Scorpion's Top 50 Albums, the 2nd v. All Going Away Now

[wolfking]

Top 3 FW album, it's incredible.

[Scorpion]

26. Angra – Rebirth (2001)



Rebirth is aptly titled, as it is Angra's first album with new vocalist Edu Falaschi, after the departure of previous vocalist André Matos, and the two do sound notably different. However, at their musical core, Angra have actually changed very little, with the music still featuring traditional Brazilian influences, symphonic elements and blazing guitar riffs and solos. This album is amazingly consistent, lacking the true high points of the albums of the Matos era, like Carolina IV on Holy Land or Fireworks on the album of the same title, but it more than makes up for it with an absolute lack of filler. From beginning to end, this album is amazing, be it the symphonic opener Nova Era, the balladish Heroes of Sand or the unusually-structured Unholy Wars. The final track is a little weaker than the rest, but it's still quite good. Basically, if you like some good prog metal with a nice  twist, then this might just be the album for you.

Favourite tracks: In Excelsis/Nova Era, Millenium Sun, Acid Rain, Heroes of Sand, Unholy Wars, Rebirth

[Bolsters]

Judgement Day isn't a favourite track? Pretty good album though, not something I expected to see in anyone's top 50, especially at #26.

[wolfking]

I was just listening to Rebirth the other day, killer album.

[Scorpion]

25. Devin Townsend – Infinity (1998)



Infinity is one of Devin's most overlooked albums, one that I rarely see mentioned when discussing his solo work, which is somewhat understandable when it is compared with behemoths like Ocean Machine or Terria, but it's still damn good. Truth kicks off the album with a bang and shows that a song doesn't need to be long to be epic. What follows is an amazing journey through a myriad of different styles, be it the straightforward nature of Christeen, the swing-metal of Bad Devil, the brooding nature of War, the full-out insanity of Ants, the almost countryesque Wild Colonial Boy or the amazing dynamic scope of Life Is All Dynamics. These different styles keep the album from becoming boring, but it still feels like a cohesive unit. Definitely a must-have for every fan of Devin's work and an album that deserves way more attention and recognition than it gets.

Favourite songs: Truth, Bad Devil, War, Ants, Wild Colonial Boy, Life Is All Dynamics, Noisy Pink Bubbles

[jingle.boy]

I was just listening to Rebirth the other day, killer album.

'Tis indeed a killer album.

[Ruba]

Weird album. Not really my stuff, but Bad Devil and Ants are great and I will give it more chances.

[Onno]

Fuck yes! I knew it was Infinity when I saw the new thread title  Such an amazing album 

[kirksnosehair]

I'm not into Devin Townsend, but I really love that Fates Warning album.  Definitely a top 3 FW album for me.


I had no idea Kevin Moore was involved with it until I read it in this thread 


Re: Angra - "Rebirth album"...I have it and I definitely enjoyed it, but not enough for it to make an appearance in a list like this, were I to take a second stab at that.  Still, I can't deny that it's a pretty consistent album. 

[Scorpion]

24. Sigh – Imaginary Soniscape (2001)



Sigh are definitely a very weird band. Most of their music is a little more slow-paced, keyboard-driven, but they add in enough weird transitions, quotes from classical music, solos and unusual instruments to make this album a hell of a ride. The vocals are mostly harsh, but I find them pretty easy to understand, actually – for harsh vocals, that is. The performance of all band members is amazing, though the centrepiece is obviously the amazingly varied keyboard playing that drives most of the songs, which is interspersed with just enough guitar lead parts to keep the whole thing fresh and exciting, yet they never steal the show. My favourite track here is the epic Slaughtergarden Suite, but the opener Corpsecry – Angelfall or the catchy Ecstatic Transformation aren't very far behind.

Favourite tracks: Corpsecry – Angelfall, Nietzschean Conspiracy, A Sunset Song, Ecstatic Transformation, Slaughtergarden Suite, Bring Back the Dead, Requiem - Nostalgia

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

Which Sigh album was the one you sent me? I don't think it was this one, but it was quite good.

[Scorpion]

I don't know, I think it was either this one or the most recent one, which is close to this in quality, though.

