Better with age?

It works both ways.

Some albums ARE better with age.

Some actually become less interesting.

Overkill - I Hear Black

Better than I remember. It's never going to be considered a classic, and isn't an all-out thrasher, but there's some really solid tunes here. This album demonstrated where thrash was at the time it was released in 1993 - a bit lost and looking to expand horizons. It was just no-one really knew which way to go.

Accept - Eat The Heat

For metal legends, this album is very lacking in metal. It's basically late 80s radio friendly hard rock. There's a couple of OK tracks, but overall it's pretty bland. It's no better now than 30 years ago.

D.R.I. - Thrash Zone

Well... I was REALLY wrong about this one! Not listened in years. Dirty and rotten these boys might have been, but imbeciles they were not. Lyrically very intelligent and socially aware. Musically, there's a lot more going on than I initially thought. I'd reviewed this album, and absolutely panned it. I disagree with the review entirely now, so I got rid of it. Gotta make up for lost time here.

AC/DC - Black Ice

I must have been in a bad mood when I rated this originally. It's really pretty good. No, it's not a classic like Back in Black or Highway To Hell, but not many AC/DC albums are. But this has all the ingredients of a solid AC/DC album. There's a handful of genuinely brilliant songs, like Rock 'N' Roll Train, the title track, and War Machine. And then the rest is solid, slightly formulaic filler. But it's a good formula, and AC/DC's filler is the equivalent to many other bands' killer.

Napalm Death - Harmony Corruption

I didn't really like this when I first bought it because it seemed a bit dry and boring. I still don't like it because it's still dry and boring.

Megadeth - Countdown to Extinction

...and it was better than I remembered. Yeah, I didn't like it much compared to what had come before. It was slow and a bit clunky like Metallica's Black album when I was wanting more fast and heavy thrash like the previous albums. This wasn't it.

Listening to it now though, it's damn good. Yes, Symphony of Destruction has been played to death, but to back it up there's some incredible songs. The title track, Architecture of Aggression, Foreclosure of a Dream, This Was My Life, Ashes in Your Mouth are all killers. There's still a couple of clunkers, like High Speed Dirt and Psychotron, but the good songs outweigh the bad. And I enjoyed this album.

So I thought, what else have I been dismissing and haven't listened to in years because I didn't really like it initially? So I'm going to go through my collection and check out albums from bands I generally like, but I don't think much of a particular album. So next...

Kreator - Coma Of Souls

I'm not really sure why I didn't like this, but it could be because it didn't sound like Extreme Aggression. It doesn't quite have the ripping rhythm guitar sound or memorable riffs. What I didn't know at the time is it sounds more like Terrible Certainty and Pleasure to Kill, and what I also didn't know was they were amazing albums. And so is this. It's no Extreme Aggression. It's Coma of Souls, and it's amazing in it's own right.