ToN's Top 50 Albums! #1: Just Push Play

[Sacul]

I tried Iron Maiden a few years back, and it was with The Number of the Beast. The only song that I thought was halfway decent was the title track. The rest was so meh, I cannot believe how many like them.

Fixed for me 

[TAC]

I tried Iron Maiden a few years back, and it was with The Number of the Beast. The only song that I thought was halfway decent was the title track. The rest was so meh, I cannot believe how many like them.

Fixed for me 

 

Well played! So wrong, but so well played!

[Train of Naught]

I tried Iron Maiden a few years back, and it was with The Number of the Beast. The only song that I thought was halfway decent was the title track. The rest was so meh, I cannot believe how many like them.

Fixed for me 

HALLOWED BE THY NAME? What the fuck. 

Really excited to see Three Days Grace and Shinedown on the list. Definitely following.

Did not expect to get love for those.

[jingle.boy]

I tried Iron Maiden a few years back, and it was with The Number of the Beast. The only song that I thought was halfway decent was the title track. The rest was so meh, I cannot believe how many like them.

Fixed for me 

 

Well played! So wrong, but so well played!

I quickly skimmed thru the thread, saw this quote from TAC, and nearly lost my shit.  Had to go back to the original post to bring me back to reality.

And Tim, I agree with you - except for the fact that I've tried different PT albums, to no avail.

[Sacul]

I guess we fans just love that unique, modern sound PT has

[jakepriest]

Really excited to see Three Days Grace and Shinedown on the list. Definitely following.

Did not expect to get love for those.

I guess you really took Parama's "Jake only knows 5 bands" to heart. 

[Sacul]

So you know 6 now 

[Evermind]

I tried Iron Maiden a few years back, and it was with The Number of the Beast. The only song that I thought was halfway decent was the title track. The rest was so meh, I cannot believe how many like them.

Fixed for me 

HALLOWED BE THY NAME? What the fuck. 

My thoughts exactly. You may not like TNoTB (however wrong this is), but Hallowed Be Thy Name is amazing.

[jjrock88]

Seventh Son is pure awesomeness. Favorite song personally is Infinite Dreams but the title track isn't too far behind.

I agree!

awesome songs and awesome album

[Sacul]

I tried Iron Maiden a few years back, and it was with The Number of the Beast. The only song that I thought was halfway decent was the title track. The rest was so meh, I cannot believe how many like them.

Fixed for me 

HALLOWED BE THY NAME? What the fuck. 

My thoughts exactly. You may not like TNoTB (however wrong this is), but Hallowed Be Thy Name is amazing.

Well it was quite long ago so who knows, I may like it now if I relistened it

[Train of Naught]

I guess you really took Parama's "Jake only knows 5 bands" to heart. 

Not even, but I just didn't expect anyone to react to those, these type of bands aren't exactly popular around here.

[jakepriest]

I guess you really took Parama's "Jake only knows 5 bands" to heart. 

Not even, but I just didn't expect anyone to react to those, these type of bands aren't exactly popular around here.

I love some modern rock. It's not something I listen to regurarly, but I used to listen to tons of TDG, Shinedown, 30 Seconds to Mars etc. when I was younger.

[Train of Naught]

#57: Disturbed – Indestructible (2008)


Alternative Metal/Christian Rock


One of those albums I may or may not have overplayed, a few years prior I could have easily put this in the top 40 or something, but with these kind of albums, being an album with fairly short songs with no real connection between them throughout the album, it can be a tough grower, though #57 is by no means bad, it’s in fact my favorite Disturbed album! The famous self-titled single is very overrated although still worth listening to, but after that it’s all killer no filler, with some pretty innovative songwriting (while not straying too far from their standard song formula), they brought out a solid piece of alternative metal, a genre that doesn’t manage to amaze me all too often, but this is simply awesome. David has always had a very distinct voice which really made Disturbed what they are, but I feel like this album was more about the instruments than ever before. I have yet to give their newest album any attention, and even if I had, it would be too early to rate it, but I’m pretty confident that this one will remain my #1 Disturbed album.

Favorite song:
Perfect Insanity: I might be the only one here, but I think that intro is just one of the best things on the entire album, they set the mood and flow very well into the main riff, and afterwards it’s just David being awesome. This one’s a little more rock oriented than the others, but if you like Disturbed at all and don’t know this song, go listen to it right now.

