POSSESSED released their debut "Seven Churches" on November 4, 1985, through Combat Records, and the album is widely regarded as the first true death metal record. The Bay Area teenagers cut it in a single week, March 30 to April 5, 1985, at Prairie Sun Studios in Cotati with producer Randy Burns; frontman and bassist Jeff Becerra and guitarist Larry LaLonde were just 16 and recorded on their spring break. Mike Torrao on guitar and Mike Sus on drums completed the lineup. Opener "The Exorcist" begins with Burns' own take on "Tubular Bells", and the album closes with a song simply called "Death Metal", a title often credited with naming a whole genre. That same November the band played the WWIII Weekend festival in Montreal with CELTIC FROST, DESTRUCTION, VOIVOD and NASTY SAVAGE in front of nearly 7,000 people. DEATH, MORBID ANGEL and countless others followed the path it carved.

BLACK SABBATH released "Mob Rules" on November 4, 1981, through Vertigo, the second album with Ronnie James Dio at the microphone and the first with drummer Vinny Appice, who replaced Bill Ward. Martin Birch produced and engineered it at the Record Plant in Los Angeles, after the band's attempt to record in their own newly bought studio failed to produce a usable guitar sound, as Tony Iommi recalled. The title track had first been cut for the animated film "Heavy Metal", and alongside Geezer Butler's bass and Geoff Nicholls' keyboards the album delivered "Turn Up the Night", the epic "The Sign of the Southern Cross", the eerie instrumental "E5150" and "Falling Off the Edge of the World". The Dio-era lineup would splinter during the mixing of the live album that followed, and Dio and Appice did not appear on a SABBATH studio record again until "Dehumanizer" in 1992.

CARCASS released their second album "Symphonies of Sickness" in the UK on November 4, 1989, through Earache Records; Combat Records issued it in the US on December 7, 1990. Recorded in July and August 1989 at the Slaughterhouse Studios in Great Driffield and co-produced by the band with Colin Richardson, it gave the Liverpool trio's gore-obsessed grindcore a heavier, more deliberate death metal backbone than the raw "Reek of Putrefaction". Jeff Walker on bass and vocals, Bill Steer on guitar and vocals and Ken Owen on drums and vocals traded growls across medical-textbook titles like "Exhume to Consume", "Empathological Necroticism" and "Crepitating Bowel Erosion". It was Owen's last album as a lead vocalist, and the band's last as a three-piece until "Surgical Steel" in 2013. The road from here led straight to "Necroticism" and "Heartwork", and to the melodic death metal sound CARCASS would help define.

Jordan Rudess, keyboard wizard of DREAM THEATER, was born Jordan Charles Rudes on November 4, 1956, in Great Neck, New York. His piano talent was spotted by his second-grade teacher, and at nine he entered the Juilliard School's Pre-College Division, where he spent seven years in classical training before swapping the concert hall for synthesizers and progressive rock. He first crossed paths with John Petrucci and Mike Portnoy in the supergroup LIQUID TENSION EXPERIMENT and joined DREAM THEATER in 1999, debuting on the landmark "Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory". Since then his blistering runs, orchestral layers and lead-trading duels with Petrucci have been part of the band's identity on every album from "Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence" onward. A restless tinkerer, Rudess is also a respected music software developer whose apps turned touchscreens into expressive instruments.

Timi Hansen, the bassist who held down the low end of MERCYFUL FATE's classic era, died on November 4, 2019, at the age of 61. Born in Denmark on October 28, 1958, he played in MERCYFUL FATE from 1981 to 1985, appearing on the 1982 debut EP, "Melissa" and "Don't Break the Oath", the records that made King Diamond, Hank Shermann and Michael Denner the architects of occult heavy metal. When the band split, he followed King Diamond into his solo project from 1985 to 1987, playing on "Fatal Portrait" and "Abigail", and later returned for MERCYFUL FATE's 1992–1993 reunion. A fingerstyle player rather than a pick man, he was long known as Timi Grabber, a nickname a music store clerk gave him after his Gibson G3 Grabber bass, before he quietly went back to his real name. His supple, melodic lines remain a key ingredient in the Danish legends' sound.

