5. The Flower Kings -
Unfold The Future: Picking a favorite album by this band is REALLY tough, because it often circulates between
Unfold The Future,
Stardust We Are, and
Paradox Hotel! However, when I was first discovering the wonderful music of Roine Stolt and company, UTF and SWA were instant favorites. SWA has classic epics and awesome catchy tunes, but UTF took that a step further and with newcomer Zoltan behind the drums, their music took a new twist and their longest album became something more than just a nod to classic prog with modern production. The symphonic sounds melding with jazz and fusion, as well as some harder-edged moments created and album that, while is daunting to sit and listen to all the way through, is a roller-coaster ride that gets my musical mind spinning!
4. Dream Theater -
Six Degrees Of Inner Turbulence: Arguably my favorite DT album, it sits fairly in the middle of DT's career and marks a transitional period for the band and introduces more of their then-relatively new band member, Jordan, who, in my opinion, breathed new life into the band with his classically trained ears and hands! His touch is ALL over this album and even beyond the keyboard sounds themselves, his compositional work on here is just amazing. The title track sits in my top 5 DT tracks of all time, and the other five rank fairly high as well, especially "The Glass Prison", "The Great Debate" and "Disappear". This album sits just above (and sometimes with)
Octavarium and
Scenes From A Memory for favorite DT album.
3. Marillion -
Marbles: Even though it's taken me a couple of years to really *get* Marillion and their music, one of the albums that I really loved initially was
Marbles. The structure, the sound, the song variety, the powerful vocal moments, the smooth guitar work, the atmospheric keys... ALL of that and more made this album for me. The opening and closing tracks rank among my highest Marillion songs ever, as well as "Ocean Cloud". But beyond the epics, the shorter songs are all gems as well, from the more straight-rock sounds of "Genie" and "The Damage", to the ballads like "The Only Unforgivable Thing" and "Don't Hurt Yourself", the band really put out their strongest effort since Hogarth joined the band (although
Seasons End and
Brave are amazing, this album slightly edges it for me).
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2. Spock's Beard -
Snow: Noticing a pattern yet?
The Beard's only double-album has some of the band's best-written songs, and that's hard for some prog bands to do these days - write SONGS, rather than sprawling epics. Now don't get me wrong, I love a rocking good 25 minute epic as much as the next person, but Neal and crew pumped out amazing performances over the course of 26 tracks which, for me, produced some great hooks and melodies. Some will say the second disc is full of filler, but I've come to see and understand the album as a whole, rather than a collection of tracks - it is, after all, a concept album. You can't really judge a book by one chapter on it's own, but rather try to understand each chapter as it relates to the entirety of the work. With
Snow, there's always more to understand and feel, and the emotional changes that run through this album are so great that they make this album one of the best in recent years.
1. Transatlantic -
Bridge Across Forever: After the discovery of Dream Theater, I sought out more related projects, and about the time I discovered DT, I found out about Transatlantic (this was around 03-04)... only to find out they had disbanded after Neal's departure from secular prog. At any rate, when I bought
SMPT:e and
Bridge Across Forever, I was blown away, especially not having heard of Roine Stolt, Neal Morse or Pete Trewavas before Mike Portnoy and Dream Theater, so this music was quite different than the bands I had started with when breaking into prog rock (Rush and DT).
This album has since become a favorite of mine, because of this album, I have grown to love and enjoy the works by the band's individual members as well (thus the reasoning behind my previous 4 choices!), but this album... the bookending epics, the Beatles-esque sounds, and the powerfully beautiful (or beautifully powerful) title-track ballad just all blow me out of the water. "Stranger In Your Soul" still moves me every time I hear it, especially at the end. Hands down, one of the best prog albums in the last 20 years, and probably of the last decade!
The image posted is the Limited Edition because I have that one (in addition to the regular release), which has the bonus disc with a superb cover of "Shine On You Crazy Diamond", as well as a couple of in-the-studio jams (I particularly enjoy their jam on "And I Love Her") and demos.
Honorable Mentions
The Beatles -
The Beatles: Ahh yeah, I know, another double album, but hey, with many of them, you get more for your money, and this is another great example of another great double album! Classic after classic, and even many great obscure ones, this album comes after a rough period for the band, which, I think really helped them put out some of the band's best songs ever! Even though it's not like many prog/prog-related double-albums (which tend to be conceptual or thematic), it's SO easy for me to listen to this album from front to back, and hear each song in sequence because it just sounds SO good that way. I have favorite tracks like everyone else, but it's really hard for me to just hit play for ONE song on this album and not want to listen to the other 29 songs! (Yes, even "Revolution 9").
Porcupine Tree -
The Sky Moves Sideways: This is an album that really hooked me into early PT. I disocered PT when they released
In Absentia but shortly after that album's release, I quickly bought the band's back catalog and of their prior 6 albums, this was (and still is) my favorite. It's a great balance between their earlier psychedlia and atmospheric sounds with a bit of what was to come (on albums like
Signify and
Stupid Dream). However, I do not listen to the album as it is on any of the 3 releases it's seen, but rather a combination of those track lists to create a comprehensive version of TSMS - TSMS Phase 1, Dislocated Day, Stars Die, Moonloop (Improvisation), Moonloop (Coda), The Moon Touches Your Shoulder, Prepare Yourself, TSMS Phase 2
(Fortunately enough, this mix fits onto one CD-r, but if it were vinyl, it'd totally be a double, or even triple album
- I did, however, make a companion disc to this mix that includes the Alternate Version of TSMS and the full 40:07 version of "Moonloop" from
Transmission IV)
More Honorable Mentions (because I can't help myself...):
-Marc.
Topic: Your Five Favorite Albums of All Time (Read 30246 times)
