Upon its release in the mid-1990s, Pantera's Vulgar Display of Power proved that, even in an era of alternative rock supremacy, heavy metal fans were still a force to contend with. Blending eerie, surging grooves with thrashy speed metal riffs, Pantera created a bleak, oppressive disc that captured both ends of the speed spectrum without resorting to clichi, abrupt tempo shifts. Guitarist Diamond Darrell plays with as much crunch as the best Metallica, while vocalist Phil Anselmo screams loud enough to satisfy any GBH fan. Coupled with Vinnie Paul's insistent, double bass-drum onslaught, you're left with an album that'll shake the fillings out of even the strongest teeth. -Jon Wiederhorn.

Famous for its anthemic opening salvo, "We Will Rock You/We Are The Champions"-at once an acknowledgement of and delight in their new-found stadium status-it's possible to see News Of The World as the last album of Queen's "classic" period, when their fusion of gaudy operatics, tearful ballads and '70s guitar-rock came together most congruently and well. With "Spread Your Wings" the band crafted another of their typically artful paeans to hedonistic freedom, and "My Melancholy Blues" is one of Freddie Mercury's most engaging displays of self-indulgence-though they stepped up the pace appreciably on "Sheer Heart Attack," which proved that they could match anyone for sheer muscle, when the urge seized them. The album's most successful cut, however-Brian May's "It's Late"-successfully married the guitarist's power chord-fetish with Mercury's infatuated romantic melodrama: the result, overblown on both counts, stands as a near-definitive record of this band and their sound. -Andrew McGuire.

If you're wondering how Green Day managed to become the biggest punk band in the world, take a look at Bullet In A Bible. Recorded at Green Day's two-night run at Milton Keynes National Bowl in June 2005, this combined CD/DVD sees these former bong-hitting Californian drop-outs embracing political activism, pantomime hilarity, and all the fripperies of a rock opera - and excelling at all three. The first half is essentially a run-through of the group's 2004 album American Idiot, complete with anti-American rabble-rousing and a set of barbed insults tossed back at the "rednecks" across the pond. That out the way, the band careen into a sort of greatest hits set, with the likes of "Longview" and "Hitchin' A Ride" sharing space with a brass-laden "King For A Day" that sees Billie-Joe Armstrong prancing the stage in crown and ermine cape, singing snatches of Lulu's "Shout" and Eric Idle's "Always Look On The Bright Side Of Life". Tremendously silly, but Green Day have managed to figure out how to play it like showmen without resorting to juvenile puerility or morphing into corporate yes-men, and that's a way harder trick than it looks. - Louis Pattison.

You're three tracks into The Cost before you find a song, "The Rise," that opens with anything but singer Glen Hansard's voice as the first thing you hear. The beauty is, you're waiting for the voice, with its hints of Cat Stevens's tonality and its utterly distinct Irish lift. It's Hansard that provides the Frames with such a rising vibe, the sense of a band always lifting off, pressed higher by Colm Mac An Iomaire's violin. Mac An Iomaire's strings slip and slide in the thickets of guitar, playing exceptional cat and mouse both when the guitars are clear and crisp and when they're crashing furiously. The Frames wouldn't claim to write epic tunes, but over and over the songs build toward ecstatic sonic events. Witness the hushed open to "People Get Ready" how it morphs into a violin and guitar-grit blast of wind-blown energy or the distortion-scoured hum behind Hansard's lone voice on "True" launching a languorous, piano-driven backdrop as the singer lets loose a first-class yowl-the stuff of anguished beauty. -Andrew Bartlett.

It speaks volumes about the mid-1970s music scene that the Clash's explosive debut was viewed as too provincial and raw for U. S. consumption upon its original English release in 1977. (Wimps. ) No matter-between Joe Strummer's marble-mouthed howls of righteous rage on songs like "Career Opportunities" ("The ones that never knock"), "I'm So Bored With the USA" ("Yankee dollars talk to the dictators of the world") and "White Riot" ("I wanna riot / A riot of my own"), and the furious instrumental assault led by guitarist Mick Jones, the Clash became a hot import in the States strictly on word of mouth (some of them must have taste)-and helped establish the band as one of leaders of rock's punk revolt. -Billy Altman.

One of rock's most overlooked masterpieces, this third album by the L. A. folk-rock outfit led by inscrutable singer-songwriter Arthur Lee sounds as fresh and innovative today as it did upon its original release in 1968. With David Angel's atmospheric string and horn arrangements giving the work a conceptual underpinning, Lee explores mainstream America's penchant for paranoia ("The Red Telephone") and violence ("A House is Not a Motel") with songs that are as sonically subtle and lilting as they are lyrically blunt and harrowing. Add two gems by Love's secret weapon, second guitarist Bryan Maclean ("Alone Again Or" and "Old Man") and you've got one of the truly perfect albums in rock history. -Billy Altman.

With a majority of the songs on 10,000 Days clocking in well past the seven-minute mark, you wouldn't be entirely mistaken in thinking that the title of the album refers to how long it actually takes to make it through the whole thing. Two of the tracks-the sitar and tabla enhanced "10,000 Days (Wings Part 2)" and its suitably epic psych-rock sister "Rosetta Stoned"-even linger on for nearly a dozen leisurely minutes each. That's delightful news for the legion of Tool fans that have been waiting five years for the follow-up to 2001's Lateralus, which debuted at number one and sold 2. 3 million copies in the United States. Singer Maynard James Keenan is back on mystical form after his hiatus with the politically slanted A Perfect Circle, sounding at once ethereal and eloquent as he calmly charges through the metal tempest of the opening track "Vicarious. " The rest of the band, meanwhile, hits a series of high-flying moments with tracks such as "Jambi" and "The Pot. " When Tool sounds as good as it does on these songs it's hard to get enough. Which makes it all the more baffling that a surprisingly large chunk of the disc is given over to mood-enhancing soundscapes like "Lost Keys" and "Vigniti Tres. " Who has time for filler? -Aidin Vaziri.