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
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.
Topic: Parama's Accidental Top 50 Albums List! (Current: #1) (Read 27081 times)
