Michael Giacchino's fifth score for director Matt Reeves (following Cloverfield, Let Me In, Dawn of the Planet of the Apes, and War for the Planet of the Apes), 2022's The Batman was a remarkable undertaking for several reasons. Firstly, as the inaugural film in yet another reboot, Giacchino was responsible for composing new music themes for beloved franchise characters. Secondly, Reeves approached Giacchino to do the score before lead actor Robert Pattinson was even cast; as a result, music including the main Batman motif pre-dated production on the film. The Batman is also the longest score Giacchino had ever written to this point; the film has a running time of nearly three hours, and the score recording clocks in at four minutes short of two hours. It was recorded in October 2021 with a 70-piece orchestra and six-member boys choir divided between Abbey Road Studios One and Two and tracked concurrently with two different conductors. The instrumentation is another noteworthy feature, consisting of rock instruments as well as orchestral strings, brass, and percussion but almost no woodwinds (just three clarinets). If that's any indication of the score's sound, one would likely still underestimate how dark, lurking, and often (not always) eerily sparse the final work is, which had Giacchino looking to film noir classics for inspiration in addition to his Batman predecessors, Danny Elfman, Elliot Goldenthal, and Hans Zimmer. There was so much anticipation surrounding the film and score that Giacchino's main character tracks -- "The Batman," "The Riddler," and "Catwoman" -- were issued as singles and broke WaterTower Music streaming records for pre-release score material. The ominous, marching four-note (two-pitch) Batman motif is introduced on the opening track, "Can't Fight City Halloween," later appearing alongside the more elegant, melancholy Bruce Wayne theme on tracks including "Riddles, Riddles Everywhere." The Catwoman theme embodies jazzier noir, and the Riddler's rising and falling minor-key melody utilizes the children's choir. They intertwine and react to each other according to the onscreen action throughout the score, whose recording closes on the 12-minute "Sonata in Darkness," performed by pianist Gloria Cheng. The Batman marked Giacchino's debut on the Billboard 200. Note: Wordplay aficionados will want to do a close reading of the track list.© Marcy Donelson /TiVo

Who would have thought that in 1981, after a pair of limp, unfocused studio offerings, and two mixed -- at best -- live outings, that the once mighty Blue Öyster Cult would come back with such a fierce, creative, and uncompromising effort as Fire of Unknown Origin. Here was their finest moment since Agents of Fortune five years earlier, and one of their finest ever. Bringing back into the fold the faithful team who helped articulate their earlier vision, producer Sandy Pearlman, Richard Meltzer, and Patti Smith all helped in the lyric department, as did science-fiction and dark-fantasy writer Michael Moorcock. The band's sound was augmented by a plethora of keyboards courtesy of Allen Lanier, but nonetheless retained a modicum of its heaviness, and the sheer songwriting craft that had helped separate the band form its peers early on was everywhere evident here -- especially the gloriously noir-ish Top 40 single "Burning for You," written by Meltzer and guitarist Buck Dharma. Other standouts on the set include the plodding, über-riff pyrotechnics of "Heavy Metal: The Black and the Silver," and the Mott the Hoople- and Queen-influenced glammed up roots rock of "Joan Crawford." The terrifying images of desecration and apocalyptic war in "Veteran of Psychic Wars," with words by Moorcock, feature huge synth lines, dual leads by Dharma and Eric Bloom -- as well as a tom-tom orgy from Albert Bouchard -- offered a new pathway through the eternal night of the Cult's best work. Fire of Unknown Origin has aged well, and deserves to be remastered in the 21st century.© Thom Jurek /TiVo

