This Month’s Poll: Which Forgotten 80s Metal Classic Gets Excavated?

Living Colour vs. Cryptic Slaughter vs. Legal Weapon vs. Artillery—cast your vote.

We’ve got four albums—each of them criminally overlooked, each of them carrying the DNA of what made metal matter in the first place. Living Colour’s debut burst through barriers. Cryptic Slaughter crashed thrash metal into punk with teenage fury. Legal Weapon took a shot at bridging punk and hard rock with one of the most underrated voices in alternative history. And Artillery brought something genuinely unique to the thrash metal sound from the other side of the world.

Which one are we digging out?

Your vote decides what we explore next. Cast your vote and drop your case in the comments, share with a friend who needs to hear this album, and let’s build a community of people who aren’t willing to let great music stay forgotten.

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Living Colour — Vivid (1988)

Suggested by Keith P Miller

In 1988, Living Colour burst onto the scene and made a powerful statement both musically and politically with songs about the struggles of poor people and minorities wrapped in a heavy, funky groove that not only paid homage to the hard rock and heavy metal of years gone by but also made a strong attempt to push the genres forward.

Vivid is legitimately one of the most fully realized and compelling debut albums in the history of music. And even if you’ve heard it and know it inside and out, it deserves a thorough examination.

Cryptic Slaughter — Money Talks (1987)

Suggested by Patrick Testa

Picture yourself scanning the back pages of Alternative Press in mid-80s Northeast Ohio, squinting at a mail-order form packed with impossibly cool band names: Agnostic Front, Morbid Angel, Exodus… and the best name of them all: Cryptic Slaughter.

You’d dream about owning all these albums, but the risk was real—you couldn’t hear them first. So what’s the next best thing? Well, name your freshman intermural volleyball team after them. Patrick and his crew did exactly that. “Cryptic Slaughter” it was—until Principal Sadoti decided otherwise and whited out most of their team name on the bracket. (Their opponents, a team called “F.A.Y.T.,” somehow escaped unscathed.)

Fast forward: Cryptic Slaughter was one of the earliest speedcore bands to blur the line between Metallica thrash and Black Flag hardcore. Were the members masters of their instruments? No—they were just 14 to 16 when they met on their soccer team, and 15 to 17 when they recorded this, their second album. But that’s precisely what made them matter. Youthful energy, raw conviction, and a name that made you remember them forever.

Legal Weapon — Life Sentence to Love (1987)

Suggested by Eric Peterson

LA punkers gone 80s hard rock. That shift alone tells you something—it wasn’t safe, it wasn’t trendy, and it shouldn’t have worked.

But Legal Weapon had two things most bands kill for: Kat Arthur, a vocalist who’s been called the Janis Joplin of punk, and the songwriting chops to back her up. The album kept the energy of their punk roots while stepping into heavier territory, a combination that could have genuinely shifted the trajectory of the era’s hair metal scene.

Here’s the heartbreaker: MCA essentially abandoned this album on release. Nobody’s arguing it would’ve been a smash hit anyway, but imagine if this record had the support it deserved. We might be talking about Kat Arthur in the same breath as the icons of the era. Instead, Life Sentence to Love sits in the shadows—a genuinely great album that nobody knows exists.

Artillery — Fear of Tomorrow (1989)

Suggested by Kyle Bittner

Danish thrash metal from a band that isn’t reinventing the wheel—but there’s something genuinely unique happening in the sound.

Fear of Tomorrow doesn’t try to out-Metallica Metallica or chase what everyone else is already doing. Instead, Artillery carved out their own corner of the thrash world, bringing a distinctly European perspective to a sound that was becoming increasingly codified back in the States. The album’s got teeth, and it’s got character.

And here’s the thing that shouldn’t matter but somehow does: the album cover is seriously rad. Sometimes the first thing that makes you pick up an album is the artwork, and then you’re blown away by what’s inside.