Jaq's Top 50 v. Massive Infodump (15-1!)

[Jaq]

And here we go again with three that are obvious and one less so:

42. Rush-Permanent Waves

Released: January 1, 1980
Produced by: Rush and Terry Brown

Track Listing:

1. The Spirit of Radio 4:57
2. Freewill 5:24
3. Jacob's Ladder 7:26
4. Entre Nous 4:36
5. Different Strings 3:48
6.  Natural Science 9:17


Here’s another one of those oddities of my list, which came about as I worked it up and down and occasionally re-evaluated where albums fell not only within my list but within the discographies of the individual bands. Not only did I expect a lot more Rush to make my top 50-Permanent Waves is the sole album by the band in my top 50, though a top 100 list would find Rush making more appearances than any other band-I wasn’t expecting this to be the highest ranking of my Rush albums. And yet here it is. I probably shouldn’t have to go into details here, but it’s a perfect distillation of the band’s 70s progressive era into a more compact, accessible style that remains wholly Rush, and it still sounds as ultra-modern as it did thirty four years ago. I think the word is “timeless.” I’d  also point at the position of Rush on my overall list as a sign of how close things are on it, and a repeat of this list might find this album far higher and a lot more Rush in my top 50. For now, go figure.

41. Savatage-Gutter Ballet

Released: December 1, 1989
Produced by: Paul O’Neill

Track Listing:

1. Of Rage and War 4:47
2. Gutter Ballet    6:20
3. Temptation Revelation 2:56
4. When the Crowds Are Gone    5:45
5. Silk and Steel  2:56
6. She's in Love 3:51
7. Hounds 6:27
8. The Unholy 4:37
9. Mentally Yours 5:19
10. Summer's Rain 4:33
11. Thorazine Shuffle 4:43


For me, back in the day, Savatage was one of those bands (for me the other two that fit this description were Fates Warning and Armored Saint) that you saw their albums in the record store, you picked them up and looked at them, and thought to yourself, “well, this looks cool” but then you put it down and moved on to something else. For Savatage, that changed for me when I saw the video on MTV for the title track of this album. (The Fates Warning album that changed that for me appears later in this list.) Gutter Ballet is the perfect balance between the band’s more straight up metal days and the more symphonic, progressive direction that Paul O’Neill drove the band in the 1990s. Gutter Ballet wins out for me over other Savatage albums because it bounces from the more straight up metal to the more progressive side with ease, each side being given equal weight (and it doesn’t hurt in my case that Gutter Ballet isn’t weighed down by one of Paul O’Neill's fairly ponderous concepts.) with the metal smacking you upside the head and the progressive elements making you say “wow.” For me, Savatage didn't manage to balance those two elements of their sound quite so well again until Poets and Madmen, and that didn't manage it quite as well, for my liking, as Gutter Ballet. A funny story about the title track: back in the day I used to tape videos I liked off of Headbanger's Ball to watch later. I was usually drinking at the time, which is why, eventually, my copy of Gutter Ballet, roughly two minutes in, found itself taped over by Alice Cooper's House of Fire. I can only assume I hit the REC button in a drunken stupor.

40. The Michael Schenker Group-MSG

Released: September 1981
Produced by: Ron Nevison.

Track Listing:

1.  Are You Ready to Rock 3:26
2. Attack of the Mad Axeman 4:17
3. On and On 4:41
4. Let Sleeping Dogs Lie    5:21
5. But I Want More 6:56
6. Never Trust a Stranger 4:24
7. Looking for Love 4:03
8. Secondary Motion 3:42

Somewhere in the multiverse, there is a universe where the second album by the Michael Schenker Group, MSG, earned all the acclaim and success that it deserved to achieve based on the quality of the music. I hope someday to visit there. Michael Schenker’s finest achievement outside of UFO, and arguably the best example of UFO styled hard rock/metal outside of UFO, this is eight damn near perfect examples of hard rock/metal, driven by the best album worth of solos Schenker ever managed, classic vocals from Gary Barden, and the powerhouse drumming of Cozy Powell. True to Schenker’s sadly erratic form, nearly the entire line up that played on MSG wasn’t on the follow up, Assault Attack, and whatever momentum the Michael Schenker Group had was lost in the US at least. Somewhere there is a universe where “Never Trust A Stranger” was a top 40 hit with an MTV video, but until we find it, we’re left with this classic.


