Dark Days by Coal Chamber

Dark Days, Coal Chamber's third album, came out on Roadrunner on May 7, 2002, and it turned out to be the last word from the Los Angeles band's first run. Dez Fafara, who started the group with guitarist Meegs Rascón a decade earlier, snarls and howls over Rascón's thick, grinding riffs, while Mike Cox's drums keep the whole thing lurching forward.

It's a grim, heavy-lidded record, and "Fiend" is its calling card: in 2019 Alternative Press's Joe Smith-Engelhardt counted it among the nu-metal staples that still hold up. A year after the album the band had split, not to return until 2011.

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