Other recommendations:
The Night: Their darkest sounding song on the album, which kinda makes it feel like a short epic, also having the most memorable guitar solo on the album, The Night is far superior to anything else along with Perfect Insanity.
The Curse: What can I say? A simple but solid song, nothing complex, and a great chorus. 
Inside the Fire: This song is pretty damn depressing when you know it’s about the suicide of the frontman’s girlfriend, but it doesn’t take away from the greatness of the song.



#56 Native Construct – Quiet World (2015)


Genre: Progressive Metal


Ever heard of Native Construct? Let’s fix that. I know they’re becoming pretty famous around the reddits but I don’t see them being mentioned too often here, Native Construct is a new progressive metal band that has just released their debut album back in April, I didn’t hear it right away, but it got through to me somewhere last summer. I would describe them as a combination between Haken and.. well, just Haken with some very odd but awesome moodswings, I’ve also been told that they’re heavily influenced by BTBAM, but I can’t confirm this, haven’t heard too much of BTBAM. Throughout the whole album this style of moodswings and switching styles is seen, but I feel some songs are standing out particularly in that aspect. Mute, which has a lot of those changes in pace (and even changes music styles pretty often), Come Hell or High Water, which is a very progressive piece of music, aswell as a whole lot heavier. I can’t really compare this album to other works by them as they only have this, but I can safely say this is a refreshing album for everyone that is interested to try out some experimental prog-metal, and even if it’s as experimental as can be, it still feels like a very accessible album.

For this album I’ll link you their bandcamp page instead of individual youtube links, since everyone is so crazy about bandcamp these days!

Favorite song:
Chromatic Aberration: The big closing epic of the album, although I recommend listening to Chromatic Lights before anyway, it’s a 2 minute interlude to this song. Aberration extends that instrumental to a very long intro, and in the end makes for one of the best album closers I’ve heard, and without a doubt the best album closer of 2015. (Be warned, a lot of growls near the end)

Other recommendations:
Mute: This song has a music video on youtube if you’re interested, so I decided to link this one anyway. This song I feel has the most outstanding keyboards, and like I mentioned, just a very fun song with the changes in music styles.

Passage: Even though Chromatic Aberration has by far the longest intro, this one builds up the best out of anything, making the best part, the trumpet solo, pop out in the best way possible.





#55: Seventh Wonder – Mercy Falls (2008)


Genre: Progressive Metal


I found out Seventh Wonder through a friend who recommended them because he thought it would be fitting to Circus Maximus, whom I like. And sure enough I youtubed it, and asked if Mercy Falls would be a good album to start with, and of course he approved, by the way this is their third studio album. Here I am, bought the album almost right away, this really is an amazingly crafted concept album about a man who was in a carcrash (to remember ), after awakening from his coma, ends up in a place called Mercy Falls, throughout the album there’s some spoken word tracks to keep focus to the story, although the storytelling during the actual songs is excellent too (Be warned though, a lot of cheese in the lyrics to be expected). I can best describe it as happy sounding instruments, with a dark twist at some points in the album, topped with a singer who has the voice that would resemble a lot to power metal, but with very, very groovy vocal melodies, it fits very well to the music. The keyboards doing funky stuff in the background also helps set this very happy mood that continues throughout the album, definitely a highlight. I think the best way to describe this music is a happier sounding Myrath, then again, that’s probably not the most relatable band in the prog-world, but yeah, this album is a must.

From this album, I don't think I've ever listened to separate songs, so there's still recommendations, but I'll recommend listening to the whole thing over anything.

Favorite song:
Welcome to Mercy Falls: Has the most groovy vocal melodies on the album, also some great work on the keyboards here, but I can say that about any song off the album.

Other recommendations:
Paradise: Catchiest and coolest chorus on the album, besides, there’s a killer instrumental section included.

The Black Parade: This one starts off with a bit of a darker sound, but comes around to the trademark Mercy Falls sound eventually, and makes for a good closer to the album.

[jakepriest]

Indestructible is my #4 Disturbed album, and I would definitely put Inside the Fire as the top track with Criminal in close pursuit. Unfortunately this album's and Ten Thousand Fists' songs all sound kinda samey to me so I can't really separate them much even though I've listened to the albums many times.

Don't know the other two.

[jingle.boy]

That Disturbed cover is probably the most badass album cover ever.

Mercy Falls is brilliant.

