Germany's Metal Hammer magazine have unveiled their 500th issue today (June 21), and in celebration they have ranked the 500 greatest metal albums of all time. Coming in at #1 is the Metallica classic, Master Of Puppets, with the following comments:

"Complex structures, musical depth, yet massive sing-along potential, and guitar solos for the ages. The compositional lessons instilled in Hetfield and Ulrich by Cliff Burton since the band's inception reach their full bloom here. For Metal Hammer, this is now officially the best opus in metal history!"

The list of 500 was voted on by a jury of musicians, editors, industry insiders, and metal fans. 

Released on March 3, 1986, Master Of Puppets was the Metallica's third album - recorded in Denmark with producer Flemming Rasmussen - and it went on to sell over six million copies in the US alone.

“From a technical viewpoint, when I listen to the album I’m really surprised at how good it sounds so long after the fact,” says guitarist Kirk Hammett. “The recording of the album, the recording of the songs, the production… it all holds up still.”

Master Of Puppets proved to be Cliff Burton’s swansong with Metallica. The bassist sadly died on September 27, 1986 in a coach accident while on tour promoting the album.

“Cliff’s contribution to Master Of Puppets was very melodic and very musical,” explains Hammett. “His contribution wasn’t so much the big heavy riffs. It was all melody bass, and it was a lot of really, really cool stuff. When Cliff went it was the end of an era, and we all knew it. We knew it.”

More than 35 years after it was first released, Master Of Puppets is an acknowledged classic of the thrash genre and proudly sits in the US Library Of Congress for preservation in the National Recording Registry on account of being “culturally, historically, or aesthetically significant. Hammett thinks he knows why.

“A lot of the music from that time now sounds samey and similar,” he says. “But there’s really nothing on Master Of Puppets that dates it to any particular period - sound-wise, production-wise, recording-wise. Master Of Puppets is my favourite of all the albums we’ve ever done.”