This week’s soundcheck is a dive into the sounds of alternative rock and metal music. This playlist strives to cover various decades and sounds both new and old, covering everything from Metallica and Nirvana to Queens of the Stone Age.
1. Rage Against the Machine – People of the Sun
One of rocks all-time great album openers, Rage Against the Machine kick off their second record, Evil Empire, with a fiery and political track. One of my all-time favorite songs of all time and from the band. Rage Against the Machine are a band like no other, one of the bests to ever do it.
2. Refused – Liberation Frequency
Refused do something truly special with the second track from their iconic 1998 record The Shape of Punk to Come. If you are looking to get into more punk, especially post hardcore, this is the record for you.
3. Mastodon – Iron Tusk
Mastodon’s 2004 album Leviathan is one of my favorite metal albums of all time. It’s a psychedelic and heavy journey through the lore of Moby Dick, capturing the nautical setting of the story perfectly across its 10 tracks. “Iron Tusk” is among the records most accessible moments.
4. System Of a Down – Forest
Now here’s a deep cut from System Of a Down’s 2001 album Toxicity, one of the best albums of the 2000’s point blank. Featuring a killer rhythm and some intricate drumming, “Forest” is a standout moment on a true 10/10 album.
5. The Dillinger Escape Plan – One of Us Is the Killer
Atmospheric, abstract, and cryptic as all hell, this track from The Dillinger Escape Plan’s 2013 record of the same name is the perfect tone setter for the record. It’s a more accessible version of their complex mathcore sound, the perfect balance of beautiful and heavy, creating a demanding tension.
6. TOOL – Schism
Speaking of abstract rock and metal, you don’t get much more cryptic than “Schism”, the fifth track from TOOL’s progressive metal magnum opus Lateralus. This song is a psychedelic masterpiece, one lacking a traditional structure and feeling more akin to a journey through space and sound.
7. Metallica – Creeping Death
Metallica, the masters of thrash metal that they are, created one of their defining tracks with “Creeping Death”, the penultimate track to their first masterpiece, 1984’s Ride the Lightning. It’s a track biblical in both topic and scale, featuring one of the greatest breakdowns ever put to tape.
8. Electric Wizard – Funeralopolis
One of the darkest pieces of stoner metal ever recorded, “Funeralopolis” is a true epic. The first of many long tracks found on Electric Wizard’s Dopethrone, it’s one of the bleakest metal songs of all time, depicting an utter hellscape ravaged by nuclear warfare. The song builds in speed and intensity, becoming a dark, warped nightmare by its final refrain of “nuclear warheads ready to strike”
9. Converge – Hell to Pay
A slower moment on one of metals most frantic and aggressive records of all time, “Hell to Pay” is one of the defining points of Converge’s 2001 masterpiece Jane Doe. It’s a highly cryptic record, one full of complex lyrics and riffs and a fiery atmosphere of needlelike guitars and dissonate vocals. The bass on this track is truly crushing.
10. The Smashing Pumpkins – Cherub Rock
An instantly memorable intro to one of the defining records of the 1990’s, “Cherub Rock” opens 1993’s Siamese Dream off with a bang. Easily one of my favorite Smashing Pumpkins songs. Equally dreamlike as it is heavy.
11. Queens of the Stone Age – Little Sister
The first of two QOTSA tracks on this playlist, “Little Sister” is one of the most fun and infectious songs that the band ever made. An instant earworm.
12. Nine Inch Nails – Closer
One of the darkest records of the 90’s, The Downward Spiral is one of the all-time great concept albums. Nine Inch Nails create a tense, dirty atmosphere throughout the record, creating absolute classics such as “Closer”, a deep dive into the dark side of lust.
13. Alice In Chains – Them Bones
Alice In Chains are a personal favorite band of mine and “Them Bones” is a clear example as to why. One of the most to the point songs of all time.
14. Slint – Nosferatu Man
Slint’s Spiderland is one of the most important underground rock albums of all time, being critical to the development of math rock and post hardcore. It’s a dark album full of sudden tone shifts, tense atmosphere, and spoken word passages. “Nosferatu Man” lives up to the reputation of its namesake vampire.
15. Gang of Four – Ether
One of the best songs to ever come out of the 70’s punk scene.
16. The Pop Group – She Is Beyond Good and Evil
Never has punk music sounded so rebellious as The Pop Group does on this iconic single. “She Is Beyond Good and Evil” is a very cryptic track, containing a constantly shifting beat and manic vocals. It’s a true sonic experience.
17. Nirvana – Radio Friendly Unit Shifter
One of my favorite deep cuts in the Nirvana discography from my favorite record of theirs, “Radio Friendly Unit Shifter” is the perfect representation of what the band was doing with 1993’s In Utero. It is a rough, aggressive and surreal song, a blistering noise rock attack unlike anything to ever hit the mainstream before it.
18. Queens of the Stone Age – I Appear Missing
Closing out this week’s playlist is one of my favorite songs of all time. The second QOTSA track on this playlist, this one coming from 2013’s masterpiece …Like Clockwork, “I Appear Missing” is the centerpiece of the record. The song, with its grim lyrics forms the emotional backbone of the record, presenting a psychedelic journey through the edges of life and death. Truly a masterpiece of alternative rock.
That’s it for this week’s alternative rock playlist. Make sure to check back in weekly for new playlists covering various corners of music’s vast canon.