Almost every great metal band has that album. And no, I’m not talking about the album that won them critical acclaim or thrust them into this genre’s upper echelon. I mean the album that is so irredeemably bad that it causes legions of fans to reassess what it was about their favourite artist that made them their favourite artist in the first place.
Heavy music is littered with such clangers, many of which have become infamous even outside their creators’ fanbases. But what happens when that reputation is unearned? I asked a collection of Hammer writers and editors to go against the grain, defending the ‘bad’ album by their aggressor of choice, to prove that duds still have value and that music is very much subjective – even in the face of seemingly overwhelming backlash.