39. Queensryche-Operation: Mindcrime

Released: May 3, 1988
Produced by: Peter Collins

Track Listing:   

1. I Remember Now 1:17
2. Anarchy-X 1:27
3. Revolution Calling 4:42
4. Operation: Mindcrime 4:43
5. Speak 3:42
6. Spreading the Disease 4:07
7. The Mission   5:45
8. Suite Sister Mary 10:41
9.  The Needle Lies 3:08
10. Electric Requiem 1:22
11. Breaking the Silence 4:34
12. I Don't Believe in Love 4:23
13. Waiting for 22 1:05
14. My Empty Room 1:25
15. Eyes of a Stranger 6:39


A bit on the nose for a list of albums posted on a forum for a progressive metal band, isn’t it? One of the things, though, that time and everything that’s happened with Queensryche since this album (and how this album has become a bit overplayed and overexposed thanks to Geoff Tate and let’s pretend the sequel never happened shall we) was released had dulling was just how groundbreaking this album was. The announcement that Queensryche, a band that had already taken at least two stylistic shifts already and had metal heads scratching their heads at the band’s ambition, was going to do a rock opera (and yes, that’s what it was called back then, concept album took over as more and more bands started doing them), had many saying “what the fuck? Metal bands don’t do rock operas!” and wondering just what Queensryche was going to produce. And what they produced was-a monumental blend of metal and storytelling, of ambition and scope that few bands period were attempting back then that initially had people saying “what the fuck is THIS?” Later generations of prog metal fans have written history to say that Operation: Mindcrime was hailed as an instant classic and immediate hit, but the truth was, the initial reaction, both in terms of fan response and sales, was tepid. It took  months, and the band recanting on a decision to not release videos from the album, for Eyes of A Stranger to take off and for people to finally wrap their heads around what Queensryche was doing. A factoid: I was sitting at home one Saturday night, drinking beer with my best friend, watching Headbanger’s Ball on MTV. At the top of the hour, the announcer proclaimed “coming up this hour, new videos from Queensryche-and METALLICA.” Yes, MTV premiered Eyes of A Stranger and One in the same hour of Headbanger’s Ball. What a night.

[jingle.boy]

Great update there Jaq.  Gotta listen to that MSG, as he and UFO in general just flew under my radar back in the day.  The other three all all Top 50 worthy.  O:M is top 10 for me though.  Savatage is great, but I only got into them a few years back, and tried digesting the whole discography at once.  That was (and still is) quite a task, as I don't find myself going to them often enough.

Nice writeups.

[bl5150]

    for Queensryche and Savatage

  for MSG


Rush have never done much for me.

Overall - excellent update 

[CrimsonSunrise]

Rush and the Ryche...nice    I honestly don't remember the overall reception Mindcrime initially got.  I was hooked from the first listen though   

**  EDIT - On further review, I don't remember it ever being called a "Rock Opera" (at least in the SoCal scene).  I didn't find it strange at all for them to have a concept album.  "The Warning" was one of my favorite's during that time, and it was definitely a "Themed" album if not concept oriented.

[Jaq]

Principally it was the metal mags that were calling it a rock opera. I can't quite pinpoint when concept album became the lingua franca for an album that told a story, but rock opera was the East Coast term for it at the time O:M came out. And yes, that was the initial reaction to it. I am not sure when the video came out, but initial release buzz for it was practically non-existent. Then the video came out and they landed the tour with Metallica (great show, let me tell you) and the album blew up.

