Various Artists - The Heavy Metal Box (4CD)

Rhino's 4-disc HEAVY METAL box is the most comprehensive anthology of the influential genre ever. Featuring legendary stars from multiple labels, the box's size lives up its thundering sound arranged chronologically, it collects 70 classic tracks tracing the evolution of metal through its first golden age, 1968-1991. Encompassing proto-metalists, hard rock icons, thrashers, progressive acts, speedsters, pop-metal MTV favorites, and more, a who's who of masters get their due. The box also boasts essays from Ronnie James Dio and Lita Ford, plus and a detailed history of metal by Mick Wall. Surveying the last years covered by the box, Wall concludes, metal had come full circle to the point where it was simultaneously riven by so many new categories and subgenres that you needed an encyclopedia to make sense of it all and yet it was more universally popular than ever before. The same could be said today so fly your devil horn salutes and crank it to 11 for five hours of musical mayhem. This is the digipak version.

Be prepared to raise your mano cornuta salute for Rhino's new four-disc HEAVY METAL BOX (DIGIPAK EDITION), the biggest, loudest and most comprehensive anthology of metal mayhem ever assembled. Featuring an all-star line-up of metal and hard rock legends, the box's size more than lives up to the thunder of its sound - it collects 70 influential tracks tracing the evolution of metal through its first golden age, 1968-1991, for a total of over five hours of remastered music. Head-banger's heaven never was so devilishly great!

Rhino's unprecedented HEAVY METAL BOX is housed in a sleek, tall digipak presentation. Its 70 tracks are chronologically ordered throughout the four-disc sequence, with a who's who of metal masters in the mix. The box's immense booklet features a compelling history of the mercurial genre by world renowned British rock journalist Mick Wall, rare photos plus essays from metal icon Ronnie James Dio (on metal's infamous “mano cornuta” devil horns salute), “first lady of metal” Lita Ford, Lars Ulrich, metal radio godfather Eddie Trunk, UK journalist Chris Welch on metal and black magic and more.

Metal's embrace of diverse styles more than gets its due with HEAVY METAL BOX's far-reaching repertoire. Towards the end of his detailed liner notes, Mick Wall writes of the most recent years covered by the box that, “metal had come full circle to the point where it was simultaneously riven by so many new categories and subgenres that you needed an encyclopedia to make sense of it all-and yet it was more universally popular than ever before.” To that end, the gargantuan track listing encompasses proto-metal progenitors, hard rock icons, thrashers, progressive acts, speedsters, pop-metal MTV favorites, new metal and other incarnations of the genre's sweep.

Disc 1 opens with the 1968 Iron Butterfly anthem “In-A-Gadda-Da-Vida” and closes with the Dio-fronted incarnation of Black Sabbath's “Neon Knights.” In between, molten classics include Deep Purple's “Highway Star,” Alice Cooper's “Billion Dollar Babies,” Judas Priest's “The Ripper,” Blue Cheer's cover of “Summertime Blues” and “The Phantom Of The Opera” from Iron Maiden.

Disc 2 powers through with Motorhead's “Ace Of Spades,” Queensryche's “Queen Of The Reich,” Dio's “Holy Diver,” W.A.S.P.'s “Animal (F**k Like A Beast)” and Diamond Head's “Am I Evil?,” plus, the classics “You've Got Another Thing Comin'” from Priest and Metallica's “Whiplash.”

Disc 3 gears up with the Scorpions' “Rock You Like A Hurricane,” Quiet Riot's “Metal Health” and Dokken's “Into The Fire,” and continues with Ratt's “Round And Round,” Megadeth's “Peace Sells,” Stryper's “To Hell With The Devil” and other unforgettable tracks - not the least of which is Spinal Tap's “Big Bottom.”

Disc 4 launches with Whitesnake's “Still Of The Night” and rocks through classics including Lita Ford's “Kiss Me Deadly,” Poison's “Talk Dirty To Me,” Skid Row's “Youth Gone Wild,” Faster Pussycat's “Bathroom Wall,” Pantera's “Cowboys From Hell,” Great White's “Rock Me,” and 1991's box-closing “Dead Embryonic Cells” from Sepultura.