Burn My Eyes

Burn My Eyes is the debut on which MACHINE HEAD brought together street-tinged anger, low-chugging riffs and hard groove, thrusting a new weight of 1990s heavy metal. Rather than looking complex, the songs generate pressure by thoroughly pushing through a rhythm once decided. It is the vivid starting point of the Oakland band centered on Robb Flynn. On “Davidian,” “Old” and “A Nation on Fire,” rough vocals, dry guitar and heavily sinking drums move in the same direction, turning defiance into sound itself. Songs like “Death Church” and “Blood for Blood” breathe an early rough appeal too. They bring together groove metal, thrash and hardcore-like urgency into a single thick line. Becoming one of the best-selling debuts in Roadrunner Records’ history at the time, it is a record emblematic of its era.