39- Armored Saint- Symbol Of Salvation (1991)Released 4 years after 1987's Raising Fear, the band battled back from the tragic death of founding member, guitarist Dave Prichard, who passed away at the age of 26 from Luekemia. Having seen Armored Saint with Dave in the 80's a number of times, this was a great live band. Their studio albums didn't always translate the energy this band had. But the production on Symbol would far surpass anything they had done before. This was a make or break album for the band, and unfortunately, after the touring cycle, John Bush would go on to join Anthrax and Joey Vera would also move on to other things, most notably Fates Warning. Dave Prichard had a hand in writing much of the material. In fact the last time I saw them in 1989, they would feature two of the album's tracks, Reign Of Fire and Spineless.
Fave tracks: Hanging Judge, Burning Question, Tainted Past
38- Flotsam & Jetsam- No Place For Disgrace (1988) and When The Storm Comes Down (1990)This is the first time in my countdown that I will be pairing up albums by the same band. It is because I basically like them equally, and the are both important cogs in my record collection.
Flotsam & Jetsam are probably best known for being Jason Newsted's band before he joined Metallica. Jason played on F&J's debut, Doomsday For The Deceiver. No Place For Disgrace would be the follow up and When The Storm Comes Down is their 3rd album. Both feature Troy Gregory on bass. Troy also picked up a lot of the songwriting slack left behind by Jason.
What you have here is some great classic thrash with clean, higher pitched vocals done by the very underrated Eric Knutson. Troy Gregory would leave for Prong after Storm, but F&J peaked with these two albums. Both get regular spins from me today.
No Place Fave tracks- NE Terror, Dreams Of Death, Misguided Fortune, PAAB
Storm Fave tracks-EMTEK, The Master Sleeps, Burned Device