Judas Priest rebounded from the shaky Point of Entry with Screaming for Vengeance, arguably the strongest album of their early-'80s commercial period. Having moved a bit too far into simplistic hard rock, Vengeance found the band refocusing on heavy metal, and achieving a greater balance between commercialism and creativity. The results were catchy and accessible, yet harder-hitting, and without the awkwardly apparent calculation that informed the weakest moments of the album's two predecessors. Ultimately, Screaming for Vengeance hangs together better than even the undeniable landmark British Steel, both thematically and musically. There's less of a party-down feel here -- the remaining traces of boogie have been ironed out, and the lyrics return to the darkness and menace that gave the band its mystique. Sure, if you stop to read the lyrics, all the references to demons and devils and monsters can look a little gratuitous, but the music here is so strong that there simply aren't any seams showing. Even the occasional filler is more metallic this time around -- in place of trite teenage rebellion, listeners get the S&M-themed "Pain and Pleasure." In fact, "Pain and Pleasure" and "Fever" are the only two songs here that have never shown up on a band retrospective, which ought to tell you that Priest's songwriting here is perhaps the best it's ever been. The midtempo grooves that enlivened British Steel are here in full force on the band's signature tune, "You've Got Another Thing Comin'" (their only American chart single), as well as "Bloodstone," "Devil's Child," and unfairly forgotten single "(Take These) Chains," all uniformly great. But there's a nearly equal emphasis on uptempo headbanging, thanks to the classic "The Hellion/Electric Eye," the terrific album track "Riding on the Wind," and the stupendously high-velocity title cut, which is the closest they ever came to thrash metal (at least in the '80s). Despite a one-album misstep in between, Screaming for Vengeance managed to capitalize on the commercial breakthrough of British Steel, becoming the first Priest album to be certified double platinum, and reaching the Top 20 in America and the U.K. alike. Along with British Steel, it ranks as one of the best and most important mainstream metal albums of the '80s.© Steve Huey /TiVo

From the start, Panic! At the Disco was an oddball in the emo-pop court. The band had the mid-aughts haircuts and eyeliner but less in common with peers Fall Out Boy and Good Charlotte than Queen and Meat Loaf. And let that be a warning: It's impossible to describe P!ATD's seventh record without a ton of name-dropping. The title track combines Beach Boys harmonies with Attractions-era Elvis Costello giddiness; "Middle Of A Breakup" offers upBrian May-like guitar and lines like "Keep your disco/ Give me T. Rex." "Sugar Soaker" references Sweet's shameless glam metal, Nazareth's cowbell and The Archies on espresso and whiskey, with frontman Brendon Urie showing off horndog wordplay: "Lil' sugar soaker/ Breaking my bed/ Red tail lights in the back of her head/ Such a cherry leather looker." Although started as a band of teenage friends from Las Vegas, P!ATD has evolved over the past 17 years into a solo project for frontman Urie, who is apparently feeling musically and personally nostalgic. "Star Spangled Banger"—which liberally borrows Phil Lynott's vocal delivery of Thin Lizzy's "The Boys Are Back in Town" for the verses—finds him summoning up high-school memories: "We are the kids from the underground," going to the mall for a lip ring and photo-booth makeout. Ditto "God Killed Rock and Roll," which spotlights "A little dreamer in the glow of the receiver … Blew out the speakers dancing in his sneakers." It credits Argent's Russ Ballard because the chorus interpolates "God Gave Rock and Roll to You" (made famous by KISS) but, structurally, the song copies the segments of "Bohemian Rhapsody" to a T. A lot of credit for this joyousness goes to co-writer Butch Walker, who had his own foray into glam-pop with 2006's The Rise and Fall of Butch Walker and the Let's-Go-Out-Tonites; and producer Mike Viola, whose recent work in folksy tunes (Mandy Moore, Johnathan Rice, Watkins Family Hour) belies his exuberant pop-rock background—with his underrated band Candy Butchers and singing the theme to the 1996 movie That Thing You Do!. But back to P!ATD: Excellent "Don't Let the Light Go Out" gives melodic credit to Janis Ian's "At Seventeen," and Urie is in the mood to offer hope to outcast teens biding their time in small-town claustrophobia, both on "Say It Louder" and "All by Yourself." That power ballad is his version of Christina Aguilera's "Beautiful" or Pink's "Raise Your Glass"—"You always hated sports/ You buzzed your hair short/ Dyed it pink to piss them off ...They made a monster outta you/ But you're beautiful, you're tough ...You can change everything all by yourself." Even if you're decades past that period, it taps into a nostalgic insecurity and longing that never fully goes away. © Shelly Ridenour/Qobuz