[Bolsters]

I listened to Indestructible for the first time just the other week. It made a better first impression than Asylum, so I definitely plan to revisit it at some point. Still, I don't see anything coming close to topping Immortalized for me as far as Disturbed is concerned.

Seventh Wonder is a band I've tried to get into a few times over the years but they've just never clicked.

[Train of Naught]

Yea I thought Indestructible wouldn't be the most popular Disturbed choice, but the problem I'm having with other albums is I usually know 4-5 tracks off the classic albums, and I know like 2-3 from Asylum, this one is the only one I like all the way front to back.

[ThatOneGuy2112]

That Native Construct album was on my list of releases to listen to this year but haven't gotten around to it yet. I'll find the time to get to it soon hopefully.

Oh man, I love me some Mercy Falls. Every time I feel I've gotten tired of the more cheesy side of prog, albums like this are still too irresistibly infectious to ignore. Those choruses man.

[Evermind]

Mercy Falls is awesome, made my Top 50 and I spin it regularly. Fantastic prog album.

Don't know the other two, but I like the Quiet World cover.

[pain of occupation]

Interesting update for me: while Disturbed is one o my favourite bands to make fun of, Native Construct instantly became one of my favourite bands. Quiet World would be my Album Of The Year if it weren't for new BTBAM. Actually, I think if it were a tad longer, it would trump Coma Ecliptic.
And ya, Chromatic Aberrations is the Song Of The Year for me \m/

[Train of Naught]

To each their own and I might've liked Coma Ecliptic more if I didn't wait until 2 weeks ago to check it out, still not a 100% comfortable with the growls but this album is a good transition I feel.


To endure the wait, here's a list of albums that didn’t make the list simply because they’re very recent discoveries of mine (some roulette stuff and some own discoveries), ranging from 3-4 months to stuff that I've only known for like a week but feel are going to grow really well on me:

Myrath - Tales of the Sands
Beyond the Bridge - The Old Man & The Spirit
Jolly - The Audio Guide to Happiness
Kamelot - The Black Halo
VOLA - Inmazes
Between the Buried and Me - Coma Ecliptic
TesseracT - Polaris
Leprous - Bilateral
A.C.T – Last Epic
Headspace – I Am Anonymous


Yea almost half of this is roulette stuff, thanks a bunch lads.

[Shadow Ninja 2.0]

Quiet World is amazing; it's one of the best prog albums I've heard in a long time. Mercy Falls is good, but The Great Escape is definitely my favorite Seventh Wonder album.

[Evermind]

Great to see you went and checked out Beyond the Bridge album. You won't be disappointed I'm sure, it's a great one.

[Tomislav95]

Hey Great start, I'm glad to see Opeth's PC in top 60, I think it doesn't get enough praise.

[jingle.boy]

Great to see you went and checked out Beyond the Bridge album. You won't be disappointed I'm sure, it's a great one.

Indeed.  #5 on the jingle.boy Top 50v2.

[Train of Naught]

Great to see you went and checked out Beyond the Bridge album. You won't be disappointed I'm sure, it's a great one.

Yea was loving it, although I slightly remember there being one track that kinda bothered me, can't quite remember what it was called though.

[Evermind]

Great to see you went and checked out Beyond the Bridge album. You won't be disappointed I'm sure, it's a great one.

Yea was loving it, although I slightly remember there being one track that kinda bothered me, can't quite remember what it was called though.

Probably The Apparition (lots of pace-changes and harmonies), The Struggle (a weird one) or Where The Earth and Sky Meet (reasonably cheesy ballad).

[Train of Naught]

Definitely not the ballad, pretty sure it wasThe Struggle.

[pain of occupation]

Leprous - Bilateral be my 2011 AOTY.  \m/
Discovered it right at the end of the year when looking through someone else's top 10 of the year list, and I pretty much immediately declared it the album I'd been waitin over a decade to discover.

[Train of Naught]

I'm not on the same level here but I do dig it!


Here's half of today's updates! The actual top 50 will start tomorrow.


