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General => Archive => General Music Archives => Topic started by: Crow on August 14, 2015, 01:11:46 PM
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I want to do one of these real quick before my roulette starts up, whoops :lol
I have 50 albums but they're only vaguely ordered and I don't have time to listen to them all so take the numbers with a grain of salt, I already moved up one album like 20 slots on a whim after my initial ranking and stuff so.
First post coming in a minute, I'm probably just gonna do 3 or so albums a day and this'll be done pretty fast.
also yeah the write-ups probably won't be that long because they're spur-of-the-moment and I don't have organized thoughts whoops
EDIT: Now that I'm done here's the masterpost of the list!
1. Pain of Salvation - The Perfect Element I
2. Oceansize - Frames
3. Thrice - Beggars
4. Dream Theater - Awake
5. Riverside - Anno Domini High Definition
6. Sigur Rós - ()
7. Pain of Salvation - Remedy Lane
8. Mew - Frengers
9. Opeth - Ghost Reveries
10. Haken - The Mountain
11. Thank You Scientist - Maps of Non-Existent Places
12. Caligula's Horse - The Tide, The Thief, And River's End
13. Casualties of Cool - Casualties of Cool
14. Isis - Panopticon
15. Thrice - Vhiessu
16. Ayreon - The Human Equation
17. Oceansize - Music For Nurses
18. Pain of Salvation - Entropia
19. fun. - Aim and Ignite
20. Mew - And The Glass Handed Kites
21. Porcupine Tree - Deadwing
22. Devin Townsend - Ocean Machine: Biomech
23. Green Carnation - Light of Day, Day of Darkness
24. Coheed and Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
25. Tool - Lateralus
26. Dream Theater - Images and Words
27. Oceansize - Effloresce
28. Devin Townsend Project - Deconstruction
29. Protest the Hero - Kezia
30. Protest the Hero - Scurrilous
31. Leprous - The Congregation
32. Dream Theater - Scenes From a Memory
33. Between the Buried and Me - The Great Misdirect
34. Devin Townsend - Terria
35. Pain of Salvation - BE
36. The Mars Volta - De-Loused In The Comatorium
37. Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
38. Being - Anthropocene
39. Kamelot - The Black Halo
40. Devin Townsend - Ziltoid The Omniscient
41. Caligula's Horse - Moments From Ephemeral City
42. Mono - Hymn to the Immortal Wind
43. Bodies of Water - A Certain Feeling
44. Lorde - Pure Heroine
45. TesseracT - Altered State
46. Gregor Samsa - 55:12
47. Oceansize - Everyone Into Position
48. Sigur Rós - Ágćtis Byrjun
49. Fates Warning - A Pleasant Shade of Gray
50. Between the Buried and Me - Colors
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A minute?
60-59-58....
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(https://s4.postimg.org/3vht1wub1/37f1ed0e42.jpg)
#50: Between the Buried and Me - Colors
Full disclosure, when I first tried listening to this album, I absolutely hated it. I'd listened to some Opeth at that point and wasn't really turned off by the growls (though nobody can do them as well as Akerfeldt) but the heaviness of the opening tracks was just a turn-off for me at the time, I stopped listening after Sun of Nothing.
Obviously, I gave the album another chance since then, and have grown to enjoy it a lot. The heaviness works most of the time and there's enough melodic sections and breaks from the heaviness to keep it from getting overwhelming. Some of the sections in these songs are probably my favorite sections in any BTBAM songs - the entire last four minutes or so of Sun of Nothing being the biggest highlight for me, though Viridian and the instrumental ending of White Walls come close. I think what holds this album back from being one of my absolute favorites is that sometimes it seems a little filler-y to me. I could do without the entirety of Decade of Statues, and parts of pretty much every other song above 3 minutes in length feel like they could've been cut out to make a more cohesive, engaging listen. There's definitely a lot more to enjoy than not, though, and I still come back to this album every once in a while because it's just a damn solid progressive metal record.
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Growls=TAC out!
But will follow...unless there's too many growls! ;D
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One of the best prog albums of the century so far.
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Growls=TAC out!
But will follow...unless there's too many growls! ;D
i don't listen to very many bands with growls, you'll be fine :lol
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One of the best prog albums of the century so far.
Fucking this.
Also, hated Colors on first listen - I wasn't into harsh vocals at the time. But now I don't care about cookie monsters and such, so relistened to it early this year, and loved it.
Following.
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Colors should be much higher!
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Great entry. I'm not the biggest fan of BTBAM but I heard this album and it's awesome. (I really need to hear their other albums. )
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god knows I feel Colors is pretty low on this list too but it turns out there's a lot of albums I'd rate pretty highly, and this is just one of the least so :lol
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SUch an incredible album.
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Following. Gave Colors a spin once and it didn't click. I definitely should try it again.
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(https://s18.postimg.org/b9p7oswt5/12cb3e2c0fca8ff92d5bff36012edfec_full.jpg)
#49: Fates Warning - A Pleasant Shade of Gray
Ahh, a classic 80's prog metal album right here.
Yes, I know. But there's very little here to suggest this album came out in 1997, not 1987. And that may be why this album doesn't rate higher for me, but there's still a distinct 80's sound to this album that isn't quite my favorite, but looking past that, this is a very great suite of songs that's enjoyable from start to finish. There's a few recurring bits throughout the 12 tracks that make it feel more cohesive, but each song still has an identity of its own that keeps me interested all the way through.
Fates Warning was never and still isn't really a band that I've ever been a huge fan of, and the only album from them I have other than this is Perfect Symmetry, which is alright but too 80's for me to really get into. This album, on the other hand, just works for me. I wouldn't say it's the most memorable but it's definitely got its own unique sound and enough to keep me coming back for more. Granted, I haven't listened to this album much in recent years and had to peek through the tracks to remember which is which for doing this writeup. The only track here that really stands out is Part VI with its awesome bass groove and climactic chorus, but that speaks more to the consistency of the record than anything else - every song is great and the album is all the better for it.
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You lost me with growls but won me back with Fates Warning
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there's only 5 albums on my list that prominently feature growls jesus christ guys :lol
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there's only 5 albums on my list that prominently feature growls jesus christ guys :lol
Alright top 45 then lol
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More growls please.
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You won me with Colors but lost me with Fates Warning
FTFM.
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(https://s11.postimg.org/qb2iwniyb/Sigur_Ros_agaetis_byrjun.jpg)
#48: Sigur Rós - Ágćtis Byrjun
Yeah, we're going from BTBAM to Sigur Rós within the span of two spots, it's that kind of list.
Sigur Rós is a band I do love a lot, before them I'd heard some GY!BE but I was never really that sold on post-rock until I heard this album for the first time. It's a lovely collection of very laid-back yet very diverse songs that just gives off a bright and relaxing vibe and I can't help but be happy listening to it. Jónsi's voice is fantastic for the kind of music, even though I'd have no clue what he was saying if I didn't look up the lyrics (and even then, some of them are just pure gibberish) but they work more as an instrument in themselves than as vocals overlaying on top of music. It's a little ironic that some of the lyrics are actually pretty dark, too. (Seriously, it should be illegal for Ný Batterí to sound so pretty yet be so dark in its imagery.)
Some songs definitely reign stronger than others for me here, and the lack of consistency is why I wouldn't rate it any higher, but songs like Starálfur, Ný Batterí, and especially Viđrar Vel Til Loftárása line up with the best songs the band has ever put out, and I never really get tired of them. Sigur Rós is also a band I tend to use frequently as sleeping music and this album definitely helps in that regard, but it's a great album to listen to under normal circumstances as well and I'd highly recommend it to both anyone not sold on post-rock and fans of the genre who somehow have never heard it before, alike.
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Following.
Colors is plain awesome, it took sometime to click - but it did.
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Great Fates Warning album.
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Some great picks right off the bat. Following.
Also, I find it amusing that Agaetis Byrjun is happy listening for you, but I see it as a very melancholic experience of a record. :lol But that polarizing reaction is something that doesn't surprise me in the least when it comes to Sigur Ros.
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Great album, and even if I prefer ( ) a bit more, can't go wrong with either.
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(https://s2.postimg.org/r2jmfmf49/Oceansize_Everyone_Into_Pos_336274.jpg)
#47: Oceansize - Everyone Into Position
It's no secret that I like Oceansize, a lot, and trust me, this won't be the last time they appear on this list. I'd say that Everyone Into Position is one of their weaker releases, but that would give off the impression that it's not so good, which isn't true. It's very good. The defining feature of this album is how straightforward it is compared to other Oceansize albums, but since it's Oceansize the straightforwardness of the album works for them, not against them. Heaven Alive, Meredith, New Pin, all of these are distinctly Oceansize while also being pretty straightforward and accessible, and there's nothing wrong with that. A Homage to a Shame and You Can't Keep A Bad Man Down are the only two heavier songs this time around, the former being pretty uptempo and the latter being pretty sluggish and epic, and both help to keep the variety of the album high.
There's this thing about Oceansize albums, though, where the seventh song always seems to have to be weaker than the rest, with only one of their albums being the exception to this rule, and here the song is No Tomorrow. I don't hate this song, no, but I find it less interesting than the rest of the album. In contrast, the high points are definitely the post-rock influenced tracks, A Music for a Nurse and Ornament/The Last Wrongs. I always love when Oceansize uses post-rock elements and both these tracks use them very well, with the latter being just plain epic because of it.
I could go on and on all day about how awesome Oceansize is but I had more writeups for doing that, so we'll call this one for now.
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there's only 5 albums on my list that prominently feature growls jesus christ guys :lol
Alright top 45 then lol
:rollin
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Nope, lost me again.
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Following.
Colors is a masterpiece, and nice to see Sigur Ros and Oceansize in there. Never really listened to Fates Warning.
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(https://s1.postimg.org/bu5vno8jj/419_YYG9_D09_L.jpg)
#46: Gregor Samsa - 55:12
Melancholy is definitely the word for this post-rock album, at times it has a bright sound but there's always an air of sadness to the melodies and vocals. The two vocalists on this album provide a good contrast, one deeper male voice and the higher, almost child-like female voice, and both are used to good effect.
Mostly though, this album is one of those "experience" albums, which there are a fair few of on this list. I put this on and listen to it, paying no mind to song titles or even the fact that it's anything other than one string of music (as a fair few of the songs do flow into each other). It's also an album that I have a hard time saying much about as a result. I could praise all the separate elements, the wonderful soundscapes, the instrumentation, the way the songs create such a feeling of emptiness while still being quite full. But I'd have a hard time saying why I like it so much that way.
Suffice to say, it's just a really beautiful post-rock record that I'd recommend to any fan of the genre.
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the very next album on the list is going to have as pitiful as a writeup too because it's another one of those "experience" albums, sorry about that :lol
there's also like, only 5 of those on my list, so i'll only have 5 really bad writeups, probably
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(https://s1.postimg.org/cgmgnq0fz/Tesserac_T_Altered_State.jpg)
#45: TesseracT - Altered State
When I first got this album, I thought it was pretty cool, but I didn't really dig it that much, and I eventually left it to the side when newer albums came out, never exploring it that deeply. But I still listened to it occasionally, and at some point it just clicked.
Not that I could tell you what most of the songs sound like, even still. It clicked in a different way, in a way where listening to the songs on their own don't do much for me but listening to the entire album is a very enjoyable experience, a well-crafted progressive metal/djent record with some post-rock influence in places and a generally less-heavy sound than standard djent stuff. It's the kind of record that made me go from mildly interested in the genre to really wanting to find a lot of stuff like it, because it's all done so well here. There's a lot of great rhythms they play around with and a lot of good melodies, some nice vocals and some sweet sax solos near the end too. The album is divided into four movements, which are kind of supposed to be songs I guess but two of the movements have abrupt stops in them that make me reject them being "songs". Not that it matters much in the end. I can't really pick out any track on this album that I like the best, it's consistent and enjoyable the whole way through.
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That Gregor Samsa album is quite good. Agaetis Byrjun is also a classic. :tup
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Gregor Samsa :tup
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Altered Stated rocks :metal
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(https://s12.postimg.org/s5326e87h/Lorde2.jpg)
#44: Lorde - Pure Heroine
I don't really listen to the radio, and I don't listen to much pop. But this is the kind of album that kinda makes me wish I did... though I tend to catch all of the good pop tracks, anyways. The first song I heard from this album was actually Tennis Court, which I didn't like much, and still don't think is that great. Something about the production. But the rest is all great.
It's minimalistic, dark pop music with a much different voice than you'd tend to hear in a lot of big pop hits. It's a very quiet album, and it works. Royals and Team are the two big hits from this album, and while I do like Royals I think Team is far better, one of the best of the album. I'd also be remiss to not mention Buzzcut Season and A World Alone, two more great tracks that I've listened to a ton. There's nothing here that I really dislike, though.
The extended version of the album has 6 more songs added to the album, and... ehh. They're a mixed bag. Bravado is fantastic, and Swingin' Party is a nice cover, but I don't like Million Dollar Bills or Biting Down much at all, I can see why they'd be left off the album.
I don't think this album is going to convince non-pop fans to give pop a chance, but I do consider it a really good album on the whole and one I always enjoy listening to.
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Royals and Team were two of the best pop songs I've heard last year. So yeah, good choice :tup I need to explore though.
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I do like some pop, but more towards the Art-pop side. So you lost me again. :corn
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what if I never wanted you to begin with :loser:
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I just ordered this album, actually, as part of the first round of purchases from my roulette. I really liked Buzzcut Season (which, in case anyone is wondering, Parama sent me in said roulette) a lot. I'll let you know what I think of it!
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unfortunately i did send you the best song, but that's not to say the others aren't great stuff :lol
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damn you for sending the best song in the competition where you have to try to send the best song :lol
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I do like some pop, but more towards the Art-pop side. So you lost me again. :corn
Lorde is art pop. Definitely not regular pop, anyway.
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I'll have to give her a try then.
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(https://s27.postimg.org/lcii6wvcz/51jx_Vcca_Le_L.jpg)
#43: Bodies of Water - A Certain Feeling
At the intersection of 70's prog, indie rock, and folk, we get Bodies of Water. This album is certainly interesting and diverse. Under the Pines is a song I've sent a ton in roulettes and it's generally received a positive response, and it's my personal favorite off the album as well I'd say, though there's really a lot to love here. It's hard to talk about this album without diving into each of the songs, since every one does something different and unique. Gold, Tan, Peach, and Grey is the intro track, building up slowly to its huge chorus, with a lot of great rock between choruses that keep my attention. Only You is a downtempo folk rock song that serves as a nice cooldown from the first two high-energy tracks. Water Here sounds more like russian folk rock than anything else to me, with a slow first half and faster second half. Keep Me On is the true ballad track of the album, getting pretty big by the end with a nice guitar solo and group vocals. Darling, Be Here is a very 70's-sounding song with a lot of guitar and a cool jam section in the middle. Even In A Cave is... an odd beast, for sure, with a very slow and plodding first half, and an instrumental, proggy jam in the second half. If I Were A Bell tricks you with a slow intro before turning into another very 70's track, with a really extended groove throughout half the song that I just plain love. The Mud Gapes Open is a brief closer, ending on a weirdly dark but at the same time bright tone.
I really have a hard time giving a general feel for this album because it's so diverse but every song works for me and I always enjoy relistening to it. Their first album didn't do much for me and I haven't checked out their third but I probably should at some point since this is a very interesting band that I'd love to hear more from.
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Fates Warning is the only album I can comment on so far.........I enjoy it and I have said before that one of the things that really stands out for me is Zonder's drumming (and I rarely rave over drumming :lol)
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I'm lost after Fates and BTBAM.
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i promise we'll get back to prog metal eventually :rollin
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By the way, Gregor Samsa is nestled somewhere on my priority list, which means I may get around to it sometime in the next decade, and Agaetis Byrgun is an awesome album, and has some of the best SR songs on it, though I prefer a few of their albums to it.
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By the way, Gregor Samsa is nestled somewhere on my priority list, which means I may get around to it sometime in the next decade, and Agaetis Byrgun is an awesome album, and has some of the best SR songs on it, though I prefer a few of their albums to it.
