Often, bands who are still making music after their initial rise to fame are perceived as goodwill projects. There’s a thought that their latest album is just an excuse to hit the road and play the hits, and that it’s “just good to see that they’re still playing.” But that’s an unfair generalization, especially in the world of metal, a genre that is nothing without a fire in the maker’s belly. For many metal bands, latter-day albums are opportunities to use all the technical skills and life lessons that they’ve learned over the years and were perhaps too young or inexperienced to appreciate during what everyone calls their “heyday.” Here are 13 examples of classic metal bands writing some of their greatest songs a few decades...