[Scorpion]

23. Adagio – Archangels in Black (2009)



Just edging out their second offering, Underworld, Adagio's most recent album is my favourite of theirs. What made Underworld work was the way that heaviness, great vocals, orchestration and blazing solos complimented each other, woven into complex and unusually-structured songs that were rarely shorter than seven minutes. With their next album, Dominate, tried out an album of more straight-forward songs, which resulted in a very easily accessible album, but Dominate lacked the replay value and the depth of the songs of Underworld. Archangels in Black, I find, perfects what Dominate tried to do, by combining more straight-forward songs with depth and a high replay value. It is also notably heavier than its predecessors, employing harsh vocals much more frequently and much better than Dominate did. This album is lacking a true high-point – the mini-epic Codex Oscura isn't really the high-point that you'd expect from its track length, though still great – but more than makes up for this by an amazing consistency – I can always put on any song of this album and simply rock the fuck out. Undead might probably my favourite, mainly because of the amazingly groovy instrumental section, but that might also be because it's the first Adagio song that I heard, and every song is pretty much killer anyway.

Favourite songs: Vamphyri, The Astral Pathway, Undead, The Fifth Ankh, Codex Oscura, Getsu Senshi

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

 

[wolfking]

Good band.  I do prefer their older stuff, I never really got into this one that much.  I should re-visit it.  I miss David Readman from the first two.

[Elite]

I'm one of those people that think Dominate is the best Adagio album.

[kirksnosehair]

"Archangels in Black" would be on the bottom of my list of Adagio albums, but it's still a pretty killer album   

[Scorpion]

22. Opeth – Still Life (1999)



At #22, we have Opeth's masterpiece, Still Life. Nowhere else do Opeth combine skull-crushing riffs and growls with moments of ethereal beauty like they do here. The opening track, The Moor, is my favourite Opeth song and, for me, demonstrates what the band is all about perfectly in twelve minutes, but the rest of the album is amazing as well. I haven't really understood all the intricacies of the story (as this is a concept album), but what I have understood is actually pretty cool (something that you'll VERY rarely hear me saying about a concept album!). Funnily enough, this is also the Opeth album that I took the longest to get, but the end result was worth it in spades.

Favourite tracks: The Moor, Benighted, Face of Melinda, Serenity Painted Death

[wolfking]

 

[aprilethereal]

Phenomenal album

[Elite]

Not Opeth's masterpiece. That would be Blackwater Park. My Arms, Your Hearse is my second favourite and Still Life sits solidly on the #3 spot for favourite Opeth album for me.

[Onno]

Not Opeth's masterpiece. That would be Blackwater Park. My Arms, Your Hearse is my second favourite and Still Life sits solidly on the #3 spot for favourite Opeth album for me.

MYAH is better than SL, BWP is Opeth's masterpiece and both MAYH and SL are not in my top 3.

[Riitasointi]

Still Life is amazing, as are all other Opeth records. Although I have to say there is STILL something I don't quite get with this one. I feel like SL still has some undiscovered potential for me. So yeah, this album is definitely one of those that take their sweet time to fully sink in. And btw, Blackwater Park is the best Opeth record by miles  Nothing can beat that atmosphere.

[adace]

Phenomenal album

[Scorpion]

21. SikTh – The Trees Are Dead & Dried Out, Wait For Something Wild (2003)



I've had some pretty insane stuff on this list, but I think (unless I'm forgetting something here) that this entry is the most intense and fucked up album that I have here. SikTh are the masters of mathcore mixed with plenty of other stuff that makes them unclassifiable – think Protest the Hero with a wider musical spectrum as a base of their sound and on steroids, and that's probably the closest that I can come to adequately describing the sound of this album. Some of the tracks here are more straightforward tracks (well, for mathcore), like Scent of the Obscene or Pussyfoot, but there's also the truly avant-garde stuff that just has you scratching your head the first few times, like the long and sprawling Can't We All Dream?, the amazing Nick Cave cover Tupelo or the closing track, When Will the Forest Speak...?, which is basically a recital of an amazingly unsettling poem. If you want to listen to an hour of music that will fuck over your brain in the best possible way, I can't think of a better album to do that than this one.

Also, AWESOME title.

Favourite tracks: Pussyfoot, Hold My Finger, Wait for Something Wild, Tupelo, Can't We All Dream?, When Will the Forest Speak...?

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

I haven't heard the whole album, but the songs I have heard made my head explode.














In a good way.

[SoundscapeMN]

love SikTh, although I find both of their full-length records to be about equal.

[WindMaster]

Checking out SikTh, sounds interesting so far.