Gothenburg melodic death metal veterans DARK TRANQUILLITY released their eleventh album "Atoma" on November 4, 2016, through Century Media Records. It was the first album with bassist Anders Iwers, who joined after founding member Martin Henriksson left earlier that year, and the last with founding guitarist Niklas Sundin, who also created the artwork and departed in 2020. Keyboardist Martin Brändström produced it, with Jens Bogren and David Castillo handling mixing and mastering, while Mikael Stanne's mix of roars and clean vocals carried songs like the title track, "Forward Momentum", "Encircled" and "The Pitiless". IN FLAMES guitarist Björn Gelotte dropped in for a solo on "Force of Hand", a nod to the city scene both bands helped build. The limited edition added two brooding, fully clean-sung songs, "The Absolute" and "Time Out of Place", hinting at the darker, more atmospheric direction the band would explore next.

Wayne Static, born Wayne Richard Wells on November 4, 1965, in Muskegon, Michigan, was the founder, frontman, rhythm guitarist, keyboardist and main lyricist of industrial metal band STATIC-X, and its only constant member. In Chicago he formed the post-punk band DEEP BLUE DREAM with drummer Ken Jay, sharing a rehearsal space with a young Billy Corgan. Moving to California, Wells and Jay started STATIC-X with bassist Tony Campos and guitarist Koichi Fukuda, and the newly christened Wayne Static led them to platinum success with the 1999 debut "Wisconsin Death Trip" and its hit "Push It". With his towering vertical hair, which took up to 45 minutes to set, and his trademark chin-tail beard, he was one of the most recognizable figures of the late-'90s nu-metal and industrial boom. He released the solo album "Pighammer" in 2011 and died on November 1, 2014, three days before his 49th birthday.

Polish death metal institution VADER released their eleventh album "The Empire" on November 4, 2016, through Nuclear Blast. Founder Piotr "Peter" Wiwczarek handled vocals and lead guitar, joined by rhythm guitarist Marek "Spider" Pająk, bassist Tomasz "Hal" Halicki and drummer James Stewart, with the Wiesławski brothers, Wojtek and Sławek, recording, producing, mixing and mastering it at their studio. Veteran fantasy painter Joe Petagno, famous for his MOTÖRHEAD artwork, supplied the cover. Compact and relentless, the album leaned on the thrash roots of VADER's death metal, with "Angels of Steel", "Iron Reign", "Prayer to the God of War" and closing "Send Me Back to Hell" all built for the pit. Blabbermouth summed it up as "vintage Vader", a fair verdict for a band that had been carrying the flag for Polish extreme metal since the early 1980s.

Swedish power metal standard-bearers HAMMERFALL released their tenth album "Built to Last" on November 4, 2016, through Napalm Records. It was the first HAMMERFALL album with drummer David Wallin behind the kit, alongside vocalist Joacim Cans, guitarists Oscar Dronjak and Pontus Norgren and bassist Fredrik Larsson. Recorded at Castle Black Studios in Gothenburg and Bohus Studios in Kungälv, it was produced by James Michael together with Dronjak and Norgren. True to its title, the album doubled down on the fist-raising formula the band had championed since "Glory to the Brave" revived classic heavy metal in 1997: "Hammer High" became an instant crowd anthem, joined by "Bring It!", "Dethrone and Defy" and the title track. Nearly twenty years into their career, HAMMERFALL used "Built to Last" to restate their creed with conviction and to remind everyone that true metal steel does not rust.

Finnish power metal giants STRATOVARIUS released their tenth album "Elements Pt. 2" on November 4, 2003, through Nuclear Blast, completing the two-part project begun earlier that year. Guitarist Timo Tolkki produced it, leading the classic lineup of vocalist Timo Kotipelto, keyboardist Jens Johansson, drummer Jörg Michael and bassist Jari Kainulainen, while Veijo Laine and Riku Niemi arranged the orchestra and choir parts, with the Joensuu City Orchestra conducted by Niemi. Sessions stretched from April 2002 to February 2003 at Finnvox and other Helsinki-area studios. Opener "Alpha & Omega" brought a heavier, doom-tinged weight to the band's sound, balanced by the soaring "I Walk to My Own Song", "Season of Faith's Perfection" and "Know the Difference". The album reached No. 4 on the Finnish chart and "I Walk to My Own Song" No. 9 on the singles chart, the last studio statement of that lineup before the turbulent years that followed.