Come on, can't be that long :P
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only know FW at this point
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By the way, Gregor Samsa is nestled somewhere on my priority list, which means I may get around to it sometime in the next decade, and Agaetis Byrgun is an awesome album, and has some of the best SR songs on it, though I prefer a few of their albums to it.
Come on, can't be that long :P
That was meant in some degree of jest, but you’d be surprised. I don’t hurry myself, and I’m stretched fairly thin. I often find myself checking out a band many years after originally bookmarking them.
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By the way, Gregor Samsa is nestled somewhere on my priority list, which means I may get around to it sometime in the next decade, and Agaetis Byrgun is an awesome album, and has some of the best SR songs on it, though I prefer a few of their albums to it.
Come on, can't be that long :P
That was meant in some degree of jest, but you’d be surprised. I don’t hurry myself, and I’m stretched fairly thin. I often find myself checking out a band many years after originally bookmarking them.
So you have a written list or something? Just curious.
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(https://www.sputnikmusic.com/images/albums/34657.jpg)
#42: Mono - Hymn to the Immortal Wind
Another one of those albums that I just let flow as I listen to it. A brilliant post-rock album, with heavy orchestration and a big wall of sound. It's just simply beautiful. Ashes in the Snow is one of the best post-rock songs there is, and Everlasting Light isn't far behind. Everything inbetween those two is great as well, but I just get lost in it, it's just, really beautiful stuff. I don't think there's much else I can even say about this one. I have a few other Mono albums but this is the one I started with and it's still my favorite, for sure.
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Altered State and Pure Heroine are the only two I'm familiar with so far. Not really top 50 material for me, but good albums.
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:corn
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That Mono album is fantastic. Great pick. :tup
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My favorite post-rock album :tup
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Mono played nearby a few years ago, so I checked out this album. Listening to it again, I get the same impression. Pretty good, but nothing that really floors me.
By the way, Gregor Samsa is nestled somewhere on my priority list, which means I may get around to it sometime in the next decade, and Agaetis Byrgun is an awesome album, and has some of the best SR songs on it, though I prefer a few of their albums to it.
Come on, can't be that long :P
That was meant in some degree of jest, but you’d be surprised. I don’t hurry myself, and I’m stretched fairly thin. I often find myself checking out a band many years after originally bookmarking them.
So you have a written list or something? Just curious.
Yeah, I keep a number of lists as Word documents to help me keep track of stuff I mean to check out.
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(https://s3.postimg.org/5ijitlbg3/1315481272_folder.jpg)
#41: Caligula's Horse - Moments From Ephemeral City
I get to claim hipster cred on this because I was into Caligula's Horse way before anyone else here knew about them, nerds.
This debut really impressed me, and I still come back to listen to it. It's just good progressive metal, though generally on the lighter side of things. Sam Vallen is a very talented guitarist with a knack for writing good hooks and riffs as well as some very pretty quiet parts, and the vocalist of his band can really make those hooks work. The City Has No Empathy has an incredibly good chorus and some fantastic instrumentation under the two big solos, plus a really rockin' outro that goes on for juuuust long enough. Silence is a mostly mellow song with a few louder moments at the start, but the entire song is just a buildup to its fantastic solo section and outro. Singularity is a prog metal instrumental that basically amounts to being one long guitar solo, but a damn good one and it's not like the other instrumentation is week.
The big "epic" of the album is Alone In The World, which is basically just two different songs stuck together, but that's the only really fault I have with it. The first half has quiet verses and louder everything else, with a pretty impressive solo before the transition to the second half, and the second half is mostly quiet except for THAT BLOODY BEAUTIFUL OUTRO SOLO. Seriously, best solo on the album, probably the best solo the band's ever put out, I just love it. After that point come the three songs I don't love as much as the first four, but they're all okay in their own rights - Ephemera is a short ballad with an acoustic solo at the end, Equally Flawed is a pretty standard progressive metal song that does stretch its outro a little long, and Calliope's Son is a more standard progressive metal instrumental with a lot of cool riffs and some good soloing too. If the rest of the album was as strong as the first four tracks this would be far higher on this list, but it's still a great album from a great band.
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not a clue
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not a clue
:lol
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i like this one a bit
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(https://s18.postimg.org/evn2xfz61/514_TUZLMt9_L.jpg)
#40: Devin Townsend - Ziltoid the Omniscient
Considering the survivor I'm running I'm sure some people were waiting for Devin to show up on my list somewhere, well, here's the first of definitely-not-the-last Devin albums on this list.
I like this one a lot because Devin really created a certain sound that's unique to this album, though that could be said about many Devin releases, I'm sure. It's heavy, but not ridiculously so, it's silly, but not over-the-top, and it's got a lot of good melodies too. Some of the tracks on this album line up with the best Devin's ever put out. Solar Winds especially, but I also like By Your Command, Colour Your World, and The Greys a ton, and Planet Smasher and Hyperdrive are pretty great too. I think what keeps this from rating higher is the weaker tracks, Ziltoidia Attaxx!!! and N9. The former is a straight-up heavy song that doesn't really have the most interesting of riffs, and the latter is just really redundant and unnecessary, musically. I don't think either are awful songs though, at the very least.
It's a shame Devin went in a different direction on the follow-up, Dark Matters is far, far too over-the-top to where the story overtakes the music, but here? Great balance of both, and the story starts out pretty silly but delves into more serious themes as the album progresses, who would've thunk it. Not my favorite Devin album but a great one, and considering how many he has...
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I've tried.
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oh my god have you tried
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The first album I have actually heard of on this list. And one that I love quite a bit too. :lol
A lot of people say ZTO is an overrated album but I find it to be one of Devin's best. Definitely beats out Ocean Machine and Terria for me.
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The first album I have actually heard of on this list.
Never heard of Colors :huh:
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The first album I have actually heard of on this list.
Never heard of Colors :huh:
I didn't even know a band called Between the Buried and Me exists.
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you're gonna be pretty pissed that there's no periphery on my list i bet :lol
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Boring.
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I actually really like lists that have bands or albums I haven't heard so that way I find more new music to check out.
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(https://www.metal-archives.com/images/6/4/7/3/64735.jpg?1534)
#39: Kamelot - The Black Halo
I've never really been a power metal fan. A lot of it is really straightforward and sounds the same. How do you make me interested in power metal? Progging it up a little, obviously. This is an album with a good deal of diversity and a strong concept to tie it together, a lot of elements of both prog and power metal that I do like mixed together to provide quite an epic album experience.
March of Mephisto is a fantastic opener for the album, crushingly heavy and dark. Can never get enough of it. Moonlight is another song I get a lot of enjoyment out of, that intro is one of my favorite moments on the album. The Black Halo is my favorite of the more upbeat songs, and Memento Mori is a fantastic epic that's a pleasure to listen to all the way through, and provides a good sense of closure to the story. The rest of the tracks are all pretty strong as well, I don't think there's a weak track here, but they don't stand out as much.
This was an album I spent a few weeks being obsessed with when I first was listening to it, but I still do revisit it occasionally and it hasn't gotten any worse over time. I've also spun Epica a fair few number of times but I don't think it quite matches this album, and I've never been able to get into Kamelot on any other albums, it all just sounds like standard power metal to me. But they made this album, for which I am very grateful.
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:tup
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Magnificent album, my favourite from Kamelot. :tup
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Ziltoid is a cool Devin record, even though I prefer many other albums to it.
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you're gonna be pretty pissed that there's no periphery on my list i bet :lol
Not really. I listen to a lot of bands that I wouldn't place in my top 50. Different strokes for different folks and whatnot. :tup
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I really need to revisit The Black Halo (and Kamelot in general), great album :tup
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While they should be right up my alley, I have never really connected with Kamelot.
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While they should be right up my alley, I have never really connected with Kamelot.
I've checked them out. Not my thing.
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(https://s28.postimg.org/v04mf7pjh/a3486214792_16.jpg)
#38: Being - Anthropocene
This is a fairly recent discovery for me and probably has a bit of a newness buff putting it up this high, we'll see. But yeah, this is basically everything I'd want djent to be more like. The guitar riffs and heaviness serve a purpose here, rather than to just be loud, and the music goes far beyond just djent riffs, it's a lot closer to progressive metal but certainly not like any I've heard. There's also a lot of catchy hooks in the songs that pull me in enough to be able to appreciate what's going on, and a concept running throughout that I admittedly don't 100% understand yet (vaguely, at least).
A few songs I'd point out in particular are DNA, which is pretty diverse and interesting and builds up to a really nice chorus in the second half, Perpetual Groove, which is... yes, what it says on the tin, Sorrow, a really good and unique ballad I quite like, and Air Atlantic, basically the climax of the whole thing, that intro is perfect and the chorus is perfect and I love it. The only questionable decisions I have are the random dubstep in Escape (whyyyyy) and the fact that the album does end with about 8 minutes of symphonic bits reprising earlier parts of the album... maybe it makes sense in context but it goes on far too long. Certainly an album I'll definitely be revisiting more, though.
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What are the vocals like?
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they're clean vocals, mid-range
occasionally growls
like 2000 guest vocalists too
this is the only way spencer sotelo made it on my list :lol
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I'm gonna give the album a listen. It has two Periphery cameos, so it can't be that bad right? :lol
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Gave the songs mentioned a listen, and they felt pretty generic to me :P Guess I just prefer DMM's take on djent.
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i do need to listen to more DMM
after the 6 albums i just got
and the roulette that's coming up almost definitely within a month from now
and the various new releases coming out in the next few months for me
so like, maybe before the end of the year??? :lol
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I feel you'll like ECO a lot, so give it a spin whenever you can - it's not even that long, just 37 mins :lol
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i did listen to it once, i've listened to EGO and Bilo 3 once too but none of them left a huge impact at first listen, though not much does with me anyways so ehh :lol
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Those are all growers at best - it took me some time to get used to David's style, but when it clicked, I fell in love with him :heart
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practically everything is growers for me, music needs a fair few spins to click for me, most of the time
i only worry when i get past the number of spins most stuff tends to click at for me (3-5 is a good number)
'cause at that point if it doesn't click it probably won't ever (re: Coma Ecliptic, on one hand I know it's fine, on the other hand I can't get into it at all, still, something like 10+ spins later)
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(https://creamusic.net/uploads/posts/2012-11/1353065156_1311015638_porcupine-tree-in-absentia.jpg)
#37: Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
What's this band, I'm sure nobody here has ever heard of Porcupine Tree, or Steven Wilson, or -
Yeah. Something people actually know for once, who'd have thought?
For me, this album starts of really strong. Blackest Eyes and Trains are two of the best Porcupine Tree songs, in my opinion, and Lips of Ashes is a very nice softer piece. I've always really liked Gravity Eyelids, too, good quiet bits and a good heavy instrumental in the middle. But it all comes to a screeching halt with Wedding Nails, which, at this point, I can't stand anymore, I actively skip it and I -hate- skipping songs on albums, even if I'm not a huge fan of them. Prodigal is alright, and then .3 is another of my favorites, that bass groove is stellar. Creator is another song I'm not so keen on but it's still listenable. Heartattack In A Layby is probably the darkest and most emotional Porcupine Tree song for me, period, another favorite. And Collapse The Light Into Earth as well, that piano line and the build up and the singing and everything.
This album would be way higher if not for Wedding Nails and Creator. Over half the album is fantastic, with most of the rest being pretty good, but the presence of a song I can't stand and another I'm not very fond of bumps it down a fair bit, unfortunately.
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Anthropocene isn't bad, definitely some really good stuff but it contains a few tracks that I always skip, aswell. It's one of the first djent albums that I came to appreciate though.
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Fantastic, flawless album :hefdaddy . Can't believe Drown With Me didn't make the cut - easily top 3 of the record.
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Not my favorite PT album but it's PT, so that still makes it great.
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Nice choice, although I disagree on Wedding Nails and Creator, they're two of my favorites.
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(https://s10.postimg.org/j3qg9lnd5/deloused.jpg)
#36: The Mars Volta - De-Loused in the Comatorium
The Mars Volta has always been an interesting group. Combining a harder rock sound courtesy of At The Drive-In with spanish folk, jazz, and progressive rock elements, you get... a very unique band, with a tendency for experimentation, LOTS of experimentation. I don't think they ever did it better than their first album, though. The songs here are more tightly written than on Frances the Mute or Amputechture, leaving the 60 minutes here feeling like more than the 75 or so minutes those two albums provide. And... don't get me started on Bedlam, that might top a 50 worst albums list.
It's a very consistent record, to the point where it'd be futile for me to try and point out which songs I like more than others, because I like all of them, a lot. If I had to point to -any- at all, I'd say I like Cicatriz ESP and Televators sliiightly more, but not by much. I've still never been 100% sure on the concept here (which is fair since the lyrics are very... out there, to say the least) but with the vague details I know I kind of get it. I'm here for the music anyways, and while I wish The Mars Volta had continued down a path like this, I can't say I dislike their next two albums, at all, both are pretty good but not quite as good as this one.
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Great album!
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NOOOOOOOOOW I'M LOOOOOOOST
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LOoOOoooOoOooOoooOOOOSSST
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(https://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0000/426/MI0000426638.jpg?partner=allrovi.com)
#35: Pain of Salvation - BE
Another band I hope nobody is surprised to see on my list... yeah, Pain of Salvation are pretty great. This album was probably actually the one that got me into the band, oddly enough, though it's not my favorite from them. The concept is strong and the album and story work together instead of one dominating the other. This is also a more diverse album, incorporating folk, classical, and blues elements along with the rock and metal elements of previous releases (though that isn't to say their previous albums were one-note at all).
The highlights for me are... lengthy. A lot. Pluvius Aestivus is a very pretty piano piece with minor other orchestration that really evokes the feeling of rain well. Lilium Cruentus is a straightforward but strong rock song and the orchestration really makes it work. Dae Pecuniae is absolutely hilarious and awesome and pretty on-point, basically everything Scarsick should've been but wasn't. Nihil Morari is a bass-driven prog metal song that has a ton of great buildup and powerful moments. Latericius Valete is a small instrumental track with a huge dark atmosphere, I absolutely adore it, especially given its role in the story. Omni as well, an organ and vocal piece that is just dark as hell, humanity's dying breath basically. And Iter Impius is a great power ballad, that's all there is to say about it, it's pretty much flawless. I love a lot of this album to death and honestly it's probably a bit low on this list but too late to change it now. Though... looking at the rest of the list and what's above it... it may well just be in its right place, haha. I think this is the point of the list where every album left I'm MADLY IN LOVE WITH so. What keeps it from being higher is that I'm not in love with quite everything, and the story can be a bit overbearing at times, but that doesn't detract too heavily from what is otherwise a great progressive metal album.
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wow nobody cares about PoS, rude
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wow nobody cares about PoS, rude
Exactly.
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Now we're talking, such an incredible album. Perfect description of a concept album, the whole thing is a wonderful journey that keeps you captivated from start to finish, love it.
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(https://www.toiletovhell.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/terria.jpg)
#34: Devin Townsend - Terria
This is one of those albums where there's no weak tracks, at all, but at the same time nothing that really stands out. Just a solid hour and a few of really good metal. Terria has a very full sound and generally a slower one, with crushing riffs and tons of atmosphere and soundscapes. It's a very full but polished album; whereas his previous albums up to this point were either one or the other (Ocean Machine being very polished, but not as full, while Infinity and Physicist being very full, but not as polished) but this was the point where both of these came together to produce an instant classic.
Olives serves as a quiet intro, until it explodes into a wall of sound halfway through, and it makes a very good sample of what's to come. Mountain and Earth Day have a similar structure of crushingly heavy intros and choruses, with more rockin' triplet feels for the verses inbetween, though Mountain's is a bit lighter than the heaviness around it. Deep Peace is probably the highly of the album, a much calmer song with a textured lighter intro that soon turns heavier, with a delicious instrumental section in the middle that I absolutely love. Canada and Nobody's Here are two more similar songs, both take a slower, sluggish approach to the sound of the album. Down And Under is a great upbeat and mostly-instrumental track, where the voices that come in eventually only add to its oddly bright sound for the album. The Fluke is just a straight upbeat rocker that doesn't end up sounding out of place at all and injects some energy into the album that keeps it interesting. Tiny Tears is another sluggish, though more longform song, the climax of the album for sure. Stagnant is a bit more upbeat and brighter with one of the catchiest choruses I've ever heard.
