Dying for the World by W.A.S.P.

Dying for the World, W.A.S.P.'s tenth studio album, came out on Sanctuary in 2002 with Blackie Lawless producing, and it finds the shock-rock ringleader of the old Sunset Strip scene in a far grimmer mood. Lawless dedicated the record to the people killed in the September 11 attacks, and that grief runs all through it, nowhere more plainly than on "Hallowed Ground". It's one of the darkest things the band ever made.

It was also made in a hurry, by his standards. Lawless is a perfectionist who usually spends two years or more on an album, but this one was written and recorded in under a year, with Darrell Roberts, Mike Duda and Stet Howland alongside him. The urgency shows: the riffs come down heavy and blunt, with none of the old leer, and "Shadow Man" was the track that carried it onto the countdowns.

Written with AI assistance from RockLists chart data, MusicBrainz and Wikipedia.