Are you looking to buy rare and out of print metal cassettes from labels like Earache, Grindcore, Wild Rags and Combat? Check out the awesome selection of metal cassettes below!

	Anal Cunt - 40 More Reasons To Hate Us - Cassette tape on Earache Records One of the most offensive and musically challenging bands to ever produce music, A.C. are one of the most infamous bands in the heavy metal underworld. Most famous for their name (the A.C. stands for Anal Cunt, believed to be taken from a G.G. Allin song), the band writes short grindcore songs that contain some of the nastiest song titles in music. "The Word Homophobic Is Gay" and "I Like Drugs and Child Abuse" are two of the tamer examples of what the band is capable of. Their mystique is that they never let their audience in on whether it is a joke or not, many believe it is an elaborate gag being played on homophobic metal fans, while others think the band really believes what they say. Seeing as members of the band reportedly have very normal family lives outside of the band, the former is probably more true than the latter. The group began in 1988 as a sonic experiment. Vocalist Seth Putnam, guitarist Mike Mahan and drummer Tim Morse began with the idea of being the "most non-musical band in the world." Their whirlwind grindcore blasts would do little to argue the success of that idea, as they managed to release demo after demo of fast-paced songs, most of them never lasting more than ten or twenty seconds.
	Bolt Thrower - For Victory - Cassette tape on Earache Records On For Victory, Bolt Thrower settled nicely into the slower grindcore dynamic established on The IVth Crusade. The last recording to include drummer Andy Whale, this fifth full-length from the English metal outfit could have signified the end of an era, but Bolt Thrower continued into the 21st century, treading through the same war-torn sonic landscape. The musical growth of guitarists Barry Thompson and Gavin Ward deserves mention, as the twin axe handlers concoct some of their best riffs and tightest performances on For Victory. Highlights include "Lest We Forget" and the epic closer "Armageddon Bound," two career standouts for Ward and Thompson. Perhaps their best '90s offering, For Victory is one of Bolt Thrower's essential offerings that no fan should be without.
	Carcass - Necroticism Descanting The Insalubrious - grindcore cassette tape on Earache Records Carcass continue to develop and expand their music on Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious. They'd begun as a grindcore band -- in fact, one of the first and certainly one of the most influential -- as showcased on their debut album, Reek of Putrefaction (1988). Then came Symphonies, where they stretched out the grindcore of Reek: longer song lengths, more innersong developments, further levels of musical complexity, better production, and so on. This trajectory continues on Necroticism as Carcass break free of grindcore's stylistic limits, crafting expansive songs that ever develop and hark back musically to early-'90s thrash (à la Megadeth circa Rust in Peace [1990] particularly). Necroticism, however, is a death metal album through and through, make no mistake. It may lean toward thrash as much as it does grindcore, but it's still awfully damn ferocious. Jeff Walker spews out his septic vocals in a manner sure to send children and grandparents fleeing, and his lyrics are just as medically jargonistic as ever, though a bit toned down in terms of shock value. Moreover, the band adds a second guitarist, Michael Amott, who frees up Bill Steer to solo more often and play more elaborately, which makes Necroticism very much a guitar album, more so than anything Carcass had recorded to date, and which elevates Steer to center stage, where he showcases precisely how much he'd grown as a musician since his days in Napalm Death. Necroticism ultimately is the crossroad between Carcass' seminal grindcore (i.e., Reek, Symphonies) and their latter-day, more straightforward death metal (Heartwork [1994], Swansong [1996]). As such, it's one of their most interesting albums, if not one of their best, reflecting their past while foreshadowing their future. Songs like "Incarnated Solvent Abuse," one of the album's highlights, illustrate this very well. Though often overlooked in favor of what came before and what came after, Necroticism is nonetheless one of the standout death metal albums of the early '90s.