It's hard to really say which songs are the best and worst, and there's really no point to it because the album never loses its pace or quality, delivering a great experience from beginning to end.
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I'll be listening to BE after my roulette. Evermind sent me a track from it that I liked.
I've never heard Terria.
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Iter Impius, right? I'd say that's my favorite by a slim margin but I like a lot of the album and it's best experienced as a whole anyways.
And correct this travesty at once.
i think it's funny because the gap between #38 and #50 isn't that huge, really, but the gap between #35 and #38 is comparatively massive... that's probably the result of how I organized these albums prior to setting rankings in stone :lol
though looking at we entered tier 1C at Ziltoid and won't leave it until entry #30 so maybe my initial tier list was a little flawed, haha... :rollin
(Tier 1 was the MUST INCLUDES, Tier 2 was the MAYBE INCLUDES, and I broke each down into three subcategories; the top 13 tier 1C is basically my "top 10 material for sure" tier, which I couldn't end up restricting to only 10 woops, the next 17 were slightly below top-10 quality but still very damn good, and the next 10 were "definitely including this but I'd never consider it for my top 10" albums. but apparently my top 30 should've been like my top 35 considering the massive cutoff point there :rollin
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Iter Impius, right? I'd say that's my favorite by a slim margin but I like a lot of the album and it's best experienced as a whole anyways.
And correct this travesty at once.
It's one album I refuse to listen to single tracks from. Iter Impius of course does work on its own, but the full thing needs to be appreciated.
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Iter Impius, right? I'd say that's my favorite by a slim margin but I like a lot of the album and it's best experienced as a whole anyways.
And correct this travesty at once.
Yep, that's the one.
As for Devin, Addicted is the top of my list of his albums to listen to, again due to my roulette.
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Iter Impius, right? I'd say that's my favorite by a slim margin but I like a lot of the album and it's best experienced as a whole anyways.
And correct this travesty at once.
Yep, that's the one.
As for Devin, Addicted is the top of my list of his albums to listen to. Again due to my roulette.
go for it, can't complain about Addicted, it'd probably be like, in the 60-70 range somewhere if I did a longer list and it's one of those super-consistent but doesn't set the bar too high records, I still like it a lot though
quick confession also: i somehow mentally switched #34 and #33 in my mind because they're really close so whatever the next album accidentally gained a spot by being basically on the same plane of "really good throughout and sets a pretty high standard to boot" albums OOPS
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Terria :hefdaddy
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I love BE, though to be honest, I love Remedy Lane a lot more.
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Terria is a middle of the pack Devin album for me, but still great to see it come up on the list. I'd put ZTO above it though.
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Terria is a top 10 album.
By Devin
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y'all keep treating every album as if it's the highest an artist made it on my list and it's funny :lol
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(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/9/90/Between_the_Buried_and_Me_-_The_Great_Misdirect_cover.jpg)
#33: Between the Buried and Me - The Great Misdirect
I like Colors, I really do, but this album just stands leagues above it for me. There's more melodic sections and less of the samey heavy riffs, so the heavier parts that are still here stand out more and are generally better to boot. The result is another incredibly consistent album that flaunts a larger variety than any other BTBAM album and with tons of highs to keep me coming back.
Mirrors is the best opener on any of their albums, no question. Obfuscation does a good job kicking things into gear and has a ton of great moments. I love the chorus, I love the bass groove/guitar solo bit in the middle, I love the guitar solo at the end, I like a lot. But even that pales in comparison to proooobably my favorite song of theirs (though it's close), Disease, Injury Madness. Everything here just works, the heavy riffs are great, the quieter bits are great, the bluesy instrumentals in the second half are great and the song flows surprisingly well for a track that goes as many places as this one. Fossil Genera follows, with a really great intro, one of my favorite moments of the album, and a four-minute lighter outro that's another favorite. Everything inbetween those two is still perfectly fine but the intro and outro overshadow the rest a little. Desert of Song is a nice break from the harder, more complex stuff up 'til now, and it's a nice little song that I've always enjoyed. Swim to the Moon, while probably my least favorite track on the album, does serve as a good closer; that chorus is stellar, and it does a good thing epics should do more: sound like one song. I think having the chorus is what ties it all together, really. The instrumental break in the middle of the song is pretty cool too, if maybe a biiit too long.
It's a shame that none of the band's releases since The Great Misdirect have really lived up to its quality for me, I've tried hard to get into them since I do like this band a lot, but I never got Future Sequence to click and Coma Ecliptic seems to be going the same route for me, I don't know what it is about them, bleh. Still, they've made two great albums that I can return to and enjoy.
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I can never and might never get tired of this album.
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Nice one. I really like Fossil Genera, might as well be their best song.
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(https://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0003/561/MI0003561005.jpg?partner=allrovi.com)
#32: Dream Theater - Scenes From A Memory
Who is this band, I've never heard of them.
SFAM has always been one of my favorite DT albums, though. Aside from Through Her Eyes which I am utterly sick of, everything here is great and the concept mixes well with the music, it's present throughout all the songs but doesn't overwhelm the music at any point. As well, everything's nice and diverse. Overture 1928 is a cool instrumental that kicks off the album well, Strange Deja Vu is a nice more straightforward rocker, Fatal Tragedy is darker and heavier with one of my favorite DT instrumental sections at the end, Beyond This Life is frantic and rockin' with a really good instrumental built off probably my favorite riff of the album, Through Her Eyes sucks, Home has that crushingly heavy riff and a good reprise of Metropolis' chorus among other cool things like its intro, The Dance of Eternity is basically as good as you're ever going to make a laughably proggy instrumental sound, One Last Time serves as a nice climax to the story, The Spirit Carries On is a great power ballad, and Finally Free wraps up everything nicely while also being the best song of the album. I've talked about most of these songs already a ton when I did my DT top 50 a year or two ago, so the short version is that it's generally a really consistent and great album that shows off the side of DT I like seeing the most.
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This is not my favorite DT, probably not even in my top 3, but it's become my go-to DT album (for when I want to listen to non-specific Dream Theater). Very good top to bottom.
I think One Last Time is one of the most overlooked songs in the band's discography.
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Through Her Eyes is amazing though. :'(
My second favourite DT album. It's just killer from start to finish. TDOE is like the only song I'm not so keen on.
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I think One Last Time is one of the most overlooked songs in the band's discography.
QFT
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yeah it's really a pretty great song that doesn't get enough love
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De-Loused is a masterpiece. Good call. :tup
Terria is also really awesome. Not everything Devin has done really appeals to me, but Terria is where he's mastered the perfect balance between crushing density and actual beauty in the form of sound.
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great album
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great album
:tup
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(https://www.nuclearblast.de/static/articles/241/241510.jpg/400x400.jpg)
#31: Leprous - The Congregation
This is the newest entry onto the list, to a point where I have this album sitting just to the left of me on my desk right now. Maybe it still has a bit of newness putting it up this high, but I don't imagine it'd sink much lower than this spot a year from now, if at all. I was instantly drawn to its unique and interesting style, there's a lot of dissonance and emphasis on rhythms, much more so than traditional progressive metal. It's closer to djent in some of its guitar lines, but the sound isn't remotely similar. The album also does quite a lot with its sounds, from upbeat rockers like The Price, Within My Fence, and Down to slower grooves like The Flood, Slave and Moon, to more musically complex tracks like Third Law, Rewind, and Red.
If I had to take a knock at the album, I would say Within My Fence feels a bit unnecessary, it's definitely the weak point of the album for me, but it's the shortest track and it's far from awful. Other than that I can definitely say I enjoy every track on this album a lot, though. It's hard to point out highlights since it's all good stuff, but I'd say I like Rewind, The Flood, Slave, and Moon sliiightly more than the rest, though The Price and Triumphant don't trail very far behind at all. I'm definitely going to properly check out older stuff from this band, knowing full well that it's all different from this album, but I don't know if I'm going to find anything that tops this one, at least for me.
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i will also say that one of the albums i recently got is already on the fast track to being in my top 20, but won't be appearing on this list because i set it in stone when i started, oops :lol
i imagine another one of the ones I ordered is gonna be one I enjoy quite a lot, too
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Great Misdirect :hefdaddy
SFAM :hefdaddy :hefdaddy
I'm no Leprous fan, but I enjoy a couple of tracks from that album so :tup
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(https://www.sputnikmusic.com/images/albums/71094.jpg)(https://s2.postimg.org/91cnx4quh/kezia_5148aacc0c6d5.jpg)
#30/#29: Protest the Hero - Scurrilous and Kezia
I feel like just doing these at the same time else I'd be talking about the same band twice in a day, so hey why not. And I can't really decide which of these albums I like more, honestly. I have Kezia as just above Scurrilous for being a bit more epic in sound, mostly, but it could easily be the other way.
Both albums are packed full of technical playing and energy, but both go in different directions with it. Kezia has a more punk rock sound and energy to it, while Scurrilous is more prog metal. Kezia is a concept album and a concept I quite like, and having the story makes the tracks more interesting to listen to; I mean, for one, that clapping section in Blindfolds Aside doesn't have as much meaning if you don't have the context for it. Scurrilous' songs are self-contained laments about a lot of society's problems, but they don't come off as preachy and the lyrics really make them work well.
And the music on both albums is fantastic, there's that too. The entire second half of Kezia easily wipes the floor with Scurrilous on its own, but the songs in the first half that I don't like quiiiite as much (though really aside from Nautical I think they're all great songs, and Nautical isn't an awful song by any means either) do drag it down a little bit. Scurrilous is pretty consistent from front to back and I like all ten songs quite a bit, though if I had to pick favorites I'd say C'est La Vie, Moonlight, Dunsel, Termites, Tongue Splitter, and Sex Tapes... which is 60% of the album, yeah, woops. They had a really good sound on this album and while I can see why some people might consider it a bit samey I think each of the songs stands out plenty from the rest.
Considering they have two albums that I adore, and two others that I still think are pretty good, I'm definitely looking forward to hearing more from this band.
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I definitely think Fortress and Volition are the two best PtH albums, while my feelings for Scurrilous/Kezia are a bit more to the "good but not great"-side, but it's still a solid pick. :tup
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If SFAM is only #32, I think we're in for a treat here.
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(https://www.purepoponline.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/07/Devin-Townsend-Project-Deconstruction.jpeg)
#28: Devin Townsend Project - Deconstruction
Help, I just can't stop putting Devin on my list. Probably because he's got so much music and so much of it is fantastic. Take for example, Deconstruction. It's loud, it's heavy, and it's glorious. Every song here is great, some of them rank among my favorites in Devin's entire discography. This is easily the most complex and technical of all the albums Devin's put off, but it's put towards the right things; namely, writing tons of great riffs and hooks, writing songs that have lots to them but flow well along the way.
Not all the songs are massive epics, though; Praise the Lowered and Juular are two early, simple tracks, and both serve their purposes well; Praise the Lowered is a warmup to the album, a light track the builds to a crushing riff by the end, and Juular is a burst of energy after the two slower songs before, loud and in your face. Pandemic and Poltergeist are two shorter songs towards the end of the album, and both are great heavy tracks, but probably among my least favorite from the album - which is to say, good but not great. And Sumeria, directly in the center of the album, is just wonderful. This is the heavy I want to hear. This is a glorious wall of sound and a tightly-written track that never loses its momentum. The way the song cuts from loud to soft near the end also works surprisingly well and makes a great transition to the next track.
And then we have to talk about the longer tracks. Stand is one long big buildup with a pounding beat throughout the entire song, and it takes its time but doesn't ever feel overlong, I can't help but love this one the most of the entire album, honestly. Planet of the Apes has a bit of a clumsy start but builds into a chaotic mess that's just pure pleasure. If Stand is my favorite song on the album, the last third or so of Planet of the Apes is my favorite segment, no contest. The Mighty Masturbator is the epic of the album, the longest track on any of Devin's albums too I think, and it's... well, it suffers in the same way Anesthetize does for me, in that a lot of the sections don't really flow well between each other, but all the sections here are great on their own. And Deconstruction is about as disorganized of a song as I'll ever here, but it works, somehow. It hates revisiting any past ideas and there's so much jam-packed into under 10 minutes it's baffling it does work so well, but none of the transitions are too rough and all the different ideas are great.
If I would complain a little, I think Devin's humor does miss the mark here for me. I could do without the farting, thank you. It's a bit of a stain on an otherwise fantastic album, and yeah the humor is probably what knocks this down from being in or near the top 20 to barely top 30, I can't really get past that easily. But aside from that? One of the best albums Devin's ever put out.
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no devin love tonight, okay, gonna do one more real quick
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(https://wac.450f.edgecastcdn.net/80450F/noisecreep.com/files/2012/04/oceansize-effloresce.jpg)
#27: Oceansize - Effloresce
Oceansize's debut was probably their most post-rock influenced album, and it's all the better for it. There's still tons of all the elements that make the band both enjoyable and varied present on this album, though it's a bit rougher around the edges than their later works. It's a much more pleasant listen than Everyone Into Position is for me though, and a really strong album overall.
The first two tracks, I Am The Morning (there's apparently a band named this now, who knew) and Catalyst flow into each other, but are pretty different; Morning is a post-rock instrumental piece with some great buildup that serves as an excellent way to start the album. Catalyst is more of a rocker, with tons of cool riffs and leads. There's very pretty quiet verses too, and a great groove of an instrumental at the tail end of the track. Other songs in the first half that really stand out to me are You Wish and Amputee, two more pretty straightforward, full-sounding rockers. Remember Where You Are is the first song of the Oceansize discography to suffer from the seventh song curse, and while it's better than No Tomorrow, I've never liked the chorus and the song doesn't do a whole lot for me outside of the excellent bridge. The two interlude tracks, Unravel and Rinsed, nicely divide the album into its three pretty distinct parts; the spacey first third, the straightforward middle third, and the post-rock last third. And the last three tracks are a near-flawless almost-half-hour block of music, with the lighter and atmospheric Women Who Love Men Who Love Drugs, the heavier and darker Saturday Morning Breakfast Show, and the somber and beautiful Long Forgotten all strong in their own regards, and especially enjoyable when listened to in succession. As with most Oceansize closers, Long Forgotten is my favorite track, the buildup in the outro is god-tier quality especially.
And yet, this still isn't my favorite Oceansize release, but it's a really damn strong debut and the ideas this album brings to the table would be better refined by their later releases.
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I like this album a bit ;D
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Decon is great stuff. Took me a while to appreciate of course, but the payoff was incredible.
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Deconstruction is my favourite Devin album. The only track I used to dislike is Stand and it grew on me a lot lately so it's killer from start to finish.
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Effloresce :heart
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(https://metallifer.files.wordpress.com/2012/04/dream_theater_-_images_and_words.jpg)
#26: Dream Theater - Images and Words
Sweet jiminy christ what the hell is a dream theatre?
Well uh, yeah, I imagine people are wondering why this isn't higher.
Answer: I have a ton of albums I like more, apparently! Images and Words is a great album. An instant classic. Pull Me Under is their only hit. Take The Time is one of their best songs. Metropolis is an almost universally loved fan favorite. Learning to Live is one of the highest regarded by many, though not quite by me (still good though!) And aside from that, Another Day, Surrounded, Under a Glass Moon, and Wait for Sleep are all good songs in their own right, I think the only song from this album that didn't end up somewhere in my top 50 was Wait for Sleep.
So yeah, I like this album, a lot. I don't see a need to harp on it, considering the site we're on... it's just that everything left I like more. All 25 of 'em. And this isn't even my favorite DT anyways (you know what is, already, I know you know.)
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I&W is a great classic, but I seem to enjoy lots of DT albums more. Still, nice, classy and kind of clichč choice :biggrin:
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difference between cliche and honest, but ok
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I've been meaning to check this band, but after listing to a part of a tune (I think it was Surrounded), it felt like fucking 80s. Ew.
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This would probably still be my number one. And who cares if it's a "cliché choice." It deserves to be picked all the time, it's a great album.
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I've been meaning to check this band, but after listing to a part of a tune (I think it was Surrounded), it felt like fucking 80s. Ew.
yeah this one sounds pretty 80's but the rest of their albums after it are more modern, you should check them out
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Eeeh. I don't dig I&W that much. Metropolis and Learning to Live (+ Wait for Sleep) are top 10 songs, but the rest are kinda just there imho. I can see why a lot of people like it but it just doesn't do that much for me outside of these songs.
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(https://s11.postimg.org/5ar9urr0z/lateralus_inside.jpg)
#25: Tool - Lateralus
This album is just a combination of a lot of things I really love. There's a lot of bass and rhythm, a dark sound overall, and some cool grooves on most every song. It's also a pretty diverse album (and quite a long one). I actually first heard some of these songs in Guitar Hero, of all places, and loved what I heard, made me want to get the album. And I'm definitely glad I did.
Standout songs for me include Schism, with its excellent bass grooves and softer moments, coming to a gigantic climax at the end of the song; Parabol/Parabola, the former being a nice quiet track that builds well into the latter, probably the heaviest song on the album with a great main riff, and the sluggish outro works well for me too; Lateralus, the "epic" of the album, probably the most diverse song and probably the best too, and that fibbonacci sequence bit still makes me nerd out a little; and Reflection, which is just a really long groove that I loooove. But everything here is good, the only tracks I don't hugely care for are Mantra, which is so short that it doesn't matter, and Faaip de Oiad, which is just a bonus track anyways that I tend to skip.
Aenima has always come off as too immature to me in terms of... well, most everything, song titles, lyrics, even songwriting, from what I've heard I've kind of been curious but never curious enough to really give it a chance. And 10,000 Days seems too tame, too sluggish and a bit dull, again from what I've heard from it, though Vicarious is pretty good I guess. But this album hits the sweet spot for me, one that makes me want to come back to it.
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Before this album came out, I couldn’t stand Tool.
After this album came out, I could stand Tool.
I’m not mad on any of their albums other than this, but they all have at least a few brilliant songs.
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:metal
Glad to see Tool on the list. Schism is a classic, but my personal favourite off Lateralus is The Patient folowed closely by Reflection (what's not to love about that amazing drum/bass groove). Danny Carey was my drumming idol during the era when I listened to pretty much nothing else but Tool and Chancellor's bass work made me appreciate the instrument in all music.
It's about 50/50 between Lateralus and 10 000 Days for me. I love them both to death, depends greatly on my mood. I agree on the Aenima part, as it's probably my least favourite album musically and lyrically apart from Forty Six & 2 and the title track.
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#24: Coheed and Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3
Of all the Coheed albums, this is the one I find myself coming back to the most. It's not their most diverse, nor is it their most mature. But it's an album that does what it intends to really well. With the exception of the closing track, every song on this album is pretty upbeat and rockin' in nature, but each song brings its own flavor to the table.
The title track is a big, epic track with a huge chorus and group vocals, with some quieter moments at the start and in the middle to keep it dynamic. Cuts Marked in the March of Men is a bit faster and a bit less intense, and while not one of my favorites off the album it's still a fun little song. I think it's one of the stranger sounding songs on the album, at least. Three Evils is really bright and straightforward, despite being actually pretty dark lyrically. I dig a lot about this song, the transition from the second chorus to the extended outro is great and the outro itself is fantastic. The Crowing is probably the proggiest track on the album, toying around with a lot of time signature changes and a lot of different sounds, the drums on this track especially are great. Blood Red Summer is a lighter and brighter track that serves mostly to lighten the mood a little. The next three tracks form a suite with the story they tell. Faint of Hearts is a 70's rock inspired track, or sounds that way to me, it's a bit silly but pretty fun. Backend of Forever is another of my favorites on the album, a very dark and bitter song that I revel in listening to. Al The Killer is probably the heaviest track of the album, the very full sound of the track makes its darker tone work well too. A Favor House Atlantic is probably the only song that feels like a retread of earlier ideas, primarily Three Evils, but I think it brings enough new to the table to be worth it, I do like it a lot anyways, so. And The Light and The Glass is a lighter and longer track, gradually building up over its span to the absolutely epic outro, definitely the highlight of a really great album.
I like most of the band's other albums, too, but this has always been a standout to me, I like every song here and it's got some of their best tracks, period. Fantastic record, this one.
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The best Coheed album. Three Evils is a standout track. :tup
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Yes yes yes Lateralus, thank you.
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(https://www.sputnikmusic.com/images/albums/6596.jpg)
#23: Green Carnation - Light of Day, Day of Darkness
This is an album, but also a song, but also an album. Not a collection of songs that flows together like it's one song, just actually one song. 60 minutes of music. 60 minutes of great music, to be precise.
The sound of this songalbum is consistently dark and often heavy. There are a few melodies and riffs that the song reprises throughout its length, helping it to feel cohesive, and it helps that the stuff that gets reprised is pretty cool. There's quite a few instances of a riff being played on a clean guitar, then a heavy version of the same riff kicking in at some point, and while you think using the same trick several times would get tiresome, I never really feel it does, because each new idea the song explores is really cool and different from the previous. There's an upbeat triplet-feel section followed by a sluggish, doom metal section. A hugely distorted heavy section followed by an acoustic section. And honestly, I just love the general sound of this album; I wish I knew of more like it. Though to be fair, I've never checked out more of Green Carnation's discography and probably should at some point.
What are my favorite moments? Hmm. After the first "dream" section, there's a very beautiful acoustic and strings section with a heavy riff under it. This part is just massive and amazing and charged with emotion, I love it. Another highlight is the instrumental break and guitar solo around the 40 minute mark, the build-up there and the solo itself is just utterly gorgeous. And the entire stretch after it, going from a quiet verse to a reprise of earlier riffs in the song, building and building until it reaches the huge climax of the song around the 50 minute mark.
And if there's anything I'm not so keen on, it's the 5 minute stretch in the middle of the song with the female vocalist and the I think it's a sax? playing. It feels a bit jarring and goes on too long, I feel, I actually have a cut of the album with that section removed that I prefer to listen to a lot more.
But yes, this is really an epic done well, really well, probably a must-listen for any fan of progressive metal.
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Awesome song. Easily my favourite 30+-minute epic.
Great writeup too.
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Lateralus :|
Coheed :millahhhh
Light of Day, Day of Darkness :tup
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I liked this when you sent it in my roulette.
I did not like that you sent something of this length in my roulette.
Nonetheless, I definitely am going to buy it soon and give it the dedicated listens that it requires.
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You're not missing much by not checking out the rest of Green Carnation discography, I found it pretty forgettable.
This album is awesome though, made my Top 50 too.
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I did not like that you sent something of this length in my roulette.
again i'm gonna blame u for having an epic round in the first place then 'cause i really don't have many epics i really like listening to :lol
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Yeah, well, the outcome of all that is a) you got a solid score for it, and b) whenever the subject of this song comes up, I have to make fun of the fact that you actually sent it in a roulette.
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You're not missing much by not checking out the rest of Green Carnation discography, I found it pretty forgettable.
I'll second this. LoD,DoD is the only Green Carnation album you need, but you NEED it.
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(https://www.sputnikmusic.com/images/albums/5063.jpg)
#22: Devin Townsend - Ocean Machine: Biomech
I promise this is the last Devin Townsend album on this list, I can't stop putting this guy on my list, I know, he should make less good music or something.
I will be upfront and say that the last four tracks of this album are the primary reason it's up this high. Not the only reason, but. Funeral and The Death of Music are both top 5 Devin, at the very least (The Death of Music is #1, for sure), and Bastard and Things Beyond Things are both excellent as well. Funeral being a straightforward but catchy as all heck and intensely emotional rock song, The Death of Music being a laid-back electronic song that builds to a PHENOMENAL CLIMAX holy hell, seriously. But really, everything before those four is generally pretty good. Seventh Wave is a rocker to start out the album, Life and Night are two pretty straightforward, kind of poppy-ish rockers. Sister and 3 AM are two shorter tracks with tons of atmopshere, Voices in the Fan is another maddeningly catchy track, and Regulator is one of the few heavier tracks of the album. If I had to single out a few weaker songs, I've never cared much for Hide Nowhere or Greetings, but neither are terrible.
But yeah, if it were just the first half of the album, this might not have made the list on its own; add in the phenomenal second half and YUP easy to rank it this high. I don't think I'll ever stop loving Funeral and The Death of Music.
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The Death of Music :hefdaddy
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(https://eil.com/images/main/Porcupine-Tree-Deadwing-351251.jpg)
#21: Porcupine Tree - Deadwing
Ahh, now this. THIS is a great album. Unlike In Absentia, every song here is great, some of them pretty dang incredible. Though I feel that the best songs here prooobably aren't quite as good as the best off In Absentia, but the peaks of that album are hard to reach. But yes, this is the Porcupine Tree I like hearing. It's got their heavier side, their lighter side, their proggier side, everything.
The shorter, more straightforward tracks are mostly heavy, with the exception of the poppier Lazarus. Shallow and Halo both have cool grooves in their riffs and are pretty catchy, and Open Car is moody, mixing both some heavier riffs and prettier light sections. And Lazarus is just an incredibly pleasant listen, probably the poppiest song of their entire discography and that's not a knock against it at all. Glass Arm Shattering, the album closer, is a very relaxed and pleasant song as well, post-rockish in nature, a great way for the album to end. The rest of the songs are a bit longer and probably all my favorites of the album, though. Deadwing has a cool main riff throughout the song that I like, but goes through a lot of other sections, including a quiet groove section in the middle that's probably the best part of the song for me. Arriving Somewhere, But Not Here is the highlight of the album for me, the album's epic. It starts off softly and builds on a light acoustic melody, a slow build but the payoff makes it more than worth it. The instrumental section is one of my favorites from the band, too, the loudest and most in-your-face section of the entire record and with a ton of cool riffs that seamlessly returns to the main melody of the song at the end. Mellotron Scratch is a softer, prettier song, with a great main melody and especially a fantastic outro. And The Start of Something Beautiful has just the coolest 9/8 groove in its verses and a great louder chorus, plus one of the most interesting instrumental sections from the band, another of my favorites for sure. This song took me a looong time to warm up to but when I did it grew to be easily my #2 from the album. I feel like a lot of Fear of a Blank Planet's sound came from this one song, it seems like it.
This is easily my favorite Porcupine Tree album and favorite of anything Steven Wilson's ever made (none of his solo records made this list, sadly). Just a great progressive rock album from beginning to end, with a unique sound and a ton of great songs.
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i actually pivot between Arriving Somewhere and The Start of Something Beautiful, depends on my mood, generally the former wins but rn I think the latter is more my musical mood :lol
nothing touches Trains and Heartattack though, pretty untouchable songs, yep
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i like a lot of this list, so i'll let that bedlam thing slide.
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i like a lot of this list, so i'll let that bedlam thing slide.
You can't. We must change his view on it.
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Recently posted these two in my top 50, so I approve
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i'm never listening to bedlam again, so gl with that
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This is easily my favorite Porcupine Tree album and favorite of anything Steven Wilson's ever made
Yep. Along with FOBP for me. Raven is third and then nothing else is even close.
Steven Wilson is tough for me, though, because emotionally a lot of his stuff just doesn't resonate with me at all, or resonates with me infrequently. I really admire his ability as a songwriter, because he is fantastic at it, but I wouldn't rank him among my favorite artists.
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(https://i945.photobucket.com/albums/ad296/moonsbirdsandmonsters/album24.jpg)
#20: Mew - And the Glass Handed Kites
This is one of those albums where I always, always listen through the entire thing. As separate songs, everything here is good, but none of the tracks are my favorite Mew tracks. But as an album? Ooh boy. The songs flow between each other well, the overall sound is consistent while letting the album still be quite varied, and it's quite the pleasant listen from beginning to end. I don't know, really I just love the sound of this album. It's somewhere between indie rock and prog rock and both parts are just, done so well. I really like Bjerre as a singer but the rest of the band is good at what they do, too.
Hmm, a few songs to talk about...? Circuity of the Wolf kicks off the album nicely with a cool instrumental groove building into the next track. Apocalypso has a cool groove as well and a strong chorus, plus the frantic nature of the song is enjoyable. The Zookeeper's Boy has interesting instrumentation and a great intro jam as well, all-around one of my favorites. White Lips Kissed is a good climax and closer for the album, except not the closer, but still very grand and full sounding, another favorite.
...yeah, it's hard to talk about the songs much, I don't like the ones I mentioned -that- much more than the rest of the album, it's very consistent from beginning to end and something you really have to listen all the way through to get.
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This is a fantastic album and definitely my favorite Mew album. :)
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I will check this, it sounds interesting.
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(https://www.sputnikmusic.com/images/albums/39469.jpg)
#19: fun. - Aim and Ignite
fun. has dabbled with mainstream success, I guess (had a #1 hit and Some Nights was a pretty big hit too, if I remember). But the album I listen to them for is their debut, which is just, leagues better, absolutely phenomenal record. It's a bright and generally upbeat record, too, as opposed to the generally darker stuff that makes up most of my higher-rated albums.
Half the songs on this album I find to be wonderful songs. Be Calm is the opener and it's... it's a thing. I always fail to know how to describe it, it's got orchestration, it's got quiet bits, it's got loud bits, it doesn't revisit its ideas or reprises them if it does, it goes so many places in 4 minutes that it's insane. Benson Hedges is a mostly upbeat and straightforward track, with a slower section after the second chorus to change up the pace a bit. I really like the lyrics of this song, as well; this album in general has lyrics I quite enjoy, though. Walking the Dog is a very upbeat and catchy track, seriously that prechorus and chorus get stuck in my head for days. The Gambler is the most believable love song I've ever heard, it's moving and it's pleasant and all sorts of thing that make me love it. As someone not a romantic in the slightest, it makes me kinda wish I was in a relationship sometimes but ehh! Take Your Time (Coming Home) is a grand epic of an ending, much longer than the other tracks and with a lot of different emotions pouring out into the music. It's really amazing how many different moods this song has, and it jams on its chorus for a few minutes to make for a surprisingly strong outro for a fadeout, I don't see how else they could've ended it there. Seriously, any of these five songs, incredibly stuff.
The other tracks are generally good, though I Wanna Be The One I don't care for quite so much. The band has a good way of making somewhat accessible but still very interesting rock songs, and this album shows that off well.
Shame their follow-up... was underwhelming, to say the least.
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Lateralus is amazing. :hefdaddy I think Faaip de Oiad is a great closer though, very unsettling.
I still might prefer Aenima though.
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(https://s8.postimg.org/4q6jvslk5/1654.jpg)
#18: Pain of Salvation - Entropia
Mm. Entropia. How do I talk about Entropia.
...
What a stunning debut album, seriously. There's a lot of diversity here, and a lot of heavy music, both sonically and lyrically. The concept is pretty basic but it gives the band a lot of material to write about, and the tone of the music matches the lyrics in absolutely every case. ! (Foreword) is pretty dark, Winning A War is relatively bright, aside from the one quiet moment, People Passing By is a bit schizophrenic in a good way, the bass groove of the faster parts and the heavier, darker chorus of the first section creating some good contrast, the instrumental groove is cool, and the last section is very grand and emotional with some great solos. Oblivion Ocean sounds pained, as it should, and Stress sounds very frantic and confused, as it should. Revival is another one that's all over the place, darker moments and brighter moments, triumphant moments (the group vocal section is probably my favorite part). I don't know exactly why but this song I've always loved a lot, it flows well and there's no weak moments. Void of Her and Circles are two short tracks that are pretty empty and dark, and sandwiched inbetween them is the frantic To The End, which crashes for an instrumental groove at the end, and holy hell is that just a perfect representation of the song's themes. Nightmist deals with the protagonist's death itself, and naturally it's not the brightest of songs either, and there's a lot of frantic moments added in as well. The way the groove all falls apart at the end of the song works really well, too. And Plains of Dawn, dealing with the child's death, is a softer, reflective piece, that explodes with anger and heaviness at the end. Leaving Entropia is a somber, moving epilogue to the album that gets me every time, really good way to close off the album.
This one's... it's just a pretty emotional journey of nonlinear storytelling to keep the tension building, with music that matches the tone every step of the way, and it's probably their proggiest release to date; the songs are really all over the place a lot of the time, but in a way that still feels cohesive and makes the songs more interesting rather than more confused. I feel like I've done a poor job of this writeup but it's hard to know what to say about this one, for some reason. It certainly deserves to be this high up. It's just hard to put into words why, I guess.
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Entropia :heart :heart :heart
Definitely in my PoS Top 3, probably my second favourite. Such an amazing album.
Do you know Never Learn To Fly, the Japanese bonus track? It might be the most depressing song on the album, and that's no mean feat, and it's great too - one of my all-time PoS favourites.
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Entropia :heart
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First album of PoS I discovered, I became a fan at the first listen and it's still my second favourite album of them. Foreword and Revival (you're not the only one who likes a lot this song!) are my favourite songs here, but all the other songs are really close.
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:corn
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Entropia :heart :heart :heart
Definitely in my PoS Top 3, probably my second favourite. Such an amazing album.
Do you know Never Learn To Fly, the Japanese bonus track? It might be the most depressing song on the album, and that's no mean feat, and it's great too - one of my all-time PoS favourites.
I've probably listened to it once but I've never really sought out bonus tracks to listen to, I think I did for Road Salt 'cause it was extended versions of the songs already there for the most part, but otherwise no
also hey you should join my roulette >:V
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(https://www.sputnikmusic.com/images/albums/15025.jpg)
#17: Oceansize - Music for Nurses EP
Uhh... yes, an EP. The only one that made it even remotely close to my list, actually. I have a reason. Sure, this runs about 25 minutes, far shorter than everything else here. But... it's just, flawless and consistent from beginning to end. 5 tracks and they're all great, not a weak moment.
One For None is a heavy, kind of mathy rocker, very distinctly Oceansize in sound, with some softer parts that you'd also expect from the band. It's a pretty complex little song in the end, and all the better for it. Paper Champion is a more laid-back and electronic song in 9/8, with a constant sense of buildup, getting massive and kind of epic by the end. The last three tracks serve as a kind of a suite, as well. Drag the 'Nal is a short ambient piece that gives the listener a break after the more intense previous to tracks. Dead Dogs 'N All Sorts is the musical concept of build-up in song form, 'cause seriously, this one's absolutely amazing. It starts off with a slow bass groove and reprising of the ambient sound of the previous track, there are a few vocal moments as the track builds, and the pace quickens, more instruments come in. Soon there's several layers of sound and the drums keep getting faster, vocals come back in to provide another layer, everything is a huge wall of sound, and then you get kicked in the face by the heavy as hell chords coming in to transition the song to the final of the suite. Top 10 Oceansize song, no contest. Maybe even top 5. Damn, what a song. As The Smoke Clears suffers a tiny bit from not being as good as the previous track (Oceansize has a habit of putting the best song at the end to prevent this effect from happening, but it's not quite the case here) but it's a great sluggish and heavy track that closes off the album well.
This is probably their heaviest release to date, and all the better for it; I love all these songs, especially Dead Dogs, and come back to this EP quite a lot.
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*looks at what the other two albums for the day are*
oooh. aaahhh the next write-up is going to literally kill me, ugh
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Music For Nurses, definitely one of my favorite EPs! :tup
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(https://images.productwiki.com/upload/images/ayreon_the_human_equation_2004-400-400.jpg)
#16: Ayreon - The Human Equation
It's really hard to talk about this album, especially in a brief write-up, because... it's Ayreon. It's huge, it's epic, it's more than ambitious, it's fantastic.
I think this one works for me far better than any other Ayreon release for a few reasons.
Firstly, the concept. I like the sci-fi concept, I really do, but stories that are on a more personal level, like this one, work so much better for me; the emotion of the story makes for a great, emotional record. Literally, in this case, since most of the singers are the protagonist's emotions talking to him. There's two sides of the story going on here; one inside the protagonist's mind, and the other between his wife and his friend wondering what happened, though the first one is the clear main story. The album takes us on a journey through his life, starting with his childhood up until just before the accident that put him in a coma. And it makes for compelling music, showing the triumphs and the failures, the joy, the sadness, the anger. And there's a twist ending that really changes the context of the entire story, which I love.
The other reason this works is the voice cast. I'm only familiar with a few (Arjen himself, LaBrie obviously, Akerfeldt, and Townsend) but the others all do good work too, and it helps that the voices I am familiar with are all great here. LaBrie is given the biggest role, as the protagonist, and he sells the emotion of the story very well. Akerfeldt as Fear plays on both his softer and harsher strengths, and Trauma is an especially good example of this. And Townsend has a fairly limited presence but his harsh vocal work is good here. Other ones I'd have to point out are Clayton as Reason, probably the most distinct voice and one of the most prevalent too, and Baker as the father, who is just having the goddamn time of his life hamming it up on Loser.
Standout songs? I guess, sure. Isolation is a good introduction to the album, having a lot of different elements and introducing most of the emotions, plus it has a great main riff. Pain plays off the quiet/loud contrast quite well and I like the folky section in the middle a lot too. Trauma is absolutely fantastic and dark and all sorts of grand. Pride is a fun rocker, about all there is to say on it. Betrayal is possibly my favorite Ayreon track, very dark and very unique, the synth and strings solos in the middle and the buildup to the big final chorus are -perfect- as well, and the acoustic ending is a great touch. Realization is a fun mostly instrumental with just the most epic ending imaginable, all the emotions arguing with each other and the protagonist, it really shows the struggle well. And Confrontation is a strong closer, aside from the abrupt ending I guess but it works in context, at the very least.
...that's like half the album, whatever, I really like this one a lot. Not a single weak track either, everything here is good from beginning to end and it's a shining example of a concept album done well.
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:hefdaddy
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Bought Entropia for $2 on some online sale. Can't get into it.
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2 dollars? What a scam! :neverusethis:
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Both those Ayreon and POS are incredible.
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oh crud i need to do another of these tonight
go go really fast cruddy writeup time
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The Human Equation is my favourite Ayreon album. It's brilliant from start to finish.
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I prefer Into The Electric Castle, but this is easily my second favourite.
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(https://www.rkstar.com/articles/05/covers/thrc.jpg)
#15: Thrice - Vhiessu
Thrice is a band who knows how to write really good songs, here's 11 of them. The end.
Nah that's not quite enough. Okay. So I recently got Artist in the Ambulance and I'm struggling with it a little because it only shows off one side of Thrice; namely, the aggressive side. But... maybe their other sides didn't exist before Vhiessu? That could be the case. With Vhiessu, they added more dynamics to their songs, and incorporated a lot of electronic elements. They really play with the loud/soft dynamic a lot, though admittedly there are probably a few too many soft-start followed by heavy kick-in songs on this album... The Earth Will Shake, Music Box, Like Moths to Flame, Of Dust and Nations, Stand and Feel Your Worth, they all do this same thing, but it's a trick that works well for each song individually so I can't say it's a bad thing.
Each song (well, 10 of them, I'll get back to that) brings something new to the table, too. Image of the Invisible is a frantic, upbeat track with a strong chorus and a good quiet break in the middle. Between the End and Where We Lie, probably my personal favorite, is heavy on the electronic instruments, with a fantastic drum beat for the verses, a cool, mostly 7/8 chorus, and some good quiet electronic percussion parts. The Earth Will Shake is one of the more, well, earthy songs, no electronics here, a very solemn acoustic guitar to open in and some group vocals/stomps in the middle, with some more downtempo heavy parts for most of the song. Atlantic is the polar opposite, a very relaxed and chill electronic-driven song, another personal favorite. The chorus especially, fantastic. For Miles is very piano-heavy and melodic, with some great heavy moments too, the second verse I love and the loud outro works well for the song. Hold Fast Hope is straight up in-your-face loud and sticks to its 5/4 riff the entire way through, with some quieter moments to keep things dynamic. Music Box has, well, a Music Box, and a slow feel to it. The chorus is loud and powerful, the verses are quiet, and there's a good bridge to boot. Like Moths to Flame is... there. It's the song that fails to really do anything unique, but it's a solid song on its own. Of Dust and Nations really evokes the desert sound well with its lead guitar throughout the song, and I love the drums on this, they are super fun to play aahh. Stand and Feel Your Worth is one of the more interesting tracks, and one that took longer to click for me than most of the album. It's got a lot more atmosphere than anything else, it's got more sections and it's got some of the heaviest moments as well as some of the quietest and spaciest. Favorite part is probably the spacey keyboard part in the middle, that part is very beautiful. Red Sky serves as the closer, with a lot of electronic elements again, very beautiful verses and very powerful choruses, with a good outro to end the album off well, another favorite.
So yeah... start-to-back this is a very good rock record with a lot of variety and really solidified the band's sound; The Alchemy Index, their follow up, basically deconstructs all the different moods this album has, but I like this one more because it keeps things varied instead of sticking each sound on its own disc (plus there are a number of tracks on The Alchemy Index I'm not huge on, too.)
But yeah, I love Thrice, and albums like this are a good indication of why. Even if until a week or so ago I'd never heard any of their work older than this album, haha.
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it's impossible to write cruddy short writeups for naything up this high, i should've figured that out by now
at least my next two albums are really easy for me to write about :lol
at #13 we hit tier 1A by the way, the albums that would be top 10 except 13 is greater than 10 so there are 13 of them instead, it's great
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The Human Equation is amazing
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The Human Equation is my favourite Ayreon album. It's brilliant from start to finish.
This. As I said in my write-up for it, it's one of the best things happened to music ever.
No mention of female vocals in your write-up? I think both Heather Findlay and Marcela Bovio were great picks and totally nailed their roles on the album. Especially Findlay, she sounds so much better here than on Mostly Autumn.
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Sorry but: The Alchemy Index > Vheissu
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Vheissu > The Artist in the Ambulance > Major Minor > The Alchemy Index > Beggars > Identity Crisis. I prefer the heavy side of Thrice, and I really like Fire and Water of Alchemy Index, but only a bunch of songs of the other two volumes combined. I think it's objectively a great concept, but the last two volumes are far from my tastes in music.
For Miles has been my favourite song ever for years when I was a teenager. The only song I don't like is the opener, the rest is flawless. Maybe there are too many songs ending with harsh vocals in crescendo using the same formula, but I don't care anymore about this. The bonus tracks Flags Of Dawn and Weight Of Glory are awesome track too!
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No mention of female vocals in your write-up? I think both Heather Findlay and Marcela Bovio were great picks and totally nailed their roles on the album. Especially Findlay, she sounds so much better here than on Mostly Autumn.
I am gonna be completely honest when I say that female vocals rarely do much for me, I think Gregor Samsa and Lorde are the only albums where I've even mentioned them :lol
I've always felt Arjen's female vocalists tend to blend together (this was even the case of Into the Electric Castle) but that's just me not really caring for female vocals much.
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No mention of female vocals in your write-up? I think both Heather Findlay and Marcela Bovio were great picks and totally nailed their roles on the album. Especially Findlay, she sounds so much better here than on Mostly Autumn.
I am gonna be completely honest when I say that female vocals rarely do much for me, I think Gregor Samsa and Lorde are the only albums where I've even mentioned them :lol
I've always felt Arjen's female vocalists tend to blend together (this was even the case of Into the Electric Castle) but that's just me not really caring for female vocals much.
Unless I'm totally wrong (I don't enjoy it that much), Into the Electric Castle has only two female vocalists, and I don't know how can you confuse Anneke's voice with Sharon, really. Guess that comes with not caring for female vocals indeed.
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i guess
there aren't a lot of lower range female vocalists in metal, it seems like
I like Lorde and I like Kimbra because they're fully comfortable with a lower range but can both sing higher too
i do like some female singers, just not really in metal apparently :lol
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#14: Isis - Panopticon
When I imagine what "post-metal" should sound like... I get this, definitely. It's got a lot more edge to it than post-rock but a lot of the same kinds of structures, and there are lighter parts but it's not "pretty" like post-rock. Panopticon is an hour of atmospheric, powerful music, that I just enjoy front-to-back. It's futile to even try and pick favorite songs because I always listen to this as an album and barely even notice the song breaks. Each track flows so well and the album has a good flow as a whole. The harsher vocals are utilized well, they're never high in the mix so they blend in with the music in a way that gives it more aggression without destroying the atmosphere. I also have absolutely no clue what any of the lyrics are about. Who cares, it doesn't matter.
I have Oceanic too and while I like that album a lot it felt a bit... stiff compared to this one. But Panopticon, an album so good that it's basically made me interested in an entire genre, yep. This one actually got a second wind recently which is why my current musical mood is post-metal stuff, really, but I liked it when I first heard it and came to love it on subsequent listens, not much else I could ask for from an album.
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This album bores me to tears :lol
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I don't know this one, but Oceanic didn't interest me really. You'resaying this is better, I might try it out. Their name kinda sucks though :/
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ehh if you didn't like Oceanic at all I don't see you liking this either :lol
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#13: Casualties of Cool - Casualties of Cool
I know I said there was no more Devin Townsend albums on this list. This is a Casualties of Cool album. There was no lie.
It's interesting that of all his albums I have, the one he doesn't release under his name I find the most enjoyable. But I do, somehow. There's only one track on here I'm not so hot on and it's far from terrible. The album flows very well, has an interesting but kind of vague concept backing it, and is musically different from anything else I've ever heard. There are some more straightforward country tracks, sure, but they're all enjoyable, and all different. And there are more spacey tracks, too, that still incorporate elements of country music. The diversity based on the premise of "Devin does country" is pretty amazing though, and also amazing is how many of these songs are home-runs.
Mountaintop has a cool groove to it and a nice full chorus. Flight is stupidly beautiful and builds throughout the whole song in a great way. Moon is ridiculously unique and most amazing is how everything about it works so well, the country guitar, the repetitive vocals, the spacey atmosphere, the wonderful sax solos. It's another song about buildup and just does it flawlessly, top 5 Devin song easily. Bones is fairly straightforward but certainly one of the better tracks, probably due to Dorval's vocals being the best on this one in my opinion, though she's really great on every song. The Bridge is a long instance of buildup, probably the most stubbornly non-country track on the album too, and the big climax. I love how big this song gets, though, it's wonderful.
That being said, some of these songs work really well even without context but listening to the entire album front-to-back is one heck of an experience. Crowning jewel of all Devin's ever done and it's got no metal elements or prog elements at all. I adore this album.
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Their name kinda sucks though :/
Tell me about it. I'm not going to go up to someone at school and ask if they like Isis.
Casualties of Cool is great. Needs more spins from me but I love Flight.
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to be fair, Isis was already a thing from egyptian mythology way before it was a terrorist group
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I've only heard Moon so far from Casualties of Cool because roulettes and Parama, and I really liked that one a lot. So I'm going to have to get the whole album soon.
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#12: Caligula's Horse - The Tide, The Thief & River's End
The debut record from Caligula's Horse was good, but inevitably not the best record I'd ever heard or anything, with a few weak tracks and somewhat immature songwriting.
What do you get when the band writes tighter songs, then? A damn great progressive metal album. The band borrowed some elements of djent for this album, but not too heavily to overtake their original sound, and the riffs they make out of the djent sound are all great. Dark Hair Down has gotta be the catchiest djenty track there ever was, seriously.
A thing I like that this album also does on occasion is screw with the feel of the song; in the middle of a triplet section, have a bar of 16th notes that make the pace sound frantic, or in a 12/8 section, staccato the notes so that it has a more sluggish feel of a 4/4 section. These moments of screwing with the rhythm are something I just find plain awesome to listen to and it really keeps you on your toes, these songs go a lot of places in a pretty short amount of time but they still feel cohesive.
And the band certainly doesn't toss emotion out the window with the technicality of the album. The huge ending of Water's Edge after the song's more relaxed first two-thirds makes for a nice contrast. Dark Hair Down is just an intense experience all the way through. Thief is a quiet, somber track leading into the closer, All Is Quiet By The Wall, which is just goddamn epic and powerful, the last lyrics of the song especially just overwhelm me every time.
There's a vague concept here that I kind of get (enough to know why All Is Quiet By The Wall is so damn excellent as a closer to the album's concept, dear lord, I just love that song) but even without the concept the end result is a diverse, interesting, unique brand of progressive metal, and I'm definitely looking forward to the album the band is dropping in October if their previous two releases are any indication of the new album's quality, which I imagine they should be. Maybe that one will even top this one, only time will tell.
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i really don't feel like i did this one justice, but it's hard to do the albums up this high justice because they are all rocking at least 9.5/10 overall ratings which is really goddamn high
and i did spoil the best track of the album, but on an album that's as long and generally consistent as Casualties of Cool one song being spoiled isn't gonna ruin the whole thing for you :lol
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Damn, I need to get into Casualties ASAP. I'm missing that one.
I've always been interested in Caligula's Horse, but never bothered exploring, this shall be the time.
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i'm never listening to bedlam again, so gl with that
it's so good tho. it's so raw and visceral and energetic. it's their most like at the drive-in which is probably why it's my fav. that being said, i totally understand why people don't like it.
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Bedlam is very good. It's not accessible in the slightest and you have to be a certain mood to listen to it, but it's damn good!
And nice, I really like the song you sent me in my roulette off that other Caligula's Horse album.
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#11: Thank You Scientist - Maps of Non-Existent Places
This is the kind of music that makes me nerd out about music. It's energetic, it's evocative, it's certainly unique, and it's plenty diverse. The band is halfway between Coheed and The Mars Volta and takes the elements of both that work, refines them, and uses them to create something original and amazing. The band's lineup includes a trumpet, a violin, and a saxophone, alongside other traditional rock instruments like guitar, bass, drums. And every single one of them is great at their instrument.
Prelude is a short a cappella track that starts the album off on a relaxed note, which is perfect for A Salesman's Guide To Nonexistence to kick up the energy right away. While mostly a straightforward rocker, the bridge has some fun time signature stuff going on. And it helps that the chorus is really strong and really catchy.
Feed The Horses starts off with a bit of somewhat dissonant, very offbeat instrumentation, before kicking in to a cool horn line. And the chorus of this one... probably the best on the album, really. Utterly fantastic. Can't neglect to mention the quiet part that builds up into the final chorus, and the entire ride of the buildup is glorious too.
Blood on the Radio is the "epic" of the album, with a distinct Spanish (or Mexican I really never can tell the difference) sound to its opening, lots of horns and sax action here. The chorus has a catchy rhythm to it and the verses have a cool riff going on that makes me happy on a technical level. The instrumental section is also tons of fun, with a unison between all the instruments playing another Spanish-y riff, then a groovy guitar riff under a sax solo. The highlight of this one for me has to be the verse right after the sax solo though, I just love that one. The buildup to the guitar solo is also great, and the transition from the solo back into the final chorus is basically perfect.
After that monster of a song we get Absentee to cool off, it's a power ballad that doesn't really kick in too hard until the last third of the song. There's a great sax solo and a good chorus before it really kicks in, though. The shift from light to heavy that happens is definitely my favorite part, the way the whole band kicks in, the melodies the guitar plays after it does, basically everything from that moment until the end of the song is fantastic.
Suspicious Waveforms follows, and it's a jazzy instrumental used as a platform for all the band members to get their turn to show off. As in, all six. All of them get a solo. Though this one's probably my "least favorite" on the album I still like it a lot and the solos are all pretty impressive in their own right, plus the song they're part of is structured well with a lot of cool stuff happening.
Carnival follows, probably my favorite on the album, I just love everything about this song. The intro/B-chorus riff, the way the first verse starts, the verse riff and vocals accompanying it, the buildup into the chorus, the high energy of the A-chorus, the heaviness of the bridge, the cool bass and drum groove leading into the violin solo, that absolutely fantastic solo itself, with the band under it really accentuating it, and the trumpet/sax unison that follows being great and accentuated in the same way, the riff that follows the solo and later closes out the song, I could gush about this song forever honestly it's sooooo good.
Concrete Swan Dive is a bit of an off-kilter track, hopping between a lot of different moods; the first few bits are quiet and pleasant, and then the angry, heavy chorus kicks in, with tons of cool guitar action going on under the soaring vocals. The aggression carries over into the next verse, though it's a bit held back in the first half of the verse. There's a cool riff in the bridge that I can't help but get into the rhythm of, basic as it is. Though this one's not one of my favorites either I still get a ton of enjoyment out of it, as weird as it is.
In the Company of Worms starts out with a shamisen of all things, as if there weren't already enough instruments on the album, and then the heaviest riff of the entire album kicks in; yeah, the last two tracks are a lot heavier than everything up to now. I think my favorite part of this one is the prechorus, though, and the bridge's drum groove. The solo is also very different and wah-heavy, and there's a pretty crazy technical guitar lead immediately after it that builds into the last chorus perfect.
The album closer, My Famed Disappearing Act, starts off making you think you're listening to Protest the Hero with a blistering guitar lead, before kicking into a frantic heavy riff that keeps the energy going, and the first doesn't lessen the energy either; it's not until the chorus that things slow down, but instead the energy is replaces by heaviness and epicness, another really good chorus for sure. The bridge here is great, every single part of it, we'd be here all day if I listed out all the cool things about it. The guitar solo's also the best on the album, and by far the longest, reprising the chorus vocals at one point and showing just how skilled the guitarist is without being pointessly shreddy. The final chorus is more relaxed, which is perfect for the intro lead to come back in for a reprisal and end the album on a frantic note.
This is probably the newest addition to the "unofficial top 10" and I see this one only rising in time, 'cause I love this album and I love this band and can't wait to hear more from them. The song-by-song writeup this time is way too long and I'm not apologizing because it's what this album deserves.
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things i am super stoked about: seeing TYS with Coheed and Cursive in October, that's gonna be amazing
things i am not super stoked about: i still have 10 writeups to go and they'll probably all end up this long whoops :lol
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This is definitely on my list of things to get. Especially after seeing you put it this high.
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you totally should, i nerd out over this album so hard, like seriously i charted the entire thing in guitar hero (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BiHKRahWayY&list=PLGgGq59kDt2nl1XZQvjatv8f9lUzHbJWs) that's how much of a nerd i am lol
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#10: Haken - The Mountain
Haken has always been a band I liked, ever since I heard their demo release. They sounded a bit like DT, but they did more than enough to differentiate themselves from the masses; notably by being really strange at times. Aquarius furthered the sound of the demo, with a lot of wacky moments interspersed throughout a well-written progressive metal experience, and while I love that album, it didn't quite make the cut for this list. Visions, their follow-up, was... alright, but a bit generic, and I was a little disappointed in it. Not a bad album by any means, I still enjoy it and it's not like they wildly changed their sound, but not much stood out except the fantastic Deathless.
And then The Mountain came out. I was in love, immediately. This is basically them refining their sound even further to give us a really great album, front-to-back, and easily their most diverse. Not as heavy overall as their previous two, but only by a little. Far more powerful overall, I feel. I don't feel like doing a song-by-song, though. I'll talk about a few songs.
Cockroach King. Is silly, epic, glorious. God, I love this song. The a capella bits, the huge riffs, the frantic instrumentals, the organ that comes in later on. Brilliant.
Because It's There. Really great a capella intro. Very nice bass solo. Very calm song that builds up well as it goes on, the last section especially is so full and great.
Falling Back To Earth. The first half is good, frantic riffs, alright instrumental. But then the second half hits. Slow, calm bit. Band comes in, starts building up as the vocals get more intense. And it hits full peak, coming to an amazing climax, best part of the album for sure.
Somebody. Very emotional song, chorus is strong, vocals in general are good here. The "I wish I could've been somebody" part with the rhythm shifting every time he sings it is neat. The buildup near the end crashing into the quiet outro works really well.
I'm not doing this album justice but I feel like this is a pretty well-known album anyways, and if you haven't checked it out, and you're on this forum, you definitely need to.
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Great choice. This one is fantastic. It's just 2015, but this will almost certainly be considered one of the best prog albums of the decade.
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A bit late but props for Panopticon. One of my all time favorites.
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The Mountain is great.
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The Haken is a fantastic album. I consider Pareidolia to be the highlight instead of FBTE though.
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Yeah, fantastic record. Mountain will surely become prog's future.
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I don't like The Mountain all that much, but TYS is a good one!
things i am super stoked about: seeing TYS with Coheed and Cursive in October, that's gonna be amazing
things i am not super stoked about: i still have 10 writeups to go and they'll probably all end up this long whoops :lol
I saw them on tour together around a year ago and really enjoyed it. It was my second time seeing Coheed, and they weren't as good as the first time I saw them, in my opinion, but TYS was fantastic
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concert is like a week after coheed's new album drops so they'll probably play a lot from it so i hope it's a good album :lol
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#9: Opeth - Ghost Reveries
Honestly, I've never been huge on Opeth. Can't get into My Arms or Still Life at all, I like some of Blackwater Park but not all of it and don't listen to it often, I really like Deliverance, and I like Damnation, but for me, Opeth has never been better than Ghost Reveries. The album sounds more diverse and generally just more interesting to my ears.
Ghost of Perdition is probably the most standard-sounding of the songs, but that doesn't make it anything less than fantastic. All the riffs here are great, the flow of the song is great, and there's just the right amount of heavy/light dynamic that makes it work. Baying of the Hounds has a cool groove to it in its heavier parts, and the softer parts are kinda jazzy and pleasant but dark. When the heavy riff kicks in after the quiet bit at the end... fantastic moment right there. Beneath the Mire starts out with a FANTASTIC groove and a cool doom-metal-esque riff following it. The way the song builds up a ton to its climax, first getting soft, then a bit louder, until it explodes near the end, works well. And the outro is sooo cool. Atonement is the first quieter track, though it's a lot more upbeat and bright than Opeth's lighter tracks tend to be, and has a cool jazzy solo near the end, too. Reverie is a brief interlude that's not really that noteworthy, but pleasant. Harlequin Forest is probably my single favorite Opeth song, it does so many things right, though it's kind of two songs at its core, but the faster tempo flows into the slower one pretty well. The groove is heavy in the more upbeat sections of the song, while the slower sections are more a build to the huge climax near the end. The quiet version of the riff right before the final "chorus" or whatnot is a cool way for the last bit to kick in there, and I love the outro here as well, it goes on juuuust long enough. Hours of Wealth is another quiet song, but this one is just plain somber. Very beautiful and haunting, emotional and chilling vocals on Akerfeldt's part and a great solo to close it off. The Grand Conjuration mostly focuses on reminding us that Opeth is really good at heavy stuff too, with some great darker soft verses just to keep things diverse. The way the outro riff builds and builds is again, really cool. This album does a thing with slightly repetitive but not overlong sections that I really like, evidently. Isolation Years is a brief melancholy closer, a little bright, a little sad, and a little beautiful, maybe not necessary as the album could've ended just fine with The Grand Conjuration, but ending on a soft note does feel in line with the rest of the album.
Maybe someday Opeth will click and I'll get into their earlier stuff more, but they've made an album that makes my top 10, so I definitely do like them on some level.
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Sounds like I'm like you with Opeth, but with different albums. I like some of their stuff, others I haven't really gotten into, and there's a little bit that I like a lot. For me, Ghost Reveries is either #3 or #4. Watershed is likely my favorite of the growls albums at #2 (which really kind of demonstrates what I listen to Opeth for, I guess), and Blackwater Park is also either #3 or #4. None of these, by the way, would rank nearly this high for me. Heritage is the one I really love and that one would have an outside chance of making top ten for me... So... I'm weird, yes.
But yeah, this is a good album. I agree with pretty much all of what you're saying about, just not as much :lol . Harlequin Forest is really awesome for sure.
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I'm not the biggest Opeth fan, either. Ghost Reveries and Watershed are really the only two albums that I love. Blackwater Park is probably third, and I think it's good, but I don't like it anywhere near as much. The other albums haven't connected with me at all so far other than the odd song here or there.
Maps of Non-Existent Places - Pretty good album, I listened to it just the other day.
The Mountain - Even better. :metal
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I think for us it was probably the keyboards. When it was just guitars, it worked for the vibe Mikael wanted, but the mood was just so barren, so unrelentingly bleak. The keyboards added some more texture and probably lightened things up a bit, made them not quite so despairing. And then we like BWP anyway because that album is just so well-written.
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I think for us it was probably the keyboards. When it was just guitars, it worked for the vibe Mikael wanted, but the mood was just so barren, so unrelentingly bleak. The keyboards added some more texture and probably lightened things up a bit, made them not quite so despairing. And then we like BWP anyway because that album is just so well-written.
Yeah, I think that's spot on.
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yes, keyboards in opeth are fantastically used, i love their presence here
pale communion has grown on me a little, also, i need to give that one more listens sometime
heritage is still really boring tho
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The Mountain is Haken's worst album. But that doesn't say a lot. Good choices here! While I'm more of a MAYH / Still Life / Blackwster Park kind of guy, I definitely understand why folks often thunk Ghost Reveries is their best.
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The Mountain is love.
Ghost Reveries is also pretty cool.
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Damn I really need to get into Opeth. A lot of people on the forum are praising them but I'm just too lazy to check them out. :lol
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Ghost Reveries is also my favorite Opeth album and Harlequin Forest is probably my favorite tune (but that changes from day to day). I love most of their discography and Pale Communion is up there on #2 or #3. I understand people don't like Heritage, it's different, but PC feels like Ghost Reveries without growls IMO.
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I really haven't gotten into PC that much. But I haven't listened to it that much.
That said, I absolutely adore Heritage and was kind of hoping for a Heritage Part 2, though I knew that wasn't going to happen.
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I have a few Opeth albums but I've listened to most at least once. Love Ghost Reveries, Blackwater Park, Still Life, Watershed, still need to listen to more of the others.
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#8: Mew - Frengers
Instead of the prog metal onslaught of the past few, here's some indie rock with a dreamy, bright sound.
Frengers is an interesting case because its inception basically guaranteed it would be quite enjoyable to anyone who likes the band, or the band's sound. Most of the tracks on the album are redone versions of tracks from their previous albums, and a few new ones were added in for good measure. The result is that all the returning tracks are very refined versions of tracks that were already good the first time.
I'm going to discuss the old tracks before I get to the new ones, then. Am I Wry? No is an upbeat, perfect opener for the album, with some fun drumming and guitar work going on. 156 goes through several different moods; downtempo verses, swingy prechorus, and rockin' chorus, and the three moods complement each other well, it's a pretty interesting listen. Symmetry is a piano-driven ballad with some great vocal work and good crescendos. Her Voice Is Beyond Her Years is a pretty short uptempo track with a slower-feeling chorus, it's a fun little jam basically. She Came Home For Christmas is definitely one of the highlights for me, very strong chorus and good buildup to it, plus the bridge before the final chorus is just soaring and wonderful. And Comforting Sounds... one of my favorite tracks of all time, probably the reason this is top 10 instead of somewhere in the top 20. Absolutely beautiful and wonderful in every way, I almost feel the second half is too short, I'd love it to go on forever.
The new tracks aren't any weaker, though. Snow Brigade especially, creates a very lush soundscape with a frantic feel to it, it's a very cool song, and the 7/4 bridge is a nice break from the energy of the rest of the track. Behind the Drapes is the only song on the album that I'm not a huge fan of, it's nice but it doesn't do anything too special, but it's not too long and I don't mind it at all. Eight Flew Over, One Was Destroyed is the darkest song on the album and probably the proggiest, its time signature changes quite a bit in the verses and bridge. I really like the chorus, it's very catchy, and the darker sound was probably a needed break from the brighter sound of most of the album. She Spider is a very uptempo rocker, a fun burst of energy that still manages plenty of quieter moments.