#54: Gojira – The Way of All Flesh (2008)


Genre: Progressive/Death Metal

Can easily confirm that this is the heaviest album on the list (meaning all 64 included albums), and I normally wouldn’t even come close to this kind of music, here’s some background:
Last summer I went to a festival in the French part of Belgium, I went with two friends, neither of them being familiar with any of the metal-related artists (they had one stage dedicated to that type of music called ‘The Cannibal Stage’), fortunately I met a few guys over there who apparently grew up with similar artists that I’ve been listening to/growing up with, so naturally I started hanging out with them and joined them to this band called Gojira, they would perform 1 hour. This was the best experience I’ve had on any music festival ever, it was so mindblowing to see them live, I knew like 2 songs by the time, but the way they have these killer riffs during the verses in almost every song makes for such an energetic live show, and the vocals particularly in most choruses are hard to describe, because it's not the standard growling, it's more like 'singing with a really, really loud and husky voice' again, hard to describe.
Now about this album, it was hard to pick one, because my favorite Gojira songs are spread across almost every album, L’Enfant Sauvage has The Gift of Guilt, From Mars to Sirius has Ocean Planet and Flying Whales, The Link has Dawn, etcetera. But this album is by far the most consistent from start to finish, and also has the best songs spread across the album very well. If you can’t stand harsh vox, don’t even try, but if you’re willing to give it a chance or are already somewhat familiar with them, check out this album. It should also be mentioned that this band is pretty fast with their instruments, but create a very slow/heavy sound, I can’t name another band that sounds similar to this one off the top of my head, maybe a less groovy Meshuggah, without the prog elements? Anyway here’s some songs:

Favorite song:
The Art of Dying: Man this song is a masterpiece, favorite Gojira song and I don’t think it will ever be topped, it has an intro you have never heard before, kinda tribal sounding, but the best parts of this song are chorus, and the outro (which people think goes on for too long, but I personally dig it).

Other recommendations:
The Way of All Flesh:The closer of the album, has a lot of cool riffs, little more upbeat vocals than The Art of Dying, which isn’t nearly as good IMO, but still awesome. Oh and just like how SDOIT’s self-titled ends with like 2 minutes of the same note, this song has like 3 minutes of nothing in the end, apart from some atmospheric vibes you won’t care for unless you listen to the whole thing.

All the Tears: The shortest real song on the album, it’s quick, heavy, less melodic than some of the other stuff though but I like it in its simplicity.





#53: The Mars Volta – The Bedlam In Goliath (2008)


Genre: Experimental Progressive Rock (?)


If you didn’t know already, I love The Mars Volta, and here I present to you: The Bedlam in Goliath. Even though this band tends to take the words crazy and chaotic beyond anything you expect, the different albums still each have something that makes them sound very distinct. This one for instant starts off in the middle of the action, and even though I could see how people refer to this chorus as “the most annoying sound in the world”, but I dig it. In fact, the craziness remains throughout the whole album, and while there are one or two moments when the music is kinda settling down, they always come back to that very energetic sound that weirdly appeals to me. I’ll say it here and I’ll say it again: Cedric is a fucking beast on this record, you’ll never hear such a voice on anything else, and while maybe not being the most talented singer in the genre, he has this funky vibe in songs like Goliath and Askepios that just pumps you up! Last touch on this album before I move on to the songs here is the drummer, not only has he the talent to play his stuff excellently, the way he puts them together is just amazing, I love myself a drummer with a lot of fills in fast-paced songs, not to mention the offbeat-delayed snares, epic.

Favorite song:
Ouroborous: Talking about strong Cedric performances, going from smooth, to high-pitched, to just straight up energetic as fuck, I also like how they just throw in anything they can think of here, never heard such active drumming during a chorus.

Other recommendations:
Goliath: Actually my introduction to The Mars Volta, pretty strange first impression I got here. How should I describe this.. the verses are like Rage Against the Machine on acid. The rest of the song is just crazy instruments, and Cedric almost acts like an instrument himself here with the yelling.

Askepios: Probably the most accessible song along with Goliath, it starts off pretty mellow, and bursts into madness as the second half of the song kicks in.

[jakepriest]

Not really familiar with either but I enjoyed the Gojira songs you recommended. Should probably check them out more when I actually have time to listen to some new music.

[Train of Naught]

Cool, definitely check out The Gift of Guilt too, not on the album but one of my favorites.


#52: TesseracT – Altered State (2013)


Genre: Progressive Metal


This album was a lot of fun to discover, because it’s set up so differently from the usual studio album. And being a fairly new TesseracT fan, I haven’t really explored a lot further back into their discography than this one, but from everything I’ve heard, this one’s definitely the best thing I’ve heard from them. The way the tracklist is shaped up is actually about how I expected DT13 to be at first, this one being an album with four ‘themes‘ (Of Matter, Of Mind, Of Reality, