1995 was an incredible year for music, and metal was no exception. Yes, hip-hop and R&B dominated the charts—Coolio’s “Gangsta’s Paradise” was the top single of the year, and no one could escape TLC’s Waterfalls. And yes, this was the year that alternative music reached its cultural peak, with bands like Smashing Pumpkins, Pavement, Alanis Morissette, and Pulp releasing huge albums.

But metal was no slough. Fans got blessed with some of the best hard rock, stoner, melodic death and industrial albums ever. There is more than a list of 10 that could cover (let us know what we missed in the comments), but here’s a list of metal albums that fans should check out to get a whole experience of just how crazy good 1995 was.

1 Novembers Doom, Amid Its Hallowed Mirth

Release Date: February 10, 1995

You got your doom in my death metal! You got your death in my doom metal! If you got that reference, you were likely alive when Novembers Doom released their debut album, Amid Its Hallowed Mirth, in 1995 (and your knees hurt). The death doom genre began in the mid-1980s when bands blended droning, drudging riffs with the guttural vocals of the then-nascent death metal scene.

First starting as a thrash band in the late '80s, the group was mired in heaviness by the time they released Amid Its Hallowed Mirth. It’s a crushing experience, with Paul Kuhr’s monstrous vocals trudging through an atmosphere woven out of shadow and despair. Kuhr would adopt cleaner vocals in subsequent releases, and the band would evolve its sound (along with the death-doom scene as it transitioned into funeral doom).

2 Death, Symbolic

Release Date: March 21, 1995

This is considered to be Death’s best album. Chuck Schuldiner recruited guitarist Bobby Koelble and bassist Kelly Conlon. With drummer Gene Hoglan (of Death Angel, later of Strapping Young Lad, Fear Factory, and Testament), Death found a configuration for perfection. Symbolic continued to weave in melodic elements with relentless blast beats and serrated riffs. It’s also incredibly accessible, in the sense that there’s something here that every metalhead will like.

Chuck’s trademark snarling vocals also belt out some deep, introspective lyrics, like what he sings on “Empty Words”:

The answer cannot be found

In the writing of others, or the words of a trained mind

In a precious world of memories

We find ourselves confined

The album also explores religious bigotry (“Crystal Mountain”), humanity’s flaws (“Misanthrope”), and the importance of kindness to animals (“Sacred Serenity”). It remains fresh and influential, 30 years on.

Others think Possessed deserves the credit, since their Seven Churches came out two years before Death’s Scream Bloody Gore. And Gene Hoglan said Chuck wasn’t happy being called the “Godfather of Death Metal,” per Blabbermouth.

3 Monster Magnet, Dopes To Infinity

Release Date: March 21, 1995

If you’re a Deadpool fan, you’re familiar with Brianna Hildebrand’s character, Negasonic Teenage Warhead. You might not know that the character Grant Morrison and Frank Quitely created is named after a Monster Magnet song from their 1995 album, Dopes To Infinity.

Monster Magnet emerged out of Dave Wyndorf’s love for psychedelic rock and proto-metal. Dopes To Infinity gave Monster Magnet their first taste of success (with the aforementioned “Negasonic Teenage Warhead”) while expanding their acid-drenched, rock-infused sound. It shouldn’t be surprising that Monster Magnet had a huge influence on stoner metal in the early 2000s. If you didn’t play this on April 20, that’s okay: 4:20 happens every 24 hours, and Dopes to Infinity is the perfect soundtrack to that time of day.

4 Strapping Young Lad, Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing

Release Date: April 4, 1995

After working with legendary guitarist Steve Vai on his Sex & Religion album and touring as a guitarist with The Wildhearts, Devon Townsend got the chance to create extreme music for Century Media. His first offering, under the Strapping Young Lad name, was Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing, an album where Townsend played nearly every single instrument.

Heavy as a Really Heavy Thing has the elements that would come to embody Townsend’s musical identity: elaborate and intricate compositions, bathed in crushing waves of sound, with operatic, soaring vocals. Strapping Young Lad would blow up in ’97 after he formed a real band (Gene Hoglan on drums, Jed Simon on guitar, and future Fear Factory bassist Byron Stroud) and released SYL’s second album, City. Though Townsend has shown dissatisfaction with the album’s production, it retains its charm.

5 KMDFM, Nihil

Release Date: April 4, 1995

Did you know that the 1990s were great for industrial metal? Since its inception in the late '70s with Throbbing Gristle’s The Second Annual Report, the fusion of rock, electronic, and experimental music has offered solace to those whose souls are as discordant and disquieting as a busy factory floor. There were plenty of goth and industrial types in the mid-'90s, and most of them listened to KMFDM.

The German group is considered one of the first to bring industrial music to the masses, leaning heavily on heavy metal and harsher dance music. In 1995, KMFDM reached their mainstream peak with Nihil. Likely buoyed by the success of Nine Inch Nails’ The Downward Spiral (released a year earlier), Nihil sold over 200,000 copies.