Overall this album is just a joy from front to back, and having a closer as good as Comforting Sounds is something that only happens once in a blue moon, I like both Mew albums on this list a ton but that song is probably the tipping point of why this album's up a lot higher than the other.
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I like Frengers, but it's not as good as And the Glass Handed Kites or No More Stories IMO. It has some of Mew's best songs, but as a whole it lacks that flow and album feel.
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I listened to No More Stories a few times and couldn't get into it, bleh
and I do agree that while it flows less as an album I tend to find myself liking the songs that much more than And The Glass Handed Kites (which is really consistent but doesn't have the peaks of this album)
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So like you think I maybe should get this or something?
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you seemed to like She Came Home For Christmas a lot so I imagine you'll like the rest :lol
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Never heard of it. ;D
Comforting Sounds is one of my favorite songs ever.
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#7: Pain of Salvation - Remedy Lane
Yeah, more Pain of Salvation. Surprise. This album is one of the band's most emotional and most powerful because of it; the concept is focused on love and if I remember correctly some of it is based on real-life events (I know Rope Ends is for sure). It's a very personal story and the songs show off all sorts of emotions from it.
A Trace of Blood is about miscarriage, how it affects the parents and the struggles they have to deal with after. The deceptively bright piano lead gives way to a dark, heavy verse, that slowly builds and builds as we learn more about the situation, until it explodes in the first chorus. Then the instrumental section... another great buildup section, first some acoustic guitar, then some riffs, noises over the riff, a guitar solo that builds and builds and gets frantic by the end, right into the second chorus. God, I love this one.
Undertow is a fairly simple song, another song about buildup, getting more and more intense with each verse and with every moment of the bridge, one of the best vocal performances Gildenlow's ever given for sure. This song gets to me every time, it's just incredibly powerful.
Rope Ends is a necessarily dark song, dealing with suicide. There's several distinct sections; the faster verses, the slower chorus, and the strange instrumental. The verses have heavy chugging going on while the main story of the song is told. The chorus starts out with a kind of groove, and continues to a big 6/4 section that's almost as emotionally charged as Undertow. The instrumental provides a much-needed respite from the crushing darkness of the rest of the track, having a bit of groove to it during the second guitar solo, but it's not exactly the happiest sounding thing ever. And the final chorus goes on longer than the first two, bringing the song to a fitting end.
Beyond The Pale is the album closer, and it starts out very empty; guitar and vocals. It's the climax of all the ideas in the album, and not exactly a happy ending either. I really like the melody that plays a few times throughout the song that has a bit of an eastern vibe to it, and the heavy/soft chorus that happens a few times works well. The song also has a fake ending a few minutes before the end, before kicking back in with full force. And the guitar solo on this track is frantic and chaotic, which fits the mood really well. The ending is very quiet and dark, but with a sense of acceptance at the very least.
Having four tracks of this quality alone would be enough to get the album pretty high on the list even without the rest, but I like a lot of the other tracks a ton too. Of Two Beginnings is a very interesting opener, Ending Theme, is pretty straightforward, but I really like the spoken word section in the middle, gives me chills every time. Fandango is quirky and waltzy, but in a 5/4 time signature, it captures the atmosphere it goes for really well. This Heart of Mine is one of the few brighter spots of the album, but it's offset by Undertow immediately after, which even reprises the main melody of the former's chorus. Chain Sling is another interesting song with its clean guitar drive and high energy. Following are Dryad of the Woods, a very pretty instrumental, and Remedy Lane, a much darker instrumental. Waking Every God has a cool thing with being in 3/4 but having a 4/4 feel to it, not one of my favorites but it's okay. Second Love is another straightforward ballad, though not so happy in nature.
Front-to-back this album is quality music, with several songs that I rate really highly and the rest I enjoy quite a lot as well. When they were in their prime, Pain of Salvation were one of the greatest bands in the prog metal scene and it's albums like this that cement that in my mind.
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Hell yeah, I love this album. Second Love is my favourite though, shame on you to pay it such a little attention in your writeup.
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One of my favorites as well. I could listen to it every day, it's always enjoyable. Perfect blend of emotional and heavy progressive metal.
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Some great prog metal albums there, Remedy Lane and, especially, Ghost Reveries :tup
I like Opeth but always was more into Ghost Reveries instead of Still Life-Blackwater Park.
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A Trace of Blood is also based on the miscarriage Gildenlöw's wife had with their first child. There's some more stuff in there as well, like Second Love being written when Gildenlöw was about 15, for his highschool sweetheart or something like that.
This album is utterly amazing and the special edition that includes the track Thorn Clown is even better. Very good choice, I love his one.
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Ghost Reveries and Remedy Lane :metal
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#6: Sigur Rós - ( )
Behold, the most ungoogleable album title in the history of my list. And easily one of the best. By far my favorite post-rock record. Yeah, there hasn't been a huge presence of post-rock on my list because post-rock is something that I like to listen to but a lot of it fails to stand out to me, pleasant as it is. Sigur Rós have their own unique sound and have made one of the greatest albums I've ever heard using their sound to its extent.
Every track is beautiful. Every track is also Untitled, so we'll refer to them by their alternate names. Not that there's a huge need to, as the only proper way to listen to this album is front-to-back.
Vaka. Absolutely beautiful. Perfect opener.
Fyrsta. A bit brighter, very relaxing and hypnotic.
Samskeyti. The most beautiful song in the land. I have never found someone who dislikes this song, and woe be unto the person who does dislike this song, for they are the spawn of the devil.
Njósnavélin. Very bright, very soothing, but probably my least favorite track on the album. Not that that's saying much when the entire thing is great, but.
Alafoss. Sluggish and far darker than anything prior.
E-Bow. Not as sluggish and a bit louder than the prior track but just as dark.
Dauđalagiđ. Longest song. Climax of the album, really.
Popplagiđ. A deceptive beast. Starts off as the brightest song on the album. Turns into the darkest. Ends with an absolutely heavy and frantic climax.
It's basically impossible to talk about this album, you just have to listen to it. Sigur Rós have mastered the art of using space in music, of building atmosphere, tension, mastering moods, it's really a basically flawless album. I've probably listened to this album the most out of everything on my list. I have nothing else to say about it.
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Great album, and even if I prefer ( ) a bit more, can't go wrong with either.
dude why did you instantly assume agaetis was my favorite :lol
you ruined my life for two weeks, but not really, but i found it funny
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>implying I assumed agaetis was your favorite sigur ros album
Fantastic record, need to listen to their music more.
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#5: Riverside - Anno Domini High Definition
Riverside were a progressive metal band with a fairly unique sound, who made some albums that I find to be pretty good. Then they added some electronic influence to their music and made this masterpiece of an album. I've been in love with this one basically since I first heard it, and have never really gotten tired of it. I mean what isn't there to love here? The fact that it does, inevitably, end? Put it on repeat, problem solved.
Hyperactive is the opener, starting out with some pretty piano as the more energetic, frantic, main instrumentation fades in. Hyperactive is definitely a good name for this song. I love how in the verses everything abruptly cuts in and out when the vocals come in. And there's so much to this song, far more ideas than you'd think would fit into a 5 minute track.
Driven to Destruction is a more bass-driven, industrial-ish sounding track. Not as frantic as the previous, but still pretty upbeat. The song has a fair number of quiet parts and some buildup to its climaxes, and again, just a ton of ideas crammed into its runtime.
Egoist Hedonist is a three-part song, and done very well, as the transitions between its separate parts are very smooth. The first part is fairly calm for the first verses, but a heavy riff kicks in with some delicious organ on top of it. After another verse the second part begins with the first "chorus" of the song. Love the instrumentation in this section, especially the bit right after the chorus. After another chorus the third part kicks in, a softer, half-tempo feel, before kicking into a faster instrumental with lots of fun riffs and just, generally great music, building up to a heavy end.
Left Out is a power ballad, though quite a long one. Again bass-driven, more and more comes in as the song progresses; the full band pops in for a moment, and then a slow buildup to the first heavier part, again with the organ. There's a quiet bridge between the main song and the instrumental that has some great atmosphere and has the song take a darker turn. A bluesy guitar solo of all things comes in as the feel of the song changes, and we get a lot of heavy riffing, building up and up to the climax at the very end (which also has a very bluesy feel), and some delicious dissonance to close off the track.
And then Hybrid Times. Oh man. What a monster of a song. Again starts with piano, but much more frantic piano, fitting the song quite well; this song is just frantic and hyperactive most of the way through. Even the quieter moments have tons of energy to them. Around the halfway mark, things calm down for the final lyrics of the album, not the happiest end, and the song from there on out is an instrumental, with some chugging riffs, a nice solo, and one last burst of frantic heaviness. The last few minutes are driven by electronic elements and drums, a bit of a build to have the album end on as strained of a note as the rest of the album has been.
Really though, I can't adequately describe why this album works just going song-by-song. The main thing is; this is how I want prog metal to be done. It's not showcasing how proficient the band members are at their instruments (though they're all good) but the music they write using various time signature changes and heavy riffs and electronics and organs and whatever else they wanted to throw in there - just sounds damn good. And the production on this album is -stellar-, crystal clear and all the better for it. I love how this album sounds, I love every second of the music on here, I could listen to it all day and never get the slightest bit sick of it because there's so much on here and it never gets repetitive or stale. I'm absolutely positive I'll still be listening to this album 20 years from now and enjoying it as much as I did when I first heard it.
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Great album, love how Riverside sounds like Tool but with synths, and much better music. Can't decide if I like this one or SLS more. Hope their new album is better than SoNGS.
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god i sure hope it is.
comes out next friday but i probably won't be getting it until around the end of the month, gonna wait for TesseracT to release too :lol
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I listened to this album once, now I'm listening to it once again, since what I heard was awesome.
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That Popplagiđ ending, what a climax :hefdaddy
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(https://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0002/043/MI0002043674.jpg?partner=allrovi.com)
#4: Dream Theater - Awake
Yeah, this one wasn't obvious at all. Nope. Noooot at all.
Dream Theater is a band.
This is an album.
A very good album. Their best. One of the best.
Awake sounds unlike anything else in their discography, it's very much an entity of its own and very good for it. Generally darker, especially compared to their previous album, and with a lot rougher vocals from LaBrie. The songs are technical but not too show-offy. It's charged with emotion and filled to the brim with creativity.
6:00 is the grooviest song the band's ever released, love those drums and love those keys. The guitar riffs are cool too, and LaBrie's singing matches the tone of the song perfectly.
Caught in a Web is a pretty straightforward rocker, catchy and enjoyable. I really like the instrumental break here, it stays to lower octaves at the start and gradually builds, leading to some faster guitar licks near the end. It's the kind of technical I dig.
Innocence Faded is a very poppy and accessible track, though done well, that happens to have one of the best instrumental sections DT's ever done at the end. I love the section and the solo, it's so classy and so fine-tuned to all work together well.
Erotomania is a journey of an instrumental, it passes through a lot of ideas but does so in a way that keeps it cohesive, and it helps that I like all the ideas. The main riff at the start and end, the riffing before the acoustic bit, the pre-reprise of The Silent Man, Petrucci's third solo is fantastic, and it comes full circle in a cool way, ending with an ambient-ish bass solo of all things.
Voices is one of the longer tracks and it's a master at build-up. The piano verse to the first chorus and basically everything from the break in the middle to the end of the song is one long buildup, and Petrucci's solo here again is another one of his best. Absolutely adore this song, top 10 DT easily.
The Silent Man is a nice little acoustic ballad following the intensity of the album up to this point. A good break, the solo's very nice.
The Mirror is AWESOME. Hell, I wish more prog metal was like this. There's no show-offing here at all, just cool riffs, some nice atmopshere, and a fantastic breakdown at the end. As well as the best chorus on the album, easily. I loooove everything about this song.
Lie immediately follows, and it's a more straightforward rocker, though it goes through its moods too. I really like the chugging before the first solo, and the second guitar solo section is cool too, but this probably ends up as my least favorite track on the album (but still great).
Lifting Shadows Off A Dream is another softer track, I really like the delay effect Petrucci uses to make some simple clean picking sound really atmopsheric and dreamy. The song also does a nice bit of building up and the instrumental section here is cool too, a really good power ballad.
Scarred is my single favorite Dream Theater song, nothing will ever top it, and I don't feel a need to say any more, except that I love every moment of this song.
Space-Dye Vest is a Kevin Moore song, but it serves as a really good closer to the album nonetheless, it's quite dark and depressing, but there's a ton of emotion there, and the build at the end is really powerful.
And yet, this fantastic album is only #4. Such is life.
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Scarred is my single favorite Dream Theater song, nothing will ever top it, and I don't feel a need to say any more, except that I love every moment of this song.
Wasn't The Root of All Evil your #1?
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i'm going to briefly touch upon some honorable mentions by artists that didn't make the list at all tonight and do my top three all tomorrow, since the top three are... basically all tied for #1. There's not really any notable difference, they're only barely in an order and would easily switch depending on my mood (right now I actually feel #3 as my current #1, but just barely, I love all three of these upcoming ones way too much)
so i wanna do them all in one day, and i wanted to do honorable mentions anyways, so yeah
and no, TROAE was my #2. though these days I think Take The Time would beat it out for that slot.
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My #4 fav DT album, but still a great record.
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Dream Theater, yes, absolutely. Awake, this high? Not in my opinion.
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Good choice :tup
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Awake is an album I really like but have to be in the mood for. I really dislike the whole Mind Beside Itself suite so that drags it down a bit in my rankings.
Erotomania has a very good second half, but the first few riffs and passages are pretty subpar imho.
Voices never really grew on me. It has it's moments but overall doesn't work for me.
TSM is pretty okay, the best part of the suite.
The rest of the album is flawless. Mirror and Scarred are top 10 songs.
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Honorable Mention time!
Muse - Absolution - I guess I could say I'm a fan of Muse but even on their best album I'm not 100% a fan. While I like most every song on this album, some of them quite a bit, Apocalypse Please, Time Is Running Out, Stockholm Syndrome, Hysteria, Ruled By Secrecy are all great, none of them evoke incredibly strong feelings from me. Solid album front-to-back, though. Might've made the list if I'd not been rushed to do this.
Ólafur Arnalds - For Now I Am Winter - I like this album a lot, as well, but at times it's a bit empty, it kind of runs out of momentum after Old Skin as well. Very pretty piano-driven music with some strings and other orchestration, plus some good vocals, and Old Skin is a favorite of mine for sure.
Guilt Machine - On This Perfect Day - Probably my second favorite of Arjen's albums, Season of Denial and Perfection? are top-tier songs and Twisted Coil and Leland Street are pretty cool too, but I've never been too hot on Green and Cream (which sounds a lot like Newborn Race at times) nor Over. The songs I do like are some of Arjen's best, though.
Steven Wilson - Hand. Cannot. Erase. - Fairly recent album, and while it's easily my favorite of his solo works, I don't think it's comparable to the better Porcupine Tree albums. I like 3 Years Older a fair bit, Home Invasion and Regret 9 are pretty cool, and Ancestral has a fantastic instrumental, Happy Returns is a good closer. The shorter songs are all decent, Routine feels very... off to me, though. I don't know if it handles its subject matter quite right, or if it's just too depressing to enjoy, for me.
Anathema - We're Here Because We're Here - A good album on the whole, with some excellent tracks, Thin Air, A Simple Mistake, and Hindsight especially, but when I stopped listening to this frequently I found myself forgetting large chunks of it; it doesn't stick with me well. I think Anathema tends to be that way for me in general, Judgement was the same, Weather Systems is the same, Distant Satellites is the same. All of them have a few standout tracks and the rest I find myself just mostly indifferent on. I think I've given up on really loving Anathema, but they're alright.
Cloudkicker - The Discovery - Lots of cool riffs and a nice fusion of djent sound and post-rock, but a little monotonous at times. I still dig this album and listen to it occasionally. Never got too into any Cloudkicker releases after it, though, dunno why.
Godspeed You! Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven - It's probably a crime to leave GY!BE off my list, but... while I've always liked them and respected them, there have always been elements I've not been so fond of. The samples aren't really ever my thing, and their albums all tend to feel a bit empty at times. While this is the closest they came to making my list, and I do like this album a fair bit, it's not strong enough front-to-back for me.
