DreamTheaterForums.org Dream Theater Fan Site
General => General Music Discussion => Topic started by: The Letter M on June 11, 2018, 11:05:22 PM
-
I was spinning Spock's Beard's Beware Of Darkness earlier today at work and, being one of my fave 2nd albums by any band, I thought the idea of great 2nd albums would make for a good discussion.
Off the top of my head, here's a few that I think stand out:
Song For America by Kansas
Queen II by Queen
Chicago by Chicago
Fly By Night by Rush
Images And Words by Dream Theater
Bridge Across Forever by Transatlantic
Honorable non-rock mention- Discovery by Daft Punk
What second albums do you guys enjoy, love, praise, etc?
-Marc.
-
Let's go with:
Act II by The Dear Hunter
Bilateral by Leprous
Frances the Mute by The Mars Volta
The Tide, The Thief & River's End by Caligula's Horse
In all cases those are my favourites from the respective bands.
-
Besides DT:
Angra - Holy Land
Arcturus - La Masquerade Infernale
Leprous - Bilateral
Queensryche - Rage for Order
Riverside - Second Life Syndrome
Threshold - Psychedelicatessen
Probably more I'm not thinking of.
Edit - But they're not all my favorite album by that band. Angra, yes, Riverside yes, Leprous, maybe.
-
Alter Bridge's Blackbird
Shinedown's Us and Them
Ahhh, the albums of my youth and both bands have gone in drastic different directions since then (one band is still awesome though, but one I just don't like their recent albums nowadays. Guess which one is still awesome to me. It's the band that still has the same lineup from the start).
-
This is all personal preference of course, but looking through my own collection, I’ll go with:
Vanden Plas - The God Thing (This band’s first four could actually qualify for the “Who has the best first four albums” thread
Evergrey - Solitude Dominance Tragedy
Scar Symmetry - Pitch Black Progress
Red - Innocence and Instinct
Fireflight - Unbreakable
Decyfer Down - Crash
-
Judas Priest - Sad Wings of Destiny
Rainbow - Rising
Symphony X - The Damnation Game
Halestorm - The Strange Case Of
Maybe we could give honorable mentions to second albums that were so good, and that no one could imagine they'd come to be after a relatively standard debut album. Rainbow's Rising is great, sure, but also Rainbow's first album was great. Priest going from Rocka Rolla to Sad Wings was a huge, groundbreaking, genre defining step. Also DT after the almost unnoticed debut doing Images and Words is a supernova kind of event.
-
Genesis - Trespass
Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Tarkus (or Pictures, depends if you wanna count that as a regular album. Both are fantastic)
Haken - Visions (although it's my least fav Haken album - which really doesn't mean much...)
Coldplay - A Rush Of Blood To The Head
Tool - Ænima
Creed - Human Clay (yeah I admit it ... I love Creed.)
Limp Bizkit - Significant Other
Rammstein - Sehnsucht (ALSO my least fav album by them, which - again - doesn't mean too much)
System Of A Down - Toxicity
-
Act II by The Dear Hunter
Bilateral by Leprous
The Tide, The Thief & River's End by Caligula's Horse
all of these absolutely
i also will add:
The Hirsch Effekt - Holon : Anamnesis
-
Of the top of my head and not already mentioned:
Joe Satriani - Surfing With The Alien
Thunder - Laughing On Judgement Day
Steve Vai: Passion And Warfare
Anthrax: Spreading The Disease
Extreme: Pornograffitti
-
Nothing to do, so I checked some.