[CrimsonSunrise]

What tour was that??  Master of Puppets?  I saw them for the Justice tour, with some band called "Faith no More"    Faith actually got boo'd off stage the first night, then the night I went James came out and jammed with them.

**EDIT - had to look.  So QR was the support on the first US leg for Damaged Justice tour.  I saw them on the second leg.  It says on the wiki page that the Cult supported them on that leg, but when I look up FNM tour dates they played on that tour with Metallica when I saw them Sept '89.  (Thought I was having an "Oldtimers" moment   

[jjrock88]

amazing update.  O:M gets the number one slot for me.  A Rush pick always gets a thumbs up from me and Savatage and MSG are fantastic bands.

[wolfking]

This list in simply incredible so far.

[King Postwhore]

I'm reliving my youth in this thread!

[TAC]

That MSG album was one of the most influential albums in my musical life. It really set my direction. I actually had it in my Top 10.

Jaq, Outstanding pick.

[TAC]

What tour was that??  Master of Puppets?  I saw them for the Justice tour, with some band called "Faith no More"    Faith actually got boo'd off stage the first night, then the night I went James came out and jammed with them.

**EDIT - had to look.  So QR was the support on the first US leg for Damaged Justice tour.  I saw them on the second leg.  It says on the wiki page that the Cult supported them on that leg, but when I look up FNM tour dates they played on that tour with Metallica when I saw them Sept '89.  (Thought I was having an "Oldtimers" moment   

I know FNM opened the GnR/Metallica Stadium tour. I saw QR open 3 shows on that tour, and when Metallica came back in the summer, The Cult opened.

[CrimsonSunrise]

Yeah, the Cult  opened for them for like 15 shows.  At the same time they were doing solo shows.    Last one I saw was 8/30/89.  I saw them on 9/22/89 with FNM

https://www.songkick.com/artists/397363-cult/gigography?page=123



sorry for the thread-Jaq       

[Jaq]

And after another day of dealing with snowy weather in a region where snow normally happens once a year, I return, with some stuff that is proggy and some stuff that is deathy!

38. Nile-In Their Darkened Shrines

Released: August 20, 2002
Produced by: Bob Moore

Track Listing:

1. The Blessed Dead 4:53
2. Execration Text 2:46
3. Sarcophagus 5:09
4. Kheftiu Asar Butchiu 3:52
5. Unas Slayer of the Gods 11:43
6. Churning the Maelstrom 3:07
7. I Whisper in the Ear of the Dead 5:10
8. Wind of Horus 3:47
9. In Their Darkened Shrines: I. Hall of Saurian Entombment 5:09
10. In Their Darkened Shrines: II. Invocation to Seditious Heresy 3:51
11. In Their Darkened Shrines: III. Destruction of the Temple of the Enemies of Ra 3:11
12. In Their Darkened Shrines: IV. Ruins 6:01


I will admit that death metal isn’t really one of my things. At least, traditional, blood and guts, old school Florida death metal isn’t my thing. Give me death metal that does something different, though, and I’m all over it like a cheap suit. Nile’s brand monumental, massive, death metal by way of Lovecraft, Egyptology, and Cecil B. DeMille certainly qualifies. These days, Nile’s mixture of crushing, technically adept death metal, Middle Eastern sounds, and immense cinematic storytelling has become not only accepted but imitated (and Nile themselves sound, on occasion, a little tired with their formula, their last did nothing for me) but anyone who heard the near 12 minute Unas, Slayer of the Gods back in 2002 had their mind blown. One of the most ambitious death metal albums ever.

