The Batlord

Almost makes you think it's a ballad, until the song kicks into gear as a monumentally badass, epic, trad metal song. This song is just pure epic metal fire, anthemic to the max, and anyone who can't appreciate its genius is a poseur. A song to slay the legions of false metal to.

Props to the lyric, "May your sword stay wet, like a young girl in her prime".






This song only needs one minute and nineteen seconds to make 99% of extreme metal irrelevant. Metalcore, with more than a touch of grind, combine to completely and totally wreck your **** with odd time signatures and riffs for days. If you hate this (TROLLHEART!) then you are a bitch. Straight up.






Trashy? Yes. Badass? Most definitely. The riffs are insane, and Chris Barnes still had the best guttural vocals in death metal. It's simple and straight to the point, with a second half so heavy that city blocks tremble in fear at the seismic event to come.






An atmospheric, doomy, malevolent intro leads into a mid-paced death metal assault of primitive awesomeness. As always for a song on one of these lists, the riffs are on point, but add on the wretched vocals of the incomparable John Tardy, and the foul production straight from a fetid tomb, and you have a death metal song of the most perfectly badass kind.






Soon to be renamed "Lamb of God" (perhaps you've heard of them), this band's debut is a hate**** of monumentally badass proportions, and "Goatfish" is the most badass of the lost. Less grindcorey, thrashy, and hardcorey than the rest of the tracks, this song is Pantera worship of the best kind, heavier than a truckload of illegal immigrants hoping for a new life in America. That riff has obliterated my mind ever since I first heard it, and few other songs have come close to its badassery.






I was around 14 when I first heard this song, and "Wheels of Steel" has been the riff monster that set a standard for rhythm guitar badass badassery that has never been equaled since. Cheesy and dated though the band may be, I don't give a ****, as Saxon rock harder than any band half their age. I'll wet myself at the first chord of that riff till the day I die. All hail mother****ing Saxon!






Pure thrash metal rage and hate, this was the first Megadeth song on the first Megadeth album I ever bought, and no other of their songs can **** with the sheer level of badassery on display on this track. One of the few songs that doesn't sacrifice any immediacy despite its blistering speed, "Last Rites/Loved to Deth" is thrash at its most pissed off, and also its most badass.






The **** is wrong with me? Three entries in and so far no Slayer? Just wrong. I love so many Slayer songs for so many reasons, but this is their undisputed most badass track. From the fast-as-a-virgin-orgasm opening riffs, to Tom Araya's introductory scream, to the brutal breakdown riff of badass godliness halfway through, this is one of the most amazing songs ever recorded, and I'm ashamed that it wasn't on the first entry.

SSSSSSSSSSLLLLLLLLLLAAAAAAAAAAYYYYYYYYYYEEEEEEEEEE RRRRRRRRRR!!!!!!!!!!






Everyone on Earth has heard this song more times than they can count, and for good reason: it's ****ing badass. Yeah it's meathead as ****, but who the **** cares when you have a riff that bitchin'? This song crushes your skull into the dirt unless you're a joyless mother****er without an ounce of testosterone.






Technically a black metal band, this is more of a hard rock/heavy metal song with black metal aesthetics, but as with most of the entries in this series, this is a riff monster of epic proportions. And that chorus is just monumental. I could see myself curb stomping Jesus while listening to this.

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