Triceratopsoil A little bit clearer, a little bit slower, and a little bit more thunderous than their debut. Definitely thrashier. Certainly no sophomore slump. These Finnish boys have matured a bit beyond out of tune covers of The Final Countdown. The vocals are mixed in much better this time around; the melodies don't always make conventional sense, but it's hard to complain about something like that. The guitars cut like a knife; a very tight duo that makes Maiden and Priest harmonies sound like a high school talent show. Their solos absolutely rip, too, screaming harmonics intertwined with turbo boosted legato lines. You're going to want to be listening to this loud enough for the bass guitar to make pictures fall off your walls. Good stuff. Possibly Stone's best album, though their 4 studio albums are all so good that I could change my mind next week.

Favourites: Sweet Dreams, Empty Corner, Concrete Malformation, Meat Mincing Machine, everything really

Pekka Many metal fans of today might know the name Roope Latvala from the rhythm guitarist position of Children of Bodom, but a little known fact is that one of the biggest influences behind Alexi Laiho and COB's vision is a band called Stone and Roope Latvala as their riff master and lead guitarist.

The band members were around 17 or 18 years old when they recorded their excellent self-titled debut and a year after that came No Anaesthesia which bettered their craft and gave them and the Finnish metal scene a breakthrough from the underground. Inspired by the likes of Metallica and Iron Maiden the album's name and cover art is a direct reference to Cliff Burton's bass solo on Kill 'Em All and the album's opening may well have been an idea born listening to Maiden's guitar harmonies. Finlandia is a composition by Jean Sibelius, the most famous Finnish classical composer, and practically the unofficial national anthem of our country. It is turned here into a sixteen track electric guitar symphony. Absolutely stunning, at least when listened to with Finnish ears. And followed by this beautiful intro comes The Riff. Sweet Dreams kicks in with an absolute masterpiece of a riff; brutal, powerful and tight. Thrash metal at its finest.

When the whole band kicks in one instantly notices one unexpected thing for a late 80s metal album. The sound is full, fat and heavy with the bass audible all the time adding a massive bottom for the devastating riff machine and the harsh shouted delivery of bassist/vocalist Janne Joutsenniemi. The relatively straightforward thrash attack of the debut album is taken to a more progressive direction on this album with the multi-part title track lasting for almost eleven minutes and many of the tracks exceed the six minute mark which was barely touched on the previous album. Most of the tracks are pure golden riff fests but the album has its share of slightly weaker tracks, perhaps most noticeably the closer Meat Mincing Machine which suffers the most from the biggest flaw of the album: juvenile, silly lyrics. But as I said, the bandmembers were barely 18 or 19 at the time and those were probably the only English words they knew.

It boggles my mind that at the same time that their one time touring partners in Testament were almost ruining their excellent material for the third time with terrible production, these young punks far away in Finland - not exactly famous for its metal scene at the time - managed to get such killer sounds to crown their great headbanging material. No wonder Mikko Karmila went on to become one of the most respected engineers and producers of the Finnish rock scene. Essential thrash/speed metal.