37. Symphony X-The Divine Wings Of Tragedy

Released: Sometime in 1997 because Allmusic is being an ass about this
Produced by: Steve Evetts and Eric Rachel

Track Listing:

1. Of Sins and Shadows   4:58
2. Sea of Lies 4:18
3. Out of the Ashes 3:40
4. The Accolade 9:51
5. Pharaoh 5:28
6. The Eyes of Medusa 5:26
7. The Witching Hour 4:15
8. The Divine Wings of Tragedy 20:42
9. Candlelight Fantasia 6:45

I’ll always be fond of Symphony X for their being one of my gateway bands to the wider world of progressive metal beyond the more obvious suspects of Dream Theater and Fates Warning. I remember paying outrageous import prices for both Twilight In Olympus and this, my favorite Symphony X album. Divine Wings balances all of the various sides of Symphony X-the neo-classical metal, the progressive flair, the symphonic-perfectly, and while I will always say that Symphony X’s evolution into a more overtly metallic band isn’t as sudden and cut and dried as people think, I understand perfectly why people turned off by the last two would want them to go back to this album as an influence, it’s a masterpiece.

36. Kansas-Leftoverture

Released: October 1976
Produced by: Jeff Glixman and Kansas
Track Listing:
1. Carry On Wayward Son 5:23
2. The Wall    4:51
3. What's On My Mind    3:28
4. Miracles Out of Nowhere 6:28
5. Opus Insert 4:30
6. Questions of My Childhood   3:40
7. Cheyenne Anthem 6:55
8. Magnum Opus 8:25

Oh, 1976. You’ll be seeing that year a few more times as this list progresses towards the top, not shocking given the sheer number of stellar releases rock and roll saw in my favorite year of music ever. Kansas is frequently cited as being pretty much the only American progressive rock band, which is, of course, untrue-they were merely the most successful one. Leftoverture saw the band blend its mixture of straight up, bar band rock and lofty progressive ambition into a precise, compact, hard hitting album where no song, not even the sprawling eight minutes of Magnum Opus, overstays its welcome. The joys in this album aren’t the songs everyone knows, it’s underrated to forgotten tracks like Miracles Out of Nowhere and the haunting Cheyenne Anthem. Another timeless album.


35. Atheist-Unquestionable Presence

Released: August 30, 1991
Produced by: Scott Burns

Track Listing:

1. Mother Man   4:34
2. Unquestionable Presence 4:07
3. Your Life's Retribution 3:17
4. Enthralled in Essence    3:38
5. An Incarnation's Dream 4:53
6. The Formative Years    3:30
7. Brains 3:41
8. And the Psychic Saw 4:45

1991 was a good year for the growth of death metal, which itself was relatively in its infancy. It saw in October the release of Death’s Human (spoiler: you will be seeing that album a little later on this list) but it saw as well, a few months earlier, the release of Atheist’s Unquestionable Presence. An album fueled by tragedy-the death of bassist Roger Patterson in a car crash after writing the amazing bass lines that run through this album, which were played by Tony Choy-as much as it was fueled by innovation, Atheist threw virtually everything at the wall. Crazy, off kilter time changes, jazz influences, the whole nine yards, thirty-two minutes of some of the most exciting, technical, progressive music ever. Look, if you haven’t heard it, stop reading this and go find a way to hear it. Trust me. It’s that good.

[bl5150]

No idea about Atheist or Nile but the SX and Kansas are both favourites of mine.

[jingle.boy]

^ What he said.  1976 was indeed a great year for music (but not as good as 1971 IMO).

[KevShmev]

1976 was the best year for music, and Leftoverture is arguably the best record from it.

[jingle.boy]

1976 was the best year for music, and Leftoverture is arguably the best record from it.

OpinionsShmopinions

[wolfking]

I have a couple of Nile albums, they are awesome, great band.

Athiest too I love and that album indeed is killer.

Kansas is good but not too familiar and of SX are amazing.

[Jaq]

1976 was the best year for music, and Leftoverture is arguably the best record from it.

My rough draft list of albums had something like fifteen from 1976. It's that good a year.

Athiest too I love and that album indeed is killer.

Atheist fans represent. I got into them with the Relapse re-issues and was stunned by how good they were in comparison to the scene I remembered from back then.

