Some of the guesses are not completely off, as you will notice in this update particularly.
Also good to see that most people seem to enjoy the list, good stuff.
Anyhow, will bring you guys the next two picks now, number 3 and 2 on my list, and save the last one for tonight, hopefully these albums won't disappoint any of you.
3. Between the Buried and Me -
Colors (2007)
At the flattering third spot, we have the heavy album I mentioned in the write-up for Agalloch, "Colors" is generally regarded BTBAM's best album, but also a pinnacle in the Progressive Death Metal-scene. (Progressive Metalcore sounds too lame for me)
I've often seen the band compared to Opeth, and while they are both progressive and have harsh vocals, there are quite a few differences to separate the bands. First off, you won't find that many acoustic guitars in BTBAM. Their music is generally heavier then Opeth I would say, while they have clean-parts in almost all songs, Opeth has slightly longer clean-sections (mostly).
While "The Great Misdirect" and "Alaska" are tied for my second favorite BTBAM-album, I feel like "Colors" is the clear winner. It has the perfect balance of heavy/clean, and the band really managed to make a homerun with this album.
The first time I heard this album I was blown away by the heavy stuff on it, it was all so "IN YOUR FACE!", but while the vocals and the band needed time to get into, I felt like it would be worth my time, since I felt that the music had something. Eventually the album clicked really hard, and it quickly started to climb among my favorite albums, and made it up to the top 3.
Sound-wise the album is fairly heavy, while there are cleaner parts on the album, they're more subdued and not as present as the heavy stuff, but still complementing it in a great way. The album has 8 songs, all flowing into each other beautifully, and the album is designed to be like one 65 minute-song, but divided into 8 movements or sections, it's a cool thing that you really start to notice when you've heard it a few times. I think one of the best things about the band and it's clean vocals/sections, is that while they aren't many of them, the ones that are on the album are REALLY good. They really do compliment the rest of the song in an amazing way, and the clean section around 9.40 into "Ants of the Sky" is my favorite section on the whole album, so awesome.
"Sun of Nothing" is another song that has some really good melodic parts in the second half, and the opening-track "The Backtrack" is quite possibly one of the best intro-songs ever made. In about 2 minutes, the song goes from soft to heavy, and it really manages to sum up the band in a great way, the sweeping synths are pretty cool as well.
While the album might be hard to get into initially, I recommend people to stay through the first few spins, I promise that there's something for everyone to discover on this album, and in the best case scenario, someone else might start loving this album as much as I do.
Favorite songs: The Backtrack, Sun of Nothing & Ants of the Sky.2. Sigur Rós -
( ) (2002)
Placing in at second place and winning the silver-medal, we have the Icelandic band Sigur Rós´ third studio-album, ( ) also known as just "Untitled". Some pretentious facts about the album before I start: The first 4 songs on the album are more light, more optimistic, the latter 4 songs on the album are more bleak and melancholic. The two half's are divided by a 36 second-silence, the album both opens and closes with a click of distortion. The album is entirely sung in "hopelandic", which is a made-up language consisting of jibberish, it has no meaning. All songs are untitled, while they have small names, they are generally called "Untitled I", "Untitled II" and so on.
These facts can make the album sound very pretentious, and perhaps the whole concept is a bit pretentious. But it's also what made me intrigued in checking the album out when I first got into the band, it sounded very interesting to me. As I wrote earlier, Sigur Rós makes music that is very hard to explain to someone, without playing it for them. A combination of Post-Rock, Ambient and Art-Rock (on this album at least), the album is a very wintery album for me personally. Maybe because of it's white/gray and almost pale cover, it makes me think about bleak and cold landscapes, and it's not really an album I listen to on a hot summer day.
While the lyrics doesn't make any sense (it's more vocals for the sake of being vocals), it doesn't really care for me, because even if they sing it in Icelandic, I won't get what they're singing unless I look it up, so there's not much of a difference. Musically it contains some of the most beautiful music I know, "Untitled III" is one of the best instrumental-songs ever written for me, such a beautiful music-piece that has been featured here and there, but I remember hearing it in one of the episodes for the TV-show Skins.
The music takes me on an emotional journey that seems to touch the deep corners of my soul, while the first half contains some of their most beautiful music, the second half is packed with more depressive music and haunting music, "Untitled VII" is my favorite Sigur Rós song, and quite possibly my favorite Post-Rock song ever. This album is nothing short but perfect, and I guess the only downside would be that it's pretty much a seasonal-album for me, and I can't possibly play it during the spring or summer for example. Still, that might also be a good thing, cause it makes me appreciate the album even more the times I spin it, and while I've heard it so many times by now, it still continues to grow for me.
Favorite songs: Untitled III, Untitled VII & Untitled VIII.Only one album left now.
Topic: Zantera's top 50 albums (Finished!) (Read 24145 times)