	Cathedral - The Carnival Bizarre - Cassette tape on Earache Records The Carnival Bizarre finds Cathedral nailing down their neo-Black Sabbath sound consistently from beginning to end with no filler, setting them apart from nearly every other band in the mid-'90s heavy metal scene. The album's consistency arises most likely from the band's streamlined line-up with only vocalist/lyricist Lee Dorrian and guitarist Gaz Jennings remaining from proceeding releases. These two collaborate on each of the ten songs, perfecting their formula for gothic fairy tales set to monstrous grooves of castle-sized guitar riffs. The album's title track serves as a perfect example of how Cathedral has grown and polished its unique style more easily explained by what it isn't than what it is. On this particular song, Jennings breaks off almost immediately into the song's central riff as Dorrian begins to map out his fantastic motifs: "Ride with me on a shooting star/Through galaxies of death we chase/Skeletal king of paradise." The song has a catchy chorus that has Dorrian changing the pitch of his voice from his deep, dark gravely tone to a juxtaposing high-pitched voice nearly as rough. Several tangents make this song more than just a standard rock tune in the style of "Ride" from the group's preceding album. It is at these moments that Jennings proves just how amazing of a guitar player he has become, moving through an ambient section of psychedelic-phasing guitar tones to a contemplative guitar solo with an overdubbed backing riff that takes the song on a journey to its post-eight minute conclusion. Nearly every one of the other ten songs makes small alterations on this same template, with Dorrian's mapped-out lyrics keeping the songs within the confines of traditional rock structuring and Jennings' ever-mobile guitar serving as the musical equivalent to the other-worldly lyrical topics.
	CIA - In The Red - Cassette tape with Glenn Evans of Nuclear Assault on Combat Records As the career of thrash metal band Nuclear Assault was winding down, the band's drummer Glenn Evans released this, his first solo offering under the name C.I.A. in 1990. He tackles all instrumental and vocal duties on In the Red, making the disc's somewhat disjointed sound understandable. Friends and Nuclear Assault bandmates help out with some background vocals and guitar solos, but Evans relies almost entirely on his own performance skills. He proves that he can handle any thrash weapon of choice, but the drummer's first instrumental love is featured throughout the record and most prominently on "Moby Dick Part 2." Basically a two-minute-plus drum solo, the pseudo-tribute to John Bonham features a flurry of double bass work. Standout track "Turn to Stone" sports a metal gallop exposing the musician's early-'80s British influences that echo throughout this recording. With it's drippy lyrics and mellow guitar harmonies, the power ballad "Samantha" is a little out of place on In the Red, giving the Combat Records release a musically uncommitted essence.
	Dangerous Toys - Pissed - Cassette tape on DMZ Records When Dangerous Toys released their self-titled debut album on Columbia records in 1989, their raw southern rock and metal served as an immediate attack on glam metal's reign on MTV and rock radio. Their two hit singles, "Teas'n, Pleas'n" and "Scared," gained the band a rabid following and helped the album go gold.
	Extreme Noise Terror - Retro-bution - Cassette tape on Earache Records After helping originate the sound of grindcore in the late '80s alongside other U.K. bands such as Napalm Death and Carcass, Extreme Noise Terror meandered on, eventually releasing Retro-Bution in 1995. Over the course of the five to eight years since the group's earliest experiments with the grindcore sound -- captured best on their Peel Sessions album -- little had changed. The band's peers had mostly moved on to other styles and new sounds by the mid-'90s, but Extreme Noise Terror stuck to traditional grindcore for Retro-Bution. Pete Hurley, Ali Firouzbakht, and Lee Barrett still distort their detuned guitars to insane levels and play shredding, machine-like riffs that lock into painful grooves of grinding tones. Pig Killer remains true to his name, carrying out his assaulting machine-gun percussion blasts, while the group's signature vocalist duo of Dean Jones and Phil Vane still trade off their occasionally harmonious rabid barks on the many featured self-penned odes to nihilism. The duo's lyrics may not be decodable, but song titles such as "Third World Genocide," "Pray to Be Saved," "Bullshit Propaganda," and "We Are the Helpless" allude to their views. Anyone still looking for more classic grindcore sounds with the same old motifs doesn't need to look any farther than this album; it retains nearly everything that defined classic albums such as Napalm Death's From Enslavement to Obliteration, including poor sound quality. But anyone looking for grindcore's next step will need to look elsewhere because Retro-Bution sounds like an album from 1990 rather than 1995.
	Faith Of Fear - Punishment Area - NJ thrash metal cassette on Combat Records Yet another underachieving thrash metal band from New Jersey (for some reason the Garden State was rife with them), Vineland's Faith or Fear featured vocalist Tim Blackman, guitarists Chris Bombeke and Bob Perna, bassist C.J. Jenkins, and drummer Rich Lohwasser, and released a single album entitled Punishment Area through Combat Records in 1989.