Aerosmith - Get Your Wings
Agalloch - The Mantle
Akinetón Retard - Akranania
Alcest - Écailles De Lune
Alice In Chains - Dirt
Amon Düül II - Yeti
Amorphis - Tales From The Thousand Lakes
Anathema - The Silent Enigma
Anekdoten - Nucleus
Änglagård - Epilog
Ark - Burn The Sun
Beardfish - The Sane Day
Black Country Communion - BCC II
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Bozzio Levin Stevens - Situation Dangerous
Camel - Mirage
Cannibal Corpse - Butchered At Birth
Cardiacs - On Land And In The Sea
Devil Doll - Eliogabalus
Dixie Dregs - What If
Dr. John - Babylon
Dream Theater - Images And Words
Egg - The Polite Force
Elf - Carolina County Ball
ELP - Tarkus
Estradasphere - Buck Fever
Exuma - Exuma II
Focus - Moving Waves
Frank Zappa - Absolutely Free
Funkadelic - ST
Genesis - Trespass
Gentle Giant - Acquiring The Taste
Grand Funk Railroad - On Time
Haken - Visions
Harmonium - Si On Avait Besoin D'Une Cinquième Saison
High Tide - ST
Hiromi Uehara - Brain
Höyry-Kone - Huono Parturi
Iron Maiden - Killers
Jan Dukes De Grey - Mice And Rats In The Loft
Jethro Tull - Stand Up
Joni Mitchell - Clouds
Kayo Dot - Dowsing Anemone With Copper Tongue
King Crimson - In The Wake Of Poseidon
King's X - Gretchen Goes To Nebraska
Kyuss - Blues For The Red Sun
Laibach - Nova Akropola
Leb I Sol - Leb I Sol 2
Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin II
Leprous - Bilateral
LTE - LTE 2
Living Colour - Time's Up
Mahavishnu Orchestra - Birds Of Fire
Maneige - Les Porches
Marsupilami - Arena
Maudlin Of The Well - Leaving Your Body Map
Mountain - Nantucket Sleighride
Mr. Bungle - Disco Volante
Nick Drake - Bryter Layter
Opeth - Morningrise
Osibisa - Woyaya
Pan.Thy.Monium - Khaooohs
Panzerballett - Starke Stücke
Pekka Pohjola - Harakka Bialoipokku
Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance
Peter Hammill - Chameleon In The Shadow Of The Night
Pink Floyd - A Saucerful Of Secrets
Planet X - Moonbabies
Porcupine Tree - Up The Downstair
Present - Le Poison Qui Rend Fou
Psychotic Waltz - Into The Everflow
Rammstein - Sehnsucht
Riverside - Second Life Syndrome
Rory Gallagher - Deuce
Samla Mammas Manna - Måltid
Santana - Abraxas
Sleepytime Gorilla Museum - Of Natural History
Sloche - Stadaconé
Soundgarden - Louder Than Love
Steven Wilson - Grace For Drowning
Strapping Young Lad - City
Talking Heads - More Songs About Buildings And Food
The Doors - Strange Days
The Jimi Hendrix Experience - Axis: Bold As Love
The Pentagle - Basket Of Light
Tom Waits - The Heart Of Saturday Night
Transatlantic - Bridge Across Forever
Ulver - Kveldssanger
Univers Zero - Heresie
Universal Totem Orchestra - The Magus
Utopianisti - Utopianisti II
Uzva - Niittoaika
VDGG - The Least We Can Do Is Wave To Each Other
Van Halen - Van Halen II
Venom - Black Metal
Voivod - Rrröööaaarrr
Watchtower - Control And Resistance
XTC - Go 2
-
Nothing to do, so I checked some.
Okay, dude chill out :lol
-
Nothing to do, so I checked some.
[...]
Iron Maiden - Killers
I thought about it, but I consider it not as good as the album that came before, or the album that came after.
-
Ride The Lightning is miles ahead of Kill ‘Em All imo. The amount of growth in just one year is insane to think about.
-
Creed - Human Clay (yeah I admit it ... I love Creed.)
No problem here, I like them too and Human Clay is definitely their best record.
-
Ride The Lightning is miles ahead of Kill ‘Em All imo. The amount of growth in just one year is insane to think about.
Wow, amazed at how I didn't immediately think of this. I'll never disagree with anyone praising the greatness of Master, but my own personal preference is actually for Ride the Lightning among all Metallica's albums.
-
I'm surprised no one has mentioned Megadeth, Peace Sells.
-
Couple of others;
Helloween - Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 1 (Can't believe this one hasn't been mentioned either)
Children of Bodom - Hatebreeder
Iced Earth - Night of the Stormrider
Hammerfall - Legacy of Kings
In Flames - The Jester Race
Soilwork - The Chainheart Machine
King Diamond - Abigail
Mercyful Fate - Don't Break the Oath
Live - Throwing Copper
Sonata Arctica - Silence
Ten - The Name of the Rose
Yngwie Malmsteen - Marching Out
-
This is so easy
(https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net/sonicpokemon/images/0/00/Hypno_AG_anime.png/revision/latest?cb=20130618051642)(https://imgd.downloadapk.net/d/ea/41e3e2_0.png) - (https://images.theconversation.com/files/101723/original/image-20151112-9362-qxhy3b.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&rect=0%2C287%2C3000%2C2429&q=45&auto=format&w=926&fit=clip)(https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/7/77/NeblinaJBCuritiba2.JPG/400px-NeblinaJBCuritiba2.JPG)(https://comps.canstockphoto.com/tomorrow-red-round-grungy-vintage-rubber-stock-illustration_csp20078462.jpg)
-
Toto - Hydra
My favorite album by Toto.
-
Toto - Hydra
My favorite album by Toto.
Amen Bro!
-
I would say
Dredg - El Cielo
Dream the Electric Sleep - Heretics
Steven Wilson - Grace for Drowning
-
Creed - Human Clay (yeah I admit it ... I love Creed.)
No problem here, I like them too and Human Clay is definitely their best record.
Human Clay is great, but I think I like Weathered a wee bit more.
Toto - Hydra
My favorite album by Toto.
Yes, very good one!!!
-
Toto - Hydra
My favorite album by Toto.
It's a really good one, but I wouldn't call it my favorite. Hydra, St. George, 99 and of course White Sister are stellar tunes, Lorraine and All Us Boys are solid but I don't really care for Mama and A Secret Love. But to each his own. ;)
-
Couple of others;
Helloween - Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 1 (Can't believe this one hasn't been mentioned either)
Iced Earth - Night of the Stormrider
Hammerfall - Legacy of Kings
Sonata Arctica - Silence
Excellent picks!
-
Godspeed You Black Emperor - Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas To Heaven
Cradle of Filth - Dusk And Her Embrace
Oasis - What's The Story Morning Glory
And many already mentioned (Ride The Lightning, Hatebreeder, Images and Words...)
-
Katatonia - Brave Murder Day
Be'lakor - Stone's Reach
-
Tool - Aenima
Joe Satriani - Surfing With The Alien
Steve Vai - Passion & Warfare
Yngwie Malmsteen - Marching Out
Dream Theater - Images & Words
Queen - Queen II
Transatlantic - Bridge Across Forever
Queensryche - Rage For Order
Avenged Sevenfold - Waking The Fallen
Blackfield - Blackfield II
Black Sabbath - Paranoid
Circus Maximus - Isolate
Neal Morse - One
System Of A Down - Toxicity
Not necessarily my favourite albums by said artists but great 2nd albums nonetheless.
-
Helloween - Keeper of the Seven Keys Part 1 (Can't believe this one hasn't been mentioned either)
Hammerfall - Legacy of Kings
Yngwie Malmsteen - Marching Out
All great choices you listed Kade, but these three stand out to me.
I'd also want to mention
Def Leppard's High n Dry
Ozzy's Diary Of A Madman
And I know no one will care, but I think The Joe Perry Project's I've Got The Rock And Rolls Again is phenomenal.
If I am able to ignore Alice Cooper's and UFO's first two very obscure albums, I'd say Alice Cooper's Killer and UFO's Force It would be on the list.
-
They have already been mentioned, but the ones the came to mind were -
DT - I&W
Alter Bridge - Blackbird
Metallica - Ride the Lighting
-
Led Zeppelin II
Paranoid
Queen II
Sad Wings of Destiny
Rising
Ride the Lightning
Images & Words
Blues for the Red Sun (by Kyuss)
Peace Sells but Who's Buying
Overkill (by Motorhead)
Siamese Dream
Around the Fur (by Deftones)
Toxicity
Doolittle
Morning Glory (by Oasis)
Dirt
Pinkerton (by Weezer)
Get Your Wings
Leviathan (by Mastodon)
Come My Fanatics (by Electric Wizard)
Nightfall (by Candlemass)
Keeper of the Seven Keys Part I
Morningrise (by Opeth)
Oceanic (by ISIS)
etc.
-
I think about albums that were leaps and bounds better than the band's debut:
Dream Theater - Images & Words
Shadow Gallery - Carved in Stone
Nightwish - Oceanborn
Epica - Consign to Oblivion
Sonata Arctica - Silence
Metallica - Ride the Lightning
Iced Earth - Night of the Stormrider
-
KISS-Hotter Than Hell
-
People talk about the "sophomore slump" a lot ("we had all our lives to write the first album, and six months to write the second...") but I've found that not only do I like second albums, but sometimes they are standouts in the catalogue.
At the risk of basically repeating everything that TAC has said here...
Kiss - Hotter Than Hell (I forget if it was 1 or 2, but it was either 1 or 2 in my recent Kiss Discography/ranking)
Def Leppard - High 'n' Dry (Favorite Lep record)
Ozzy - Diary Of A Madman (Favorite Ozzy record and a top ten record all time for me)
Rainbow - Rising (Favorite Rainbow record and a top ten record all time for me)
Aerosmith - Get Your Wings (along with Night In The Ruts, my favorite A-Smith record)
Queen -Queen II (Favorite Queen record and a top ten record all time for me)
Boston - Don't Look Back (not my favorite Boston record, but has my favorite Boston song, the title track)
MSG - MSG (I told Gary Barden that this and Built To Destroy were my favorite MSG records, and he just looked at me and tapped on this one as if to say "Buddy, it's not even close")
Grateful Dead - Anthem of the Sun (Favorite Dead record along with Terrapin Station; and nothing else is even in the ballpark close; I don't really like "studio" Dead)
AC/DC - High Voltage (Favorite AC/DC record, and a top 25 record all time for me)
Dream Theater - Images and Words (Favorite DT record, and maybe a top ten all time record for me)
Cheap Trick - In Color (Contender for favorite Cheap Trick record and the debut of the legendary "I Want You To Want Me")
Alice In Chains - SAP (This is a stretch, but to make my point, SAP is my favorite release from Alice)
Iron Maiden - Killers (Favorite Maiden album along with Powerslave, and probably a top 25 album all time for me)
Jane's Addiction - Nothing Shocking (Best album intro ever)
The Cars - Candy-O (Can't say it's my fav Cars record, because I love them all, but it's one of them)
-
Led Zeppelin II
Paranoid
Queen II
Sad Wings of Destiny
Ride the Lightning
Images & Words
Blues for the Red Sun (by Kyuss)
Peace Sells but Who's Buying
Overkill (by Motorhead)
Siamese Dream
Around the Fur (by Deftones)
Toxicity
Doolittle
Morning Glory (by Oasis)
Dirt
Pinkerton (by Weezer)
Get Your Wings
Leviathan (by Mastodon)
Come My Fanatics (by Electric Wizard)
Nightfall (by Candlemass)
Keeper of the Seven Keys Part I
Morningrise (by Opeth)
Oceanic (by ISIS)
etc.
That Weezer album is a dark, poppy gem.
-
MSG - MSG
Must've been this morning when I posted. This is the obvious one. One of my favorite albums of all time.
AC/DC - High Voltage (Favorite AC/DC record, and a top 25 record all time for me)
Dream Theater - Images and Words (Favorite DT record, and maybe a top ten all time record for me)
Iron Maiden - Killers (Favorite Maiden album along with Powerslave, and probably a top 25 album all time for me)
Have you done a Top 50 Thread yet?
-
Some good ones. Here are a few that come to mind that have not been mentioned:
Telsa: The Great Radio Controversy
Skid Row: Slave To the Grind
Badlands: Voodoo Highway
Cinderella: Long Cold Winter
Stryper: Soldiers Under Command
-
Unless I’ve missed it, how has Coheed & Cambria - In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 not been mentioned yet?
-
It might have something to do with the fact that nobody likes that band. But I'm totally just guessing.
-
That’s cool. I’ll just sit alone here with The Downward Spiral and other stupid opinions.
-
That’s cool. I’ll just sit alone here with The Downward Spiral and other stupid opinions.
:lol Just messing with you. I don't care for them, but I understand that they are pretty highly regarded.
-
That’s cool. I’ll just sit alone here with The Downward Spiral and other stupid opinions.
:lol Just messing with you. I don't care for them, but I understand that they are pretty highly regarded.
Has it been so long that you’ve forgotten I kinda get off on being put down? Apparently I need to come back more frequently!
-
:lol Yeah, no doubt.
-
LHK you son of a ........
-
MSG - MSG
Must've been this morning when I posted. This is the obvious one. One of my favorite albums of all time.
AC/DC - High Voltage (Favorite AC/DC record, and a top 25 record all time for me)
Dream Theater - Images and Words (Favorite DT record, and maybe a top ten all time record for me)
Iron Maiden - Killers (Favorite Maiden album along with Powerslave, and probably a top 25 album all time for me)
Have you done a Top 50 Thread yet?
No, but I should. I'm in the process now of burning all my CDs to a network drive, so nows the time. Maybe I'll get on that.
-
A little Canadian love here.
I Mother Earth - Scenery & Fish
Our Lady Peace - Clumsy
-
Many I thought of have already been mentioned - Images and Words, Ride the Lightning, Visions, Toxicity, Around the Fur, Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven. A few others:
Origin of Symmetry - Muse
Altered State - Tesseract
The Fullness of Time - Redemption
The Bends - Radiohead
I'd say all of these are my favourite or second favourite albums by the bands.
-
A little Canadian love here.
I Mother Earth - Scenery & Fish
Our Lady Peace - Clumsy
GREAT call. What an excellent, underrated band. "4am" is a legendary song (it's a song "for A.M."; Raine's dad's name is "Anthony Maida").
I was surprised to hear that they finally put an album out earlier this year (I think the last one was 2010 or something like that).
-
I still follow them as well. I saw them in the weirdest place and to this day the lead singer Raine talks about it in interviews.
It was for WBCN in Boston and they were playing on this little boat in the middle of a lagoon in the center of the outside part of the Cambridge Side Galleria mall. We were all surrounding the edges of the lagoon/pond. So damn weird.
-
I still follow them as well. I saw them in the weirdest place and to this day the lead singer Raine talks about it in interviews.
It was for WBCN in Boston and they were playing on this little boat in the middle of a lagoon in the center of the outside part of the Cambridge Side Galleria mall. We were all surrounding the edges of the lagoon/pond. So damn weird.
I don't know if "friends" is the right word, but there was a DJ here in Hartford, John Osterlind (WCCC-FM, the first big market home of Howard Stern) that was "friends" with OLP and always talked them up. Later, when he moved to Boston - WAAF-FM - he would have them in the studio often. That's where I first heard of them and have liked them ever since. They kind of lost me a little when Bob Rock came on board, and Raine changed how he sang - I like that quirky way he sings - but I certainly understand it.
-
I listened to him all the time on WAAF.
-
LHK you son of a ........
Go ahead, strike me down. I will only become more powerful than you can possibly imagine.
-
Tool - Aenima
Don't know how I missed this one.
-
Frances the Mute by The Mars Volta
:facepalm: How did I miss that one! Such a good album! For me, they peaked with Frances - I just did not find any of their albums after it to be as good as that, even though I own every single one of them (bought on release week in the hopes that they'd produce something equal to or better than FTM).
Genesis - Trespass
Emerson, Lake & Palmer - Tarkus (or Pictures, depends if you wanna count that as a regular album. Both are fantastic)
Haken - Visions (although it's my least fav Haken album - which really doesn't mean much...)
I thought about putting Genesis in my original post, but considering just HOW different they were between FGTR and Trespass, it didn't seem much of a fair comparison to say that their second album was great since many fans consider it their first true album since FGTR is so different from any of their earlier albums with Peter.
ELP is a good choice, though, and Haken as well. Visions is probably my favorite of their albums so far!
Nothing to do, so I checked some.
*SNIP*
I asked for *great* second albums, not every sophomore album you own! :rollin
-Marc.