[Jaq]

And here we go again, after a little time off for sheer laziness. A very obvious choice, a couple of somewhat obvious ones, and one that may be a bit left field for some:

34. Cynic-Focus

Released: September 14, 1993
Produced by: Scott Burns and Cynic

Track Listing:
 1. Veil of Maya 5:23
 2. Celestial Voyage 3:40
 3. The Eagle Nature 3:30
 4. Sentiment 4:23
 5. I'm But a Wave to... 5:30
 6. Uroboric Forms 3:32
 7. Textures 4:42
 8. How Could I 5:29

Oh look, another seminal release in the field of technical death metal. Although, unlike some, I am less than shocked that Cynic went on to remove the death metal trappings of the band-compared to their more straight up death metal demos, Focus already found the band using death metal as one of the flavors the band used in their mix of progressive music and jazz-fusion, rather than being the, pardon the pun, focus. Focus didn’t sound like anything else out there when it came out, and it barely sounds like anything that followed it-few bands tried to overtly imitate Cynic in the aftermath of Focus, though many did grab onto the fusion influences (I’m thinking 90s Pestilence here.) My enduring memory of this album is how the CD stayed on the shelf of a local FYE for years, until I decided to buy it only to find it finally gone. I think it lasted four years before it disappeared.

33. Mastodon-Leviathan.

Released: August 31, 2004
Produced by: Matt Bayles and Mastodon

Track Listing:

1. Blood and Thunder 3:48
2. I Am Ahab 2:45
3.  Seabeast 4:15
4. Ísland 3:26
5.  Iron Tusk 3:03
6.  Megalodon 4:22
7. Naked Burn 3:42
8. Aqua Dementia 4:10
9. Hearts Alive 13:39
10. Joseph Merrick 3:33

Rarely, if ever, has an album title been more appropriate. Leviathan, Mastodon’s second full length album, saw the band begin to move away from the more frantic direction that their debut EP and the crushing Remission had for a more focused, more progressive and yet immense sound. The band hasn’t quite dialed back the insanity to the point they would on later albums, but the music is more precise and works more on a balance of shades, such as the epic Hearts Alive, which veers from calm and quiet to the colossal riff that the sound ends on (and which remains to this day my favorite Mastodon track.) Mastodon was briefly my favorite band on the strength of Leviathan, though shortly after that I basically stopped having a favorite. Classic album.

32. Blue Oyster Cult-Secret Treaties

Released: April 1974
Produced by: Murray Krugman and Sandy Pearlman

Track Listing:

1. Career of Evil 3:59
2. Subhuman 4:39
3. Dominance and Submission 5:23
4. ME 262 4:48
5. Cagey Cretins 3:16
6. Harvester of Eyes 4:42
7. Flaming Telepaths 5:20
8. Astronomy 6:28

Blue Oyster Cult are known mainly these days for a couple of radio friendly singles in (Don’t Fear) The Reaper and Burnin’ For You (if they’re even known for the latter these days) and maybe for being the band that did the song about Godzilla. They’re a safe classic rock band. And anyone who has heard Secret Treaties knows that BOC is about as far from safe as you can get. BOC at their best fueled high octane straight up rock via the MC5 and Steppenwolf with a downright bizarre lyrical sense. Blue Oyster Cult didn’t sing about sex and drugs and rock and roll, they sang about piloting German jet fighters and bizarre alien conspiracies and seemed to be a rock band from the Twilight Zone. Anything who thinks they know BOC and haven’t heard Secret Treaties needs to hear it and find out just how little they really know about BOC.