Hammock - Departure Songs - I love this album to death but only as something I don't actively listen to, and as a result can't really justify putting in on a list of favorite albums when I wouldn't be able to place most songs by name. I sleep to this album a lot or just put it on when I want light, pleasant music, though, quite often, need to get more Hammock at some point.
IQ - The Road of Bones - Pretty good, although not really special in any way, progressive metal album. The Road of Bones and Until the End are great, powerful songs, and I like From The Outside In, but Without Walls falls into the category of epics I'm not a huge fan of, feels incohesive and, well, the way it starts just irks me. That's the start of a short ballad interlude, dammit, not the centerpiece of your album. Not that it's a bad song, just that I can never get much into it.
Pink Floyd - Animals - I like Pink Floyd, I really do, they make a lot of good music, but it's rarely something I'm in the mood for. This is probably my favorite due to the jammy nature of the tracks and the concept, though Wish You Were Here is not trailing far behind. DSOTM is good too, The Wall is alright, and I like Meddle a bit as well. But yeah, can't say I'm crazy about them.
Skyharbor - Guiding Lights - This is the direction I want to see more djent bands take, again, some post-rock influence here and no harsh vocals to be found, using the structured riffs to make more interesting music beyond just heavy music. I don't think this was quite there for me, but I still like this album a fair bit; maybe the next Skyharbor album will really click with me.
This Will Destroy You - Tunnel Blanket - Another album I listen to a fair bit but don't actively listen to too often, it's very nice mood music, kind of similar to ( ) but not as strong front-to-back, and a bit less focused. Their self-titled album is pretty close behind, I like it a lot too, the best songs are all on that one but there's weaker songs that break up the mood a little for me, and this one's just far more consistently enjoyable to me.
Radiohead - OK Computer - This is the #1 rated album on RYM and while I can agree it's a good album, I'm not crazy huge on it or anything. I like most of the songs, excluding Climbing up the Walls which is meh, and Paranoid Android and Exit Music (For A Film) are both pretty great, the rest just falls in a category of "good music". I think Kid A is a more "interesting" album all-around but I tend to find myself liking this one more, Kid A has a few more weaker or pointless tracks than this one.
Cursive - The Ugly Organ This -would've- been on the list if I was starting it just now, probably somewhere between 20 and 30. I love the use of dissonance on this album, and the lyrics are incredibly personal to the point where I feel bad for just listening to them, but enjoy them nonetheless. And I approve of 30 minutes of anger and energy ending with, essentially, a 10 minute post-rock track that reprises a section from an earlier track. But yeah, wow, pretty quickly fell in love with this one when I got it some two weeks ago and have been spinning it a fair bit.
Rosetta - The Galilean Satellites - I got this in the mail only a few days ago and pretty instantly could tell it would've been an easy top 20 album, maybe top 10, if I'd had it earlier. This is an utterly fantastic record; the first disc is very evocative post-metal, the second disc is very charged dark ambient, and both discs can be played at the same time to produce one of the most beautiful (not in the standard "pretty sense though) records I've ever heard, absolutely going to nerd out over this for a month I bet. Aaaggh. Brilliant stuff.
I think that's enough, haha :lol
I will say right away that I do feel there are a few changes that probably needed to be made to this list, a few things too high, a few others too low, one or two I probably shouldn't have had on the list at all, but I'm pretty happy overall with how my very rough top albums list came out, and the top 5 is absolutely perfect the way it is, at the very least. Not that they were hard picks for me. Not that the top 3 three-way-tie was very hard for me either, haha.
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I like a couple of those honorable mentions, also Awake is just plain awesome as you've said.
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Awake...........I know that one :tup Good to see the end of Innocence Faded get some kudos - one of my favourite DT/JP moments too.
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(https://s23.postimg.org/f3qz3vq97/Thrice_640x640.jpg)
#3: Thrice - Beggars
Oh man, who would've guessed the album cover I use for my avatar was one of my favorite albums, hahah.
Beggars is a bit softer of an album than Vhiessu, and doesn't incorporate electronic instruments at all. But what remains is... a purity, that just makes every song on this album work, and makes it work as a whole. The music is all very good on its own and the music properly mimics the emotion of the vocals, the best Kensrue's ever been. And this is one of the few albums where I find the lyrics very important, not only are the songs all strong musically but each of them have a good message or tell an interesting story.
It's also a very diverse record, each song fits into a different style. All The World Is Mad is an upbeat rocker that toys with rhythms and is just, really catchy and really well-written. The Weight plays with a quiet/soft dynamic a lot, with pretty restrained verses and a grand chorus, and the message of faithfulness is certainly a great one. Circles is a quieter song in general, almost feels like it has a bit of post-rock influence at times with what the guitars are doing, and I'll be damned if I don't agree a lot with its message too. Doublespeak has a great piano and drum driven groove, with some cool bass stuff happening too, with a more sluggish chorus and bridge. In Exile has a thumping snare rhythm consistent throughout most of the song, with a big chorus and a soaring outro. At The Last has a heavier main riff and chorus, the band's older post-hardcore sound still shining through, and the buildup to the second chorus is phenomenal. Also, the lyrics of this song make me feel like a jerk kinda. Wood and Wire is a very downtempo, beautiful song, with a message of finding hope in even the darkest of places, a very pretty outro as well, one of my favorites off the album for sure. Talking Through Glass is a straight-up heavy track with a high amount of energy, which gives way to We Move Like Swingsets, a short acoustic interlude. The Great Exchange has one of my favorite sets of lyrics in any song ever, and it's another pretty calm song with some energetic drums to give it a bit of a pulse. Beggars closes the album with a loooong but effective buildup, starting with just acoustic guitars and subdued vocals, the vocals getting more intense as the music does, and just at its peak - a quiet final verse, before exploding into a pretty epic outro.
I never get tired of this album. It's ten great songs with ten great sets of lyrics and a pretty-near flawless album from beginning to end; I'd say the only reason it's below my #2 and #1 is because it's the shortest of the three, there's not as much to love as on the other two, but the quality this record provides more than makes up for its short length.
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In hindsight, that's not a surprising pick at all :lol
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My #4 fav DT album, but still a great record.
Same here.
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(https://media.jukebo.com/a3787/a17490.jpg)
#2: Oceansize - Frames
This is a weird choice to have up this high, because there's a song on here that I'm not that huge on, namely Sleeping Dogs and Dead Lions. The problem then, is, that 5 of these songs are UTTERLY AMAZING and the other two unaccounted for are pretty dang great too.
Especially of note is that the run of Unfamiliar-Trail of Fire-Savant-Only Twin is the best run of songs on any album I've ever heard. Four brilliant, wildly different songs one after another.
Unfamiliar is probably the most "standard" song of the album, but subtly one of the most complex; the drumming is fantastic, the three layers of guitars interplay with each other very well, the song has a lot to it and comes to some great climaxes. It's "standard" but very refined, and very good.
Trail of Fire takes a more post-rock approach, being a pretty restrained song for half its runtime, but there's a ton of very nice moments and it slowly builds up to a huge wall of sound, fantastic riffs and leads, everything coming together with a high amount of energy for a fantastic climax.
Savant is a much more relaxed track overall, with some interesting drums and heavy use of orchestration, but even one of the most relaxed songs on the album still comes to a pretty nice climax by the end. Just a really beautiful song, can't help but love it.
Only Twin is dark dark dark, very chilling and emotionally charged. It's also quite interesting instrumentation-wise, the drums give a frantic feel to the otherwise relaxed first half, and the choruses in the second half come to a great climax. Haunting, fantastic song that I never get sick of.
And then... The Frame. Another one of my favorite songs of all time (and, spoiler; the third song that competes for my #1 favorite is on the #1 album). Absolutely beautiful, every second of it. The music, the lyrics, the buildup, the payoff, perfect, flawless.
The other songs on the album... Commemorative 9/11 T-Shirt is the opener, and it grooves on an 11/8 time-signature the whole way through, with some building throughout the song, it's a good start to the album and it transitions very well into Unfamiliar. An Old Friend of the Christies is a post-metal type of song, sluggish and slow for the first half, with a loud climax in the middle and a bit more of the quiet chugging to finish off the track. And Sleeping Dogs and Dead Lions is the "heavy" track of the album, it's an okay track but there's some weird parts I've never been too fond of in the middle, and it feels a bit out of place.
But this is definitely an album I never get tired of revisiting, and the majority of the album is amazing enough for me to overlook a few flaws. I think the only reason this isn't #1 is because of those flaws, whereas my #1 pick is pretty perfect front-to-back.
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There were a couple years that I listened to ( ) every single night before going to sleep/while sleeping. Top 6 album for me, too, I think. ADHD has been getting a lot of plays from me recently as well, though for a long time it was my least favorite Riverside album. When it comes to Thrice, I prefer the Alchemy Index. Lastly, I've given Frames several tries and I enjoy it, for the most part, but haven't ever been blown away.
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Lastly, I've given Frames several tries and I enjoy it, for the most part, but haven't ever been blown away.
This. I've never been able to get into Oceansize - their style isn't my cup of tea. I like a bit of Effloresce tho ;D
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yeah, I know y'all are allergic to great music :loser:
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Lastly, I've given Frames several tries and I enjoy it, for the most part, but haven't ever been blown away.
This. I've never been able to get into Oceansize - their style isn't my cup of tea. I like a bit of Effloresce tho ;D
Yeah, I was kind of here after listening to Only Twin a few times. Good, but not really my favorite thing and not as great as some of the praise they get. But that's only one song so I'm not going to say that I flat out don't like this band. I'll try more at some point.
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(https://www.insideoutmusic.com/media/release/large/PainOfSalvation03.jpg)
#1: Pain of Salvation - The Perfect Element I
Yeah... I fairly quickly decided this was going to be #1 and I'm pretty sure that decision has held up. Pain of Salvation have crafted an essentially flawless album, musically, lyrically, conceptually. I don't think there's a single section of this I dislike, and very little that I don't find quite as good as the rest.
And heck if the album isn't a diverse beast. The nu-metal influence on this album is used pretty perfectly in Used, giving a pretty straightforward but intensely powerful opener, with the second half being a long buildup to the huge climax. The song introduces the male main character, He, with In The Flesh (almost certainly a Pink Floyd reference) introducing the female main character, She. It's a much lighter track all-around, with some nice melodies and tons of atmosphere, but it has a pretty big and loud climax too.
Ashes is probably the most "single"-ish song the band's ever written, completely straightforward and with a standard song structure, but since it's Pain of Salvation, it's still very emotionally charged and moves the story along well. I do like the two guitar-theme throughout the majority of the song, and the spoken word bridge is cool too. Morning on Earth is a quieter, contemplative song, the main instrument being... I dunno, but it's a neat one. The spoken word bridge here is honestly one of my favorite moments of the entire album, with the way the music builds as Gildenlow gets more intense. The chorus of this song is also very nice.
And then, Idioglossia. What a beast of a song. There is not a single second of this song I would change, there is not a single moment I take any issue with, and there's so much to this 8-and-a-half minute song it's crazy. From the high energy of the intro, to the delicious main riff of the verses and outro, the proggy clean prechoruses, the reprise of Ashes for the chorus, especially the second one where the energy really kicks up, the frantic as hell solo following that second chorus, the way the outro just builds and builds, more and more voices coming in, finally crashing with Gildenlow's primal scream at the end. The lyrics of the song are powerful and Gildenlow's vocals are incredible. No contest, best song of the album, best song the band's ever put out, possibly the best song of all time. What a song.
Her Voices, immediately following, has big shoes to fill. And... well, it comes pretty damn close. The bright intro and calm first verse give way to a big reprise of the intro and a more energetic second verse, with the chorus following being very charged and powerful. The instrumental section is great too, the high-energy guitar lines keeping the momentum going, and it builds into a fantastic climax of an outro, probably my favorite part of the song, but I love this one a ton too. It's just not quite Idioglossia, ahah. Really like the themes of the song too, very dark but effective.
Dedication is a calm but somber moment, a brief lament over the loss of a loved one with fitting music, invoking nostalgia but also melancholy. Not much to say about it. King of Loss is one of the longer tracks, with a slow build in the early verses, exploding in a huge chorus. I think my favorite part here is the bridge and instrumental break after the second chorus, though. I like this song quite a bit but these two tracks are probably my two least favorites on the album nonetheless, which is to say they are rocking A minuses while the rest is A and A plus, basically.
Reconciliation does a thing I rarely see done well. The main lead is a reprise of Morning on Earth's main theme, but instead of the same calm feel, this one is of loud anger and regret. It keeps the same theme but applies it to a different concept, which makes it feel fresh as well as making the record more cohesive. I quite like the instrumental break here, brief as it is, and the fadeout outro is used well to crossfade into the next track, Song for the Innocent. I actually wrote a short paper on this one once discussing the lyrics, since I doubt they'll ever lose their relevance. The first half is soft and calm, but the lyrics betray the dreamy sound of the song. The second half is one heck of a guitar solo, probably my favorite solo of the album.
The penultimate track, Falling, is basically an intro to the closer, The Perfect Element. Falling is primarily just an ambient guitar solo over some warm synth, the last note fading into the real intro of the song. And while The Perfect Element is a great closer as a whole... it's really let down by its chorus. The song calls for a massive chorus, basically being the climax of the album, but all we get is a kind of big one. It's a shame, because every other part of this song is basically flawless. The verses building up to the first chorus, the heavy verse between the first two choruses, and especially the entire section building from a quiet acoustic riff to the final chorus. So many cool ideas, so much raw emotion, and the brief moment of silence with "will I ever walk again" sang as somberly as possible... and then we end with a slightly disappointing final chorus, there's just not enough payoff to the buildup, but it's a fine song nonetheless, and the drum outro is really cool. The chorus isn't weak enough to ruin the song for me, it's still quite a great track.
And the concept speaks to me at least to some level; I didn't go through any sort of abuse as a child, but I know that childhood isn't exactly the easiest thing in the world either. Whereas with Remedy Lane, well... I'm asexual and aromantic so the most I can do there is sympathize, but I can actively feel this album. I've dealt with a fair bit of what the album deals with, and it treats the subject matter with respect while still getting a lot of good music out of it.
Pain of Salvation is a great band. Was a great band. I don't know if they still are, their last home-run album was a decade ago now, which is a bit of a shame, but I can always hope there will be a return to form at some point, blah. They've left behind a legacy any band could be proud of, though, and I love all of their first five albums quite a lot.
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Now that is an amazing album, love it.
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There's nothing in the top 3 that I've heard of. :lol
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what -have- you heard of, anyways
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I don't know. DT is a pretty cool band. :neverusethis:
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Oh my, the number of times I have listened to TPE can not he counted. What a brilliant album, good choice!
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I can't really seem to get into PoS, and this album bored me to tears. Nice list tho :P
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yet you signed up for my roulette anyways :rollin
place your bets on your average score now
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Well your tastes are similar to a friend of mine so I'll just send some of his fav bands :loser: . Bands that I also like ofc.
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Can't get into PoS, but Oceansize are good.
Nice list overall :tup
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Awesome album :tup but I like Remedy Lane more, not because there's something wrong with TPE but because RL is something else to me.
I'm in yoir roulette, too and we have similar taste based on your top albums but I think I'll send more diverse music. Actually, I think the song I sent you for round 1 isn't similar to anything in your top 50 :P
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I'm curious how accurate this list would be today. :corn
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i've been putting off updating this list for a while, yes
#1 is The Apologist now and at least half of this list would be completely gone
nice 4-year bump tho :metal
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:lol
Considering what you've been listening to the last couple years it makes sense that this list would change drastically.
I'd been looking through all the old top 50 lists and listening to albums I'm not familiar with. Figured I would bump this for the hell of it. :angel:
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maybe i'll make one at the start of the next year as like, closure for the decade, dunno :corn
i've said i'd update this like 5 times now and i never find the time
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Too many roulettes to participate in :biggrin:
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also i'm just constantly checking out/buying new stuff all the time too :lol
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Poor TPE gets knocked from its throne.