[Scorpion]

20. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds – Push the Sky Away (2013)



Nick Cave's previous three albums (two of them released under the name Grinderman and one under the Bad Seeds moniker) moved away from the piano and vocal-driven style of his more well-known work like Murder Ballads or No More Shall We Part and instead went more into a garage-rock direction. It worked surprisingly well, but the quieter side of Nick Cave has always been my favourite, making this album a pleasant surprise. This album is very stripped-down, with most songs being limited to piano, bass, drums and Cave's unique voice (which, I admit that, is an acquired taste). The lyrics, aside from the odd clunker (see the thread title, for example), are beautifully poetic, and Cave delivers them with such conviction that the vocals are easily the centrepiece of this great album. Be warned, though: this album doesn't click instantly, in fact, it's very much a grower and on my first listen, I couldn't really see anything special here, but with a few listens, what makes this album so amazing reveals itself: the way that Cave and his band use an absolutely minimalist approach to create stunning atmospheres. Take Water's Edge, for instance: the whole song is based around one unsettling bassline, but it works perfectly and it never becomes boring. Another example of this is the title track, which is probably my favourite and, at the same time, the most minimalist of all tracks. Highly recommended for anyone that enjoys Cave's earlier, more piano-driven albums like Murder Ballads or The Boatman's Call.

Favourite tracks: We No Who U R, Wide Lovely Eyes, Water's Edge, We Real Cool, Push the Sky Away

[Scorpion]

Also, here's a recap of the list so far.

50. Insomnium - Above the Weeping World (2006)
49. Riverside - Anno Domini High Definition (2009)
48. Billy Talent - Billy Talent III (2009)
47. Unexpect - Fables of the Sleepless Empire (2011)
46. Gamma Ray - No World Order (2001)
45. Kalmah - Seventh Swamphony (2013)
44. Accept - Stalingrad (2012)
43. Mastodon - The Hunter (2011)
42. Devin Townsend Project - Addicted (2009)
41. Opeth - Blackwater Park (2001)
40. Fates Warning - A Pleasant Shade of Gray (1997)
39. Black Sabbath - Dehumanizer (1992)
38. Agalloch - The Mantle (2002)
37. Nine Inch Nails - The Downward Spiral (1994)
36. Buckethead - Inbred Mountain (2005)
35. Redemption - Snowfall on Judgment Day (2009)
34. Ministry - Psalm 69: The Way to Succeed and to Suck Eggs (1992)
33. God Is an Astronaut - God Is an Astronaut (2008)
32. Sentenced - The Cold White Light (2002)
31. Portishead - Dummy (1994)
30. Pain of Salvation - The Perfect Element, Pt. 1 (2000)
29. The Ocean - Precambrian (2007)
28. Amorphis - Elegy (1996)
27. Fates Warning - Disconnected (2000)
26. Angra - Rebirth (2001)
25. Devin Townsend - Infinity (1998)
24. Sigh - Imaginary Soniscape (2001)
23. Adagio - Archangels in Black (2009)
22. Opeth - Still Life (1999)
21. SikTh - The Trees Are Dead & Dried Out, Wait For Something Wild (2003)
20. Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - Push the Sky Away (2013)

[kirksnosehair]

I own 15 of those

[wolfking]

17 for me.

[jingle.boy]

2.  Count 'em ... Two.

[Scorpion]

2.  Count 'em ... Two.

Lemme guess, Redemption and Angra?

Anyway, shame that there's not really a discussion of Nick Cave going on, but oh well. That's life.

19. Grayceon – All We Destroy (2011)



Grayceon make a style of music that is very difficult to describe. I'd say the closest I can come is progressive post-metal with cello instead of bass, but even that only paints a very rudimentary picture. Like the previous entry, this is a very atmospheric album, but in a totally different way. The way that Grayceon use the cello is very interesting and probably what makes this album so unusual: at times, the cello replaces the bass and plays bass-lines like you'd expect, but quite often, the cello also becomes the lead instrument, making the interplay between guitar and cello one of the most interesting parts of the album. Cellist Jackie Perez Gratz also lends vocal duties and her voice is very unique, but very fitting to the darkish mood of the whole album. The centrepiece here is the 17-minute epic We Can, but my personal favourite is probably the closer, War's End, which is amazingly simple and yet atmospheric like no other track here. Really worth a try for fans of post metal or Giant Squid (Jackie Perez Gratz's other band).

Favourite tracks: Shellmounds, We Can, War's End

[Lolzeez]

13 for me.