31. Metallica-Ride The Lightning

Released: July 27, 1984
Produced by: Fleming Rassmusen and Metallica

Track Listing:

1. Fight Fire with Fire 4:45
2. Ride the Lightning 6:36
3. For Whom the Bell Tolls 5:09
4. Fade to Black   6:57
5. Trapped Under Ice 4:04
6. Escape 4:23
7. Creeping Death 6:36
8. The Call of Ktulu 8:53

I remember it well. It was the fall of 1984. I was a young metal head, favorite band Iron Maiden, living in suburban Virginia, where there was one local record store that had import albums in their metal section (and oddly, had Marillion albums in that section, go figure) which meant that I had some knowledge of the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal. I knew about Diamond Head and Angel Witch and I actually owned Venom’s At War With Satan. But oddly enough, the earliest releases of the thrash metal movement slipped right by that record store, which means it wasn’t until that fall night in 1984, on a local radio station’s midnight metal show, that I heard a song, a song that began with the most crushingly HEAVY riff I had ever heard, a “what the fuck is this?” moment as the song pounded its mid-tempo way to conclusion. The DJ then said something that changed my life as a fan of heavy metal. “And that was For Whom The Bell Tolls by Metallica.” I fucking HAD to have this album, and a few weeks later, it finally wound up at my local record store. Bought it, took it home, and had my head punched off by the sheer speed, velocity, and volume of it. While I was far more conversant than most with the metal underground, Ride the Lightning dragged me fully into it, and it deserves its rating for that if nothing else. The fact that it is also a load of amazing riffs and songs and just classic after classic doesn’t hurt it either.

Coming up, the top 30!

[Big Hath]

never heard Cynic, but the Mastodon and Metallica albums are stellar.  I think the only song I've heard on that BOC album is Astronomy, but it is a great one.  I should probably check out the whole thing sometime.

[King Postwhore]

My friends and I, (3 of us) got as graduation presents to go to Ft. Lauderdale for the week.  We played Dominance and Submission every night before we hit the town as our theme song.  We were nerds.

[Jaq]

My friends and I, (3 of us) got as graduation presents to go to Ft. Lauderdale for the week.  We played Dominance and Submission every night before we hit the town as our theme song.  We were nerds.

 

[Podaar]

Ah, Secret Treaties. Probably not surprisingly, I have a million memories associated with this album, BoC and Tyranny and Mvtation.

One that's probably the most relevant to this discussion is I was cleaning my bedroom on a Saturday morning and I had my Garrard turntable, Yamaha amplifier and JBL Studio Monitors blasting out Secret Treaties. I wanted to keep my energy up and annoy my Mother some too. I was singing along at full throat with Career of Evil and when I got this lyric I'd like your blue eyed horseshoe, I'd like your emerald horny toad, I'd like to do it to your daughter on a dirt road. 

Mom burst in the bedroom (she had to be listening at the door) and told me to go outside. I could, finish up later.

[Tom Bombadil]

Leviathan and Ride the Lightning are awesome!

[wolfking]

Jesus, this could be the best top 50 yet.  Focus, Lightning, Leviathan 

[bl5150]

I was up with pretty much everything to this point but I've dropped off the bandwagon a little bit here    I've only dabbled in Mastodon and Cynic but neither seem to be up my alley .   

BOC I need to check out - having said that I've noticed the further back into the 70's I go the less I tend to like.

Ride The Lightning  - I can relate to what you say there but for me it was Master of Puppets.  I'm guessing I'm a touch younger ).......I was 10yo when RTL was released so just a tad before I was really into metal.

[KevShmev]

B.O.C. is great, and Secret Treaties is one of their very best.

[CrimsonSunrise]

Agreed... great to see some BOC!! 

[Jaq]

Plan on picking this up tomorrow or so-the sun is out here for the first time all week so I'm going to go observe, indirectly, this glowing yellow orb in the sky-and will crank it up to five entries per post, in the hopes of getting done sometime before 2015. Thanks to all who have followed so far.