	Fudge Tunnel - The Complicated Futility Of Ignorance - Cassette tape on Earache Records The final release from Fudge Tunnel, Complicated Futility of Ignorance comes off like a modern, slightly mechanized Motörhead, comparable to late Prong perhaps, but more dynamic and without any of the industrial gimmicks. This record drips with the blood of calloused hands shredded in an attempt to extricate every ounce of heaviness from the many angular and distorted guitar riffs. Not one to ever hold back, guitarist/vocalist Alex Newport leads his band (that also includes David Riley on bass and Adrian Parkin on drums) through one relentless and violent metal groove-fest after another. The quality is consistant throughout this recording, but the doom-inflected "Six Eight" and the ruthless opener "Random Acts of Cruelty" are subtle standouts. Fans of sludgy, extreme metal not yet familiar with the influential Fudge Tunnel would do well to acquaint themselves with Complicated Futility of Ignorance, perhaps the best of this group's many fine offerings.
	Girlschool - Nightmare At Maple Cross - Cassette tape on Profile Records Girlschool found themselves rejoining old-time partners-in-crime Motorhead at brand-spanking-new independent label GWR for the following year's follow-up, Nightmare at Maple Cross. Not that there's any concrete evidence suggesting Lemmy and Co. had any influence on some of the better new tracks (namely "All Day, All Night," "Play with Fire," and "Turn It Up"), renewing their acquaintance with heavier riffs and proto-riot grrrl aggression, for a change. But the presence of producer Vic Maile -- responsible for both Girlschool's and Motörhead's early triumphs -- was certainly a contributing factor, ensuring that even the disc's more obviously commercial, singalong efforts ("Never Too Late," "Back for More," for instance) came wrapped in a good bit of barbed wire. If there were any truly grave repeat offenses, it was in the fact that, once again, covers had to be used as padding for the absent co-songwriting efforts of the departed Kelly Johnson.
	Kreator - Renewal - Cassette tape on Noise Records Renewal is the sixth album by the German thrash metal band Kreator released in 1992. It is their first "experimental" album, as in this release Kreator incorporated some industrial music influences in their songwriting.
	Phleg Camp - Twilight Pink - Seven Inch Vinyl On Allied Records One of two solo stars to spring from the ashes of the '70s all-girl hard rock band the Runaways, Lita Ford has long been a more frustrating, contradictory proposition for critics than former colleague Joan Jett. Ford is subtly feminist in her musical approach, displaying guitar heroics on the level of any male metal hero; the mere fact of her existence in the otherwise testosterone-driven heavy metal genre has made her a hero to some, but her persona has often been criticized as calculated to appeal to male adolescent sexual fantasies, simply embodying the standard wild-girl stereotypes of many male metal artists' lyrics. When she has the material to back her up, though, Ford is inarguably capable of rocking out aggressively and assertively.
	Lizzy Borden - The Murderess Metal Road Show - Cassette tape on Restless Records In the wake of Mötley Crüe's meteoric rise to superstardom in 1983 on the strength of their now classic album Shout at the Devil, a countless amount of other similarly styled theatrical metal bands cropped up in the Los Angeles heavy metal community, including Lizzy Borden. Basically an '80s update of Alice Cooper (with some Iron Maiden-esque riffs mixed into the melting pot), the group built a substantial regional following on the West Coast with an over-the-top stageshow, but failed to break through commercially. Like Cooper, the band Lizzy Borden had a lead singer who shared the same name as the band, issuing several albums on the Metal Blade label from 1984-1990: 1984's Give 'Em the Axe, 1985's Love You to Pieces, 1986's The Murderous Metal Roadshow and Menace to Society, 1987's Terror Rising and Visual Lies, and 1989's Master of Disguise. Borden also appeared in the 1988 Penelope Spheeris-directed documentary about the '80s metal scene, The Decline of Western Civilization Part II.
	Massacre - Promise - Cassette tape on Earache Records Florida-based Massacre debuted with the release of From Beyond in 1991. It is a visceral record powered by the intense voice of Kam Lee and aggressive riffs by guitarist Rick Rozz, who previously played for death metal outfit Death. An EP titled Inhuman Condition followed in 1992. Bassist Pete Sison and drummer Syrus Peters participated in the recording of 1996's Promise. Massacre's first album was released once again in April 2000, featuring "Inhuman Condition," performed by Cronos, with Bill Andrews on drums and Terry Butler on bass.