Covenant started to bring Morbid Angel up out of the underground, as MTV gave them wider exposure on its late Headbanger's Ball. Guitarist Trey Azagthoth plays complicated, heavily detuned riffs, some with a lightning-fast picking style and others in a slower groove. Drummer Pete Sandoval is one of the genre's fastest, and his jackhammer style helps complete Morbid Angel's core sound. Their incredible chops and nonstop intensity may be exactly what you've been looking for, or you may find the lack of variation wearisome. © Steve Huey /TiVo

This sixth studio album from the Dutch symphonic metallers is the follow-up to 2016's Moonbathers. With more of their trademark melodic metal, powered by the stunning vocals of Lotte Wessels, it features some of the heaviest material they have recorded in years, such as the epic, brutal single "Burning Bridges."© John D. Buchanan /TiVo

The eighth studio album by Swedish melodic death metal powerhouse Arch Enemy (assuming one doesn't count the re-recordings compilation The Root of All Evil) is superficially as strong as anything else in the band's impressive catalog. Since the day frontwoman Angela Gossow joined, Arch Enemy has been one of the most consistent bands in metal, cranking out 11 or 12 fist-pumping, anthemic tracks every couple of years. This album features 11 songs, a silly intro with narration like something from a movie trailer or a video game, and two brief instrumental interludes, one of which treads perilously close to "While My Guitar Gently Weeps," but is just different enough to keep the lawyers at bay. That's not the only bit of almost-plagiarism here; the pre-chorus to "Thorns in My Flesh" bears a disconcerting melodic resemblance to Pet Shop Boys' "It's a Sin." The title and intro section of "Cruelty Without Beauty" seem like loving imitations of South of Heaven-era Slayer, and the same song, in its final two minutes, erupts into a fury of retro-thrashy guitar soloing, with one player doing his best Dave Mustaine as the other pretends he's Kirk Hammett. Meanwhile, "Yesterday Is Dead and Gone" sounds like a combination of three or four previous Arch Enemy songs. Still, Khaos Legions shouldn't be dismissed as the result of creative burnout -- there's plenty of scorching metal here, and fans will be very pleased.© Phil Freeman /TiVo

Frozen Soul are a death metal band from Texas, but they make music that evokes the bitter wind of an arctic tundra. Their debut album, Crypt of Ice, is molded by avalanching drums and stiff, frosted riffs that plunge downward like an industrial-sized ice auger drilling through a solid lake. Frontman Chad Green's evil, throaty vocals sound like they're cloaked in the infinite darkness of nightfall in the middle of nowhere—the deep, beastial growl of the only being who could survive such blistering conditions. In other words, this is some real heavy stuff. The Fort Worth quintet are relative newcomers in a statewide scene of bands who've spent the last decade-and-a-half building camaraderie between extreme metal, thrash, and hardcore. However, unlike their Texan peers in Creeping Death, who blend brutal death metal and spin-kicking hardcore with a thrashy speed, Frozen Soul don't draw as heavily from the Lone Star legends, Power Trip and Iron Age. Even the most moshable chug sections on Crypt of Ice are a little too low and brooding for your average mixed bill hardcore show, but there's something about this band's straightforward approach to a time-tested sound that feels distinct to their home turf. They also sound a helluva lot like Bolt Thrower, the English death metal champions who have been an inescapable influence on the current wave of American old-school death metal revivalism; there are many moments that pay homage to the UK band’s guttural screams and masterful neck-snapping riffs. Frozen Soul are not challenging their genre's dependable conventions, but they're doing a great job at honoring them with a badass, bone-chilling sheen. © Eli Enis/Qobuz