10 Black Albums By Bands That Aren’t Metallica

Metallica‘s Black Album was a monumental moment for heavy metal. It was a breakthrough release for the mainstream, and it cemented a more commercial and radio-friendly shift for thrash’s biggest band.

This wasn’t the first time (nor was it the last time) that a metal band “went soft” and captured more fans, but Metallica‘s trick was that they didn’t compromise on quality for the sake of success. The Black Album ensured Metallica would ultimately keep their old fans while expanding their base to an entirely new demographic.

These 10 bands pulled off a similar trick, releasing their own ‘Black Albums’ and hitting that next tier of commercial popularity.

One of the biggest metal albums of the 2010s, Magma was the moment Gojira became a contender for Metallica’s throne. The French legends didn’t even change their style much from L’Enfant Sauvage to Magma, the Magma tracks were just less rhythmically complex and boasted lots of big, palatable riffs. “Stranded” and “Silvera” remain Gojira’s most-streamed tracks, with “Stranded” earning over 134 million plays on Spotify. 

Long before Metallica hit the big time, Def Leppard made the jump from more traditional heavy metal to pure arena rock. The difference was gigantic, from barely scraping the American Top 40 with High ’n’ Dry to going Diamond (10+ million albums sold) with Pyromania. And they only raised the bar further with 1987’s Hysteria. 

Avenged Sevenfold’s mainstream push came outta nowhere in 2005. Waking the Fallen made them underground favorites in the metalcore scene, but they were never gonna be a radio band, right? Warner Bros went all in on A7X, leading to a No. 1 radio rock single with “Bat Country.” With City of Evil, Avenged Sevenfold were suddenly a Platinum-selling band, and all they needed were some clean vocals from M. Shadows.

Ballet moves, rock opera choruses, straight-up ‘80s style ballads… Ghost’s Prequelle was a statement from Tobias Forge. The band was not going to be held back by metal purity, whether it be the proto-metal style of Opus Eponymous or the grand, almost proggy Meliora. Ghost became an arena band thanks to singles like “Rats” and “Dance Macabre,” and they’ve only kept growing since. 

Who on earth would’ve guessed that the Count Your Blessings deathcore midcarders would later draw up the blueprint for metalcore’s future? Sempiternal was pivotal for many reasons — the electronic components, the giant wall of sound and the absolute shredding of the meta-by-numbers playbook. Bring Me the Horizon aren’t just festival headliners, they’re now a gateway band for non-metalheads. Sempiternal is the reason. 

Like many breakout albums, In Flames’ Reroute to Remain was critically acclaimed, but didn’t receive that same praise by old fans. Needless to say, many fans of the crushing “Only for the Weak” didn’t want to hear the synth-driven “Cloud Connected.” The 2002 album raised In Flames’ profile on the international stage, and like Metallica’s Black Album, it sounded the siren for where the band would move in the future.

It’s hard to imagine Scorpions not being massively successful, but that’s the truth about the Uli Jon Roth era. With Roth out of the band, Scorpions were free to be intensely commercial, and oh boy did they go commercial on 1979’s Lovedrive. Incredible songwriting, earworm choruses, massive ballads… the dye was cast. Almost 50 years later, Scorpions remain one of the greats.

Sepultura’s career does match Metallica’s in one specific way — three absolute thrashy masterworks followed by the commercial warhead that got the entire world’s attention. Roots didn’t possess the staying power of the Black Album, but Sepultura’s shift to groove metal gave the band its commercial peak with over two million copies of Roots sold worldwide.

Baroness casually went from heavy southern sludge to cathartic near-indie rock and nobody complained. The songwriting across Baroness’ 2012 double album is undeniably great, and it gave the band their highest charting record to date. 75 minutes of straight fucking fire. Zero skips.

The way some old Metallica fans hated the Black Album, some old Slipknot fans hated All Hope is Gone. That doesn’t make it bad, but my god it was a highly commercial shift. Suddenly Slipknot had lots of clean singing and soft touches with the gigantic single “Psychosocial” and the ballad “Snuff.” This was Slipknot’s first No. 1 album. Maybe it would’ve happened anyway (Vol. 3 hit No. 2 in many countries) but the commercial approach didn’t hurt record sales one bit.