Oddly, old school fighting game enthusiasts know this band: A remix of “Juke t Jezebel” appeared on the soundtrack for the first Mortal Kombat movie, and “Ultra” was featured in Street Fighter II: The Animated Movie.

6 White Zombie, Astro-Creep 2000

Release Date: April 11, 1995

Hey, did you know that the '90s were great for industrial-adjacent metal? White Zombie was already a band for 10 years when they released Astro-Creep 2000, which solidified a groove-metal sound (peppered with sound clips) that they’d first developed on 1992’s La Sexorcisto: Devil Music Volume One—an album that owes its success to two MTV icons.

“The key moment was Beavis and Butthead. They played one of our videos, and overnight, it changed everything. We went from selling 500 records a week to 30,000 records. We went from playing tiny clubs to arenas in six months," Rob Zombie told Larry King. "MTV was playing the video; it’d been on Headbangers Ball, late at night, maybe once or twice. Beavis and Butthead, that was our first prime-time exposure."

Astro-Creep 2000 reached number six on the Billboard 200, the band’s only album to break the top 10. Its lead single, “More Human than Human,” became one of White Zombie’s signature songs. But the band didn’t stick together long after the release. Rob Zombie was already working on his solo debut when the band called it quits in 1998.

7 Meshuggah, Destroy Erase Improve

Release Date: May 12, 1995

Obliterating technical shredding. Bewildering blast beat drumming to odd time signatures. Unrelenting vocals. Meshuggah nailed the formula down on their second album, Destroy Erase Improve. The album has elements of prog, mathcore and groove metal, a very odd combination at the time. “We were attracted to quirky stuff in music since we were kids,” guitarist Mårten Hagström told Metal Hammer, “Anything that was experimental, that was new, something you hadn’t really heard before. So, that’s what we pursued."

The album put the band on the map. Considered a pillar of '90s metal, Destroy Erase Improve is “Meshuggah’s first complete statement,” according to Decibel’s Daniel Lake. The album “ushered in a new kind of technicality, one that is still celebrated two decades later (not always in the most listenable ways).”

8 Opeth, Orchid

Release Date: May 15, 1995

There are two things you’ll always get out of Sweden: some of the world’s best healthcare and incredible metal bands—case in point: Opeth, who released their debut album, Orchid, in 1995. The album is a slice of melodic death metal, a genre that gained prominence in the 1990s with bands like In Flames (The Jester Race) and Dark Tranquility (The Gallery). But, with an opening track that’s nearly 15 minutes long, a piano piece, and other distinctively non-death metal elements, Orchid made it clear there was more going on with Opeth.

Still going strong 35 years after forming, Opeth has adopted a more progressive metal sound while retaining some of the grit and grime of their melodic death metal roots. Mikael Åkerfeldt sings with cleaner vocals against complex compositions. While the group has evolved beyond Orchid, it’s a fascinating listen, a primordial first step in a legendary career.

9 Fear Factory, Demanufacture

Release Date: June 13, 1995

After arriving with a grindcore/death metal-inspired sound with 1992’s Soul Of A New Machine, Fear Factory practically reinvented themselves with their second album, Demanufacture. “We started to experiment with keyboards and industrial sounds due mainly to the influence of Frontline Assembly,” former vocalist Burton C. Bell told Metal Hammer. The recording process was marked with conflict between the band and its producer, hinting at the turmoil (both external and internal) that would plague the group for years to come.

Inspired by the 1992 Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, Demanufactured helped establish Fear Factory’s aesthetic of melodic, dystopian industrial metal. Machine-gun drums, overloading synths and concrete-crushing riffs meet Burton’s booming vocals of modern desensitization, police corruption, and dehumanization. Three decades later years later, Demanufactured feels both timeless and ahead of its time.

10 Ozzy Osbourne, Ozzmosis

Release Date: October 24, 1995

Ozzy Osbourne first intended to call it quits after the release of No More Tears in 1992. “I retired when I was fucking [43] or something, and then five minutes after I retired I was like, 'Why the f--k did I retire from this?'" Ozzy told Ultimate Classic Rock. “I mean, what else am I supposed to do, knit? No f**king way! So I said, 'Enough of this,' and got back to it."

His “comeback” album was 1995’s Ozzmosis. The double-platinum album featured longtime guitarist Zakk Wylde and Ozzy’s fellow Black Sabbath member, Geezer Butler, on bass. While it’s not the most dynamic Ozzy solo record, it’s found a place in fans’ hearts with songs like “Perry Mason,” “I Just Want You” and “See You on the Other Side” (the latter of which was co-written by Motohead’s Lemmy Kilmister, who worked on No More Tears, co-writing Ozzy’s big hit, “Mama, I’m Coming Home”). Ozzy will retire for real on July 5, playing both a solo set before reuniting with Black Sabbath.