THE SENTENCED - Oh my fucking god. I've never felt more spiritually desolate, bare, and numb from music than after I listened to their North American debut, The Cold White Light, for the first time. It was awesome!!! I guarantee halfway through "Guilt & Regret" you'll be trying to muster up your best baritone to sing along as you walk through the nearby park at 3 a.m., in the pouring rain. Or maybe that's just me.

TO/DIE/FOR - Hard goth rock. Very technically accomplished hard goth rock. Very emotionally charged. Not the kind of tunes you listen to with all your male buddies around. But when you're all alone, out it comes, along with all your Cure records…so you can cry and feel like a badass at the same time.

CREMATORY - Felix is a big man with a deep, guttural voice who likes to scream. In short, my hero. Oh, and then there's the rest of the band - they rawk. There's even a cute fraulein in the band.

EINSTURZENDE NEUBATEN - I recently discovered that the name of this industrial-pioneering group loosely translates into "Building collapsing upward". Or just "collapsing upward". Either way, that's extremely cool, and only makes me love this VERY important band even more. Their latest release, Silence Is Sexy, is something you should absolutely not fail to own.

PRIMAL FEAR - Imagine if Judas Priest (the original Priest lineup - and that means Halford, you dumbfuck homophobic posers!) were injected with 30,000 cc's each of testosterone and adrenaline. Then double that dose - and you begin to get a clear picture of Primal Fear's approach to metal.

THEATRE OF TRAGEDY - It's rare that you fall in love with a woman's voice. Call me a victim of rarity. (she's also smoking!)

SWEDEN: (where RAWK truly THRIVES!)

ARCH ENEMY - Simply, scrumptuously, METAL!!!!!

AT THE GATES - legends of Death metal in their own right. Tomas Lindberg's vocals on songs such as "Forever Blind" will certainly trigger any homicidal impulses you may be harboring… (sidenote: The guitarist/bassist team of At The Gates - the brothers Bjorler - later went on to found the Haunted…god I love those guys!)

BLINDSIDE - yes, it's true. I am advocating a CHRISTIAN NU-METAL band. Let me repeat that - not only a Christian Rock band, but they're friggin nu-metal! Yes, I ought to be terribly ashamed. But you know what, I'm not. Because these kids are wicked fucking talented, to such a degree that one must look past such minor transgressions. Songs like "Pitiful" and "Cute Boring Love" prove this. Seriously - check them out.

DARK TRANQUILITY - Anders Friden used to frappe his lungs with this crew before joining up with In Flames. Mikael Stanne somehow manages to fill these intimidating shoes more than adequately, and their sound has only improved over the 12+ years they've been assaulting the scene. DT member Niklas Sundin has also co-written several In Flames songs, and is the man behind Cabin Fever Media. CFM has designed almost all the album covers and artwork for In Flames, Dark Tranquility, Gardenian, and others…

GARDENIAN - Part of the highly incestual In Flames/Dark Tranquility/Arch Enemy clique. These guys are simply brutal. Well - most of the time. Sometimes they do melodies with clean female vocals…but…even that kicks ass.

THE HAUNTED - The Bjorler brothers of At The Gates have outdone themselves with an even heavier outfit. And hot damn, if Marco Aro can't scream!! Don't bring any of their albums into any kind of institution for the criminally insane… (on second thought, do…muahaha!) No disrespect intended, but Slayer eat your fucking heart out.

IN FLAMES - yes, they're getting a lot of attention - but they deserve more!!! Simply the BEST BAND EVER! (with sincere apologies to Iron Maiden). Everything they've done from Lunar Strain to Reroute To Remain has been nothing short of perfection in my eyes. They can do no wrong. Much like Optimus Prime (leader of the Autobots in their war against Decepticon rule, for all you pop-culture ignorami).

MESHUGGAH - Craziness!!! Pure mother****ing crazines!!!

OPETH - Wow…Opeth - wow. If you don't know, there's not really too much I can say except check them out! At any given time listening to these guys, you could mistake them for anything from a classical orchestra to Cannibal Corpse.

SOILWORK - Shut the hell up, Sam. Soilwork's cool in my book.

SOUNDTRACK OF OUR LIVES - Okay, this one's not a metal band. They're - well - a rock band would be most accurate, I suppose. They were nominated for a Grammy for their last album. It's pretty goddamn amazing. And equally hard to describe. Just plain old rock. And…it just plain rocks.

…The overwhelming majority of the bands mentioned above are signed to either NUCLEAR BLAST or CENTURY MEDIA. Some other decent record labels include EARACHE, RELAPSE, SPINEFARM, & SPITFIRE.