It has now been 50 years since Hendrix's passing, in September of 1970. Several months prior, at the Fillmore East with Billy Cox and Buddy Miles, he recorded the now legendary Band Of Gypsys live album. In contrast to the heavier psychedelic rock approach of his earlier material, the music on Band Of Gypsys saw Hendrix embrace a much funkier approach, more free roaming and a lot groovier in its delivery. This is as good a hint of where the man's sound may have gone had he lived on if any, into more expansive territory oozing of soul and jazz influence. Give it a whirl and mourn the planned Hendrix/Miles Davis collaborative album that never was.

Rest In Power, Jimi.

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Endorsed by: RaduP, ScreamingSteelUS, nikarg, Dream Taster, Fat & Sassy!, Daniell

I'm not going to go to the same effort that I did to mark the half-centenary of Black Sabbath, but I do think that Paranoid is the superior album by far - it was one of my first metal albums (mine and the rest of the world's) and it remains one of my favorites. The guitars, bass, and drums on this album are simply flawless, and the vocals are pretty good, too. I would tentatively say that heavy metal has not yet produced another work as instrumentally well-rounded and complete as "War Pigs." Every groove of this album is the very essence of metal incarnate, and while you are correct in noting that we mostly use the Staff Picks feature just to mark anniversaries nowadays, there are few albums worth celebrating as much as Paranoid. It boggles the mind to consider that this album has been in the world for 50 years and it is still looked upon as a masterpiece.

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Endorsed by: X-Ray Rod, Starvynth, RaduP, Auntie Sahar, nikarg, Fat & Sassy!, BitterCOld, Abattoir, Daniell, Redel

Colin Marston is mostly known for producing dissonant tech death, but he is surprisingly great at bringing SVNTH's post-black metal sound to new heights as well. The sound may not be at the height of popularity it once was, but SVNTH reminds us why the serene post-rock/shoegaze sound contrasted so well with the raw and visceral black metal one. And with most of the songs being over the 10-minutes-mark, you know you'll get your worth of contrasting sounds.

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30 years ago, on September 3, 1990, Judas Priest released the perfect heavy metal album. Not A perfect heavy metal album - THE perfect heavy metal album, a nonstop death machine bristling with power and speed that puts all competition to shame. The title track really says it all: it's iconic from head to toe, opening with Scott Travis's merciless drum volley and closing with Rob's peremptory shriek of "PAIN!!", with some of the greatest shredding ever committed to wax in between. But the album doesn't end there; for 47 minutes, Painkiller holds its listeners captive with stratospheric screeching, face-melting guitar solos, and the sleekest, heaviest, most brutally effective solution of thrash-laced heavy metal that the world has ever heard. The snarling evil of "Night Crawler," the pummeling metallic frenzy of "Metal Meltdown," the epic and intimidating groove of "Hell Patrol" - every track is a guaranteed killer from one of the most legendary bands ever to give meaning to the phrase "heavy metal." I love the myriad styles of metal music and I embrace it in all its deathly, blackened, doomy, thrashy, folksy, grindy, djenty extremity, but when it comes to the grand tradition, the classic sound, the stuff that "heavy metal" in its purest form is made of, there is nothing better than Painkiller.

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Endorsed by: RaduP, nikarg, Troy Killjoy, Dream Taster, Abattoir, Redel

Though Brazil's Kaatayra has released four genre defying black metal releases in the past two years, two of them just this year, it is Só quem viu o relâmpago à sua direita sabe that stuck with me most, mostly because it was both the first one I listened to and the one that shook things up the most. Completely defying metal's longest held rule: it must have electric guitars; Só quem viu o relâmpago à sua direita sabe instead sometimes sounds like Botanist lite or like atmospheric black metal with acoustic instruments instead of electric ones, but the Brazilian folk embeddings and their layering makes it sound like more than just its gimmick, showcasing great skill and ambition for a one-man band that successfully made black metal sound natural. Though if you miss the electric guitars, you can hear them in the other album they've released since: Toda história pela frente.