[Jaq]

And we're back to work, with a couple of non-metal albums, a couple of classic metal albums, and an underrated as hell prog metal album:

30. Power of Omens-Rooms of Anguish

Released: February 2003
Produced by: Power of Omens

Track Listing:
1. Welcome to My World 2:26     
2. With These Words 6:15     
3. My Best to Be... 7:14     
4. A Toast to Mankind    7:33     
5. As Winter Falls 8:32
6. The Calm Before the Storm 6:30
7. In the End 20:15
8. Only a Dream 06:00     
9. Rooms of Anguish 10:57

Oh, this album. This album. Power of Omens only released two albums in their career. Both were excellent, neither were on anything remotely approaching a small label, let alone one of the major prog labels like Inside Out. And both were bloody fantastic. Rooms of Anguish is one of the most criminally underrated progressive metal albums ever. To a certain extent I can understand why-Power of Omens played progressive metal with the sort of precision and stop start changes that marks more technical metal, and the drumming is essentially one long series of fills (even I on occasion will say “HIT THE SNARE ON THE DOWNBEAT!” while listening to it)-but if you like demanding progressive metal, give this a listen. In that alternate universe where the Michael Schenker Group ruled the early 80s, I like to think that Power of Omens survived and went on to do the first Prog Nation tour. This album is actually not that hard to get these days-there’s a few sellers on Amazon selling it, and tracks off it are on Youtube-so I can’t express it enough: if you like prog metal, at least TRY it.


29. Pink Floyd-A Momentary Lapse Of Reason.

Released: September 7, 1987
Produced by: Bob Ezrin and David Gilmour

Track Listing:
1. Signs of Life 4:24
2. Learning to Fly 4:53
3. The Dogs of War 6:05
4. One Slip 5:10
5. On the Turning Away    5:42
6. Yet Another Movie / Round and Around 7:28
7. A New Machine (Part 1) 1:46
8. Terminal Frost 6:17
9. A New Machine (Part 2) :38
10. Sorrow 8:46

Bob Ezrin, beyond the shadow of a doubt, is my favorite producer ever. From Alice Cooper to Kiss to Peter Gabriel’s debut solo album to, of course, Pink Floyd, everything he produced sounded otherworldly for the time frame. Hell, I proudly own Kiss’ Music From The Elder (which came in around number 65 on my list) mainly because Ezrin produced it, and the only reason I ever heard a note of music by Lee Aaron is because Ezrin produced a track on her third album. I like Bob Ezrin. So when I heard that David Gilmour was going to soldier on without Roger Waters with Pink Floyd, with Ezrin producing, I wasn’t 100% dismissive of it. (I was probably 65% dismissive. The other 35% was “eh, Ezrin is there, and he did Gilmour’s last solo album and I liked it a lot”.) Boy, did I turn out to be wrong. Even if you don’t judge it as a Pink Floyd album and compare it to Gilmour’s previous solo effort About Face, A Momentary Lapse of Reason was a triumphant, amazing album, a quantum leap forward for Gilmour and his collaborators. And while these days it sounds 80s dated, in 1987 it sounded IMMENSE. Cinematic, in fact, which is why, in consideration of the time it was released, this album has my favorite production ever. Bob Ezrin, man, what can I say?

28. Marillion-Afraid of Sunlight

Released: June 24, 1995
Produced by Marillion and Dave Meegan

Track Listing:
 1. Gazpacho 7:28
 2. Cannibal Surf Babe 5:25
 3. Beautiful 5:12
 4. Afraid of Sunrise 5:01
 5. Out of This World 7:54
 6. Afraid of Sunlight 6:49
 7. Beyond You 6:10
 8. King 7:03

Marillion spent the early 90’s basically finding themselves. Season’s End was basically Steve Hogarth welded to songs the band wrote with Fish before his departure, Holidays In Eden was a bit of a turn towards more glossy pop-rock, and Brave was a sprawling, massive full on concept album…that sank basically without a trace. I submit to you that the band didn’t really figure out who they were with Steve Hogarth, and more importantly, who they were going to be for the rest of their careers, until Afraid of Sunlight. Afraid of Sunlight’s eight musing on celebrity and fame featured the band cutting away at the excesses of prog rock while managing to remain interesting and complex at the same time. Every song does its job-yes, even the oddity of Cannibal Surf Babe, which won the title of oddest Marillion song title until Built In Bastard Radar came along a few years later. The best way I can describe this album is, it’s precise. It isn’t overthought and overwritten like Brave was, and it’s not overly commercial as Holidays In Eden. It’s honestly who Marillion was at the time.

