🔥 80s Metal Tournament: Four Albums Enter, One Gets the Deep Dive

Raise your horns and click—help decide which 80s metal milestone roars back for the full Dig Me Out podcast treatment.

We have four albums that defined, defied, and delivered the goods when metal was still writing its own rules.

This round brings serious heat: Sammy Hagar’s arena-ready anthems clash with Death’s genre-birthing brutality, while Melidian’s lost gem battles Sodom’s German thrash fury. From radio-friendly hooks to underground revolutions, these picks showcase exactly why the 80s remain metal’s most diverse and influential decade.

The stakes? One album gets the full Dig Me Out treatment—complete band history, track-by-track breakdown, and the ultimate question: does it hold up as a worthy album?

Got a dark horse pick for the next tournament? Drop your suggestion in the hopper. The best discoveries come from the DMO Union, and we’re always hunting for that perfect album that time forgot but shouldn’t have.

Sammy Hagar - Three Lock Box

A slightly disappointing follow up to Standing Hampton but still worth picking up for the title track and Your Love Is Driving Me Crazy - Keith P Miller

Death - Scream Bloody Gore

This album is considered by many to be the first true death metal album. There is no argument that it is one of the most influential metal albums of all time, almost single-handedly laying down the foundation of death metal, and all of the subgenres that followed (metalcore, melodic death metal, etc.). - Jason Bodak

Melidian - Lost In The Wild

Lost classic late 80's hard rock album - Marmaduke

Sodom - Agent Orange

Dark lyrics, harsh vocals, chugging rhythm section. What more could one want in a German thrash album! - Kyle