeniable.

Essential Track: 'Procession of the Dead Clowns'

Though technically not a metal band, Big Black's music sounds like a sheet of steel being torn apart over abused drum machines. The guitars sound like actual pieces of metal, and the lyrics are equally abrasive, with wise-guy guitarist-vocalist Steve Albini injecting an acidic sense of humor into the songwriting. Filtered through Albini's misanthropic intellect, scenes from the American nightmare such as 'Bad Penny' and 'Colombian Necktie' sting as hard today as they did in 1987.

Essential Track: 'Bad Penny'

Swans, the impossibly bleak avant-noise band from New York City's Lower East Side scene, birthed 'Cop,' a bleak dirge of a record that paints landscapes of urban despair and loneliness with monolithic waves of sound. Opening track 'Half Life' sets the tone for the record: slow, percussive, repetitive, mechanical brutality. 'Clay Man' is the stand-out track, sounding like 'Damaged I' by Black Flag being played by evil robots.

Essential Track: 'Clay Man'

Godflesh were among the first wave of bands inspired by Swans' slow-and-scary approach. The opening track, 'Like Rats,' could be the soundtrack for Armageddon -- the final battle between good and evil. At the time, we'd never heard anything like it before; relentless, mechanized drum loops under a wall of guitars, noise, bass throbs, and de-tuned vocals. 'Streetcleaner' was the singular vision of Justin Broderick, who never quite matched the dark intensity of this album again.

Essential Track: 'Like Rats'