27. Death-Human

Released: October 22, 1991
Produced by: Scott Burns and Chuck Schuldiner

Track Listing:
1. Flattening of Emotions 4:28
2. Suicide Machine 4:23
3. Together as One 4:10
4. Secret Face 4:39
5. Lack of Comprehension 3:43
6. See Through Dreams   4:39
7. Cosmic Sea 4:27
8. Vacant Planets 3:52

All right, let’s face it: a list with both Unquestionable Presence and Focus on it simply had to have a Death album on it, didn’t it? Death metal was still a fairly young genre when Atheist, and then Death, turned it on its head. The first thing you have to say about Human is: that fucking line up. Chuck Schuldiner, Paul Masvidal, Steve DiGiorgio, and Sean Reinert? I say goddamn. Then you take that frankly superhuman line up and marry it to the technically demanding, complex songwriting that Schuldiner delivered and you have not just one of the best death metal albums ever, you have one of the best metal albums period. While Death went on to create masterpiece after masterpiece (and this album’s predecessor, Spiritual Healing, is pretty damn good), Human remains my favorite album by Death for its ambition and for how hard it smacked me upside my head in 1991.

26. Iron Maiden-The Number of the Beast

Released: March 22, 1982
Produced by: Martin Birch

Track Listing:
1. Invaders 3:24
2. Children of the Damned 4:35
3. The Prisoner    6:03
4. 22 Acacia Avenue 6:37
5. The Number of the Beast 4:51
6. Run to the Hills 3:54
7. Gangland 3:49
8. Hallowed Be Thy Name 7:12

Do I have to talk about this one? Really? Okay, fine, here it is, The Number of the Beast. You all likely know OF it, even if you haven’t listened to it. It’s the album where Iron Maiden went from up and comer to already here, at least in America. It’s when Bruce Dickinson arrived and when the songwriting moved away from the more frantic, punkish direction of the Di’Anno days towards the more complex work the band would have in later years. It’s not quite perfect-Invaders is kind of messy, and Gangland is dull-but the rest of Number of the Beast is classic. Here’s a story (not that kind, Kev) about the time this album came out. One leg of Judas Priest’s tour for Screaming For Vengeance had as the opener-Iron Maiden. There was a local date scheduled here. I was going to go. It was going to be my first concert. AND IT GOT POSTPONED. And when Priest did come around, the opener was Heaven and I wound up not going. Of course, the next year I got to see Maiden headlining on the Piece of Mind tour, but still. What a fucking first concert Priest and Maiden would have been! (My first concert, by the by, was Def Leppard, Krokus, and Gary Moore. Not too shabby, but not Priest and Maiden.)

Next, we start working on the top half!

[Dark Castle]

Nice update, great to see Death there 

But as a heads up, Spiritual Healing was the album before Human, Individual Thought Patterns was the following album. I'd also argue Death were really the first to turn the scene up on it's head, partially because they were there before Atheist.

[Jaq]

Didn't I say Spirtual Healing was the predecessor to Human?  Whatever, that's what I meant. I have all three albums, including Individual Thought Patterns.  Killer run, there.

[Dr. DTVT]

As I think you are aware of, I am more a fan of Eyes of the Oracle - but really any Power of Omens album is a good one.  Rooms of Anguish does seem to be the more affordable of the two.  That one seems to command about $20, whereas Eyes seems to go for between $75 and $100.

[Jaq]

I paid like $35 for Eyes of the Oracle ten years ago, so I can't say I am shocked its commanding that much. And I love both albums, Rooms of Anguish just feels more...together? They're both amazing at any rate