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Endorsed by: musclassia, ScreamingSteelUS, X-Ray Rod, Starvynth

So a couple years after I pack up and leave Asuncion, boom, DOOM! iJapiro! In any case, underproduced, female fronted 70's doom estilio Paraguayo. If you really want the BitterCOld-PY experience, put yer stereo in your bathroom, crank the shower as hot as it goes, leave for 20 minutes, shutting the door behind you. Grab a six of watery lager, re-enter the bathroom when it's nothing but a steamy fog. Crank the music, bang along, drink your cervezas. When done, go out and find yourself a lomito. Anecdotes and humor aside, check out the tunes. Good to see PY on the metal map. Lucifer's Bandcamp

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Endorsed by: Starvynth, RaduP, Dream Taster

Another influential album released somewhere in August 1990, this one coming from Florida, the hotbed of early American death metal. Nocturnus may not have been the first band to take death metal in a more progressive direction, fellow Floridans themselves like Death and Atheist were already making their steps, but never had a death metal band incorporated keyboards that heavily into their sound and basically birthed technical/progressive death metal's fascination with space and sci-fi. Though they're not as technical as most of their peers and descendants, the musicianship on here isn't to be taken lightly, especially considering how unusual it is for the drummer to be the vocalist as well.

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Endorsed by: ScreamingSteelUS, BitterCOld, Ag Fox, X-Ray Rod, nikarg, Auntie Sahar, Darkside Momo, Redel, ylside

In a time when black metal was in its infancy and death metal was starting to become more mainstream and polished. A bunch of Canadians wanted it to return to it being as primitive and evil as possible. Ever since Fallen Angel Of Doom... was released roughly three decades ago, every war metal band ever wanted to sound just like this and to look just like this. And in ironic black metal fashion, they were probably the first black metal band to actually have a black member.

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Endorsed by: X-Ray Rod, nikarg

Initiatio is unfortunately the final full-length release of Ysengrin but an excellent adieu for the band nonetheless. It is a mystical, occult and avant-garde mid-tempo black metal album blended with doom and death metal, in the vein of Mortuary Drape and Necromantia, mainly due to the use of two basses as the instruments of choice for driving the songs. The sound feels raw and ancient but, most of all, dark and ritualistic. Half of the tracks have reappeared in early demos of the band and are reinterpreted here with new arrangements but always respecting their primitive nature.

Mastered on analog gear and graced with a wonderfully obscure cover art by Luciana Nedelea, Initiatio is Hermeticism in music form.

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Endorsed by: RaduP, Auntie Sahar

What would it sound like if Björk fronted a psychedelic rock band?

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Endorsed by: nikarg, X-Ray Rod

One-man Roman-Empire-themed black metal from Australia. What more do you need me to say?

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The third album of Azure Emote, the project of Mike Hrubovcak (Monstrosity, Vile) and Ryan Moll (In The Fire, Rumpelstiltskin Grinder), is an avantgarde and progressive take on death metal. Based on inventive riffs and adorned with industrial and electronic sounds, it also incorporates violin by Pete Johansen (ex-Sirenia, ex-Tristania), keyboards by Jonah Weingarten (Pyramaze, Echoterra), as well as the beautiful voice of Melissa Ferlaak (Aesma Daeva, Visions Of Atlantis). A lot of talent gathered to create The Third Perspective, a unique and thoroughly enjoyable metal music offering that comes in two versions; a full one and an instrumental one.

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Endorsed by: RaduP

Compiling 31 songs from bands such as Chaos Moon, Panopticon, Thou, Obsequiae and Doom, courtesy of Bindrune Recordings, this digital only release donates all proceedings to Black Lives Matter and Life After Hate.

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Endorsed by: ScreamingSteelUS, nikarg, Starvynth, Darkside Momo

Though I doubt anyone knows when this album's 30th anniversary is exactly, today Withing Hour Productions reissued this album with a whole bunch of extras, so it might be time to remember this overlooked Czech classic. Though I admittedly prefer their compatriots in Master's Hammer, and I do think the cover art and the music is incredibly goofy, it's still a pretty incredible sample of first wave black metal, mid-paced, rooted (no pun intended) in heavy metal, but with an evil doom tone as well. It's incredibly simplistic, and even as goofy as it is, it still manages to feel authentic. Big Boss was in his late 30s when Zjevení was released, so it's never to late to start your own influential black metal band, and he is still fronting Root to this day.

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"One day I will go to him
Strong enough to fight and win
The kind of a man
That he'll understand
Aaaaaaaa
*the heaviest organ solo of the 70s*"
David Byron didn't have Ian Gillan's vocal chops, but damned if he does not give it his all here. Mick Box's guitar does have plenty of great moments here, but I'd be lying if I said that Ken Hensley didn't absolutely steal the show with his organ. While not entirely "'eavy", there's no denying that this album, released 50 years ago today, and starting Uriah Heep's career, deserves its place as an early metal classic, even if just for the opener alone.

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Endorsed by: nikarg, ScreamingSteelUS