Through Silver in Blood

One of those albums so earth-shattering that an entire genre springs up to chase its long tail, Through Silver in Blood represents an apex of hopelessness as the band members transformed the heavy shit going on in their lives into some of the heaviest shit ever recorded. By splicing together everything going on in the metal and punk scenes around them – sludge, industrial, post-rock, nineties hardcore – they arrived at a devastating exercise in tension-and-release called “post-metal.” As their many followers have demonstrated, you can’t fake the feel. This is about as real as you get.