The Batlord

The Batlord's 1st List of the Top Ten Most Badass Metal Songs of All Time

Disclaimer: When it comes to metal my word is law, so if you disagree with any of my entries then it's because you're a poseur. Anyways...

"Badass" is a nebulous term. It doesn't necessarily mean the most intense or brutal. If it did then this would be nothing but death metal and grindcore. It's more a general vibe of "**** the hell yeah!", and if that doesn't make sense to you then you can **** off. I'm too drunk to make any more sense than that.

I was going through my library looking for a definitive top ten, but that quickly went to **** as my list grew and grew and grew, so I'm going to keep my giant list of badass metal songs and just pick and choose whenever the hell I feel like making another entry in this series. Ten songs each works, as it's not too much work for one entry, and most importantly, I can only put ten Youtube videos in one post. So in no particular order...





Amon Amarth are one of the melodic death metal bands who sound the least like Iron Maiden of all of their Maiden-thieving brethren, but this song captures that dynamic, galloping metal onslaught that Harris and crew perfected all those years ago far more effectively than In Flames or Soilwork ever did.

It's also ****ing badass. It's the end of the world on a broadsword basically. Makes me wanna kill something. With a broadsword.






OMFG that riff is so insane. All I wanna do is beat up small children while listening to this song on repeat. And Danzig is just the perfect singer to back it up. White boys generally suck at the blues, but guitarist John Christ (no relation) knew just how to drag them kicking and screaming out of the Bayou and down into the darkness of hell and metal. **** the hell yeah.






This song has had me by the nuts for months. It's so simple, yet so amazing. It combines primitive death metal fury with Asphyx's knack for absolutely crushing heaviness into a song that destroys everything in its ****ing path. And that breakdown around 2:15, right after vocalist Martin van Drunen barks the command "On your knees!", is one of the most badass things to ever happen to humankind.






It's a shame that Diamond Head's most badass song was made even more ****ing badass by another band, or else they might be sitting here instead, but Metallica did, so Diamond Head are not.

That riff is one of the most monstrous things ever spewed forth from metal, and it's made even more amazing by that crunchy, lo-fi, early Metallica production, and James Hetfield's roar improves upon the vocal delivery of the original in ever way that matters to sheer badassery.

I could drown babies to this song.






Riffs are everything that is good in life, and this song has one that obliterates. The energy, the brutality, the manic insanity (literally, cause that dude is clinically insane!) of Jaz Coleman's vocals all combine to make a badass metal song of epic proportions that has no business being made by a post-punk band. ****ing epic.






Being quite possibly my favorite metal band of all time, Bathory are going to feature in this series a lot. So let's start with a song that is right in the middle of their black metal and Viking metal phases, and also a song so badass that the English wet themselves at the very thought of it.

A riff from hell, mid-paced chuggery, and epic Viking-tasticness make The Batlord a happy Batlord, so it's no wonder that he considers this such a ****ing badass ****ing song. It just destroys in every possible way that a thing can be destroyed.






As I did Ke$ha, I brought Arkangel to MB, and for much the same reason: Satan fears their badassness. Picking the most badass Arkangel song is like picking your most badass kid. Except I like Arkangel.

Slayer leads combine with 90s hardcore breakdowns to pummel all but the most badass of metalheads into a fine paste, and that guitar feedback intro, which drops without warning into a pure metalcore hatefest, is a stroke of genius.






I could give a **** whether or not Magrudergrind are technically a metal band, cause this is sludge metal by any other name, and it is ****ing badass as all ****. The riff is monumental, the production gloriously fugly, and... that dude's vocals are just so hateful that I want to homo marry him. The only people who can't dig this song are bitches and Canadians.






I'm not always the biggest Pantera fan, but when they hit, they hit hard as a mother****er, and by their very nature, they hit badass pay dirt. They'll feature disproportionately in this section for that very reason, so I'm just going to pick what I consider to be their most brutal song for their first entry. This song is heavier than your mother's ass. Straight up.






This song is bad-to-the-****ing-ass. It's the death metal equivalent of a ballad (i.e. mid-paced, sludgy, and menacing), and it's the most evil-sounding thing the band ever did. The original is awesome, but just like every song off of the Covenant album, its production was kind of lightweight, but the Laibach remix makes everything even muddier and more ****ed up sounding. That's all the remix did, but that's all that I wanted in the first place, so thank you, Laibach, for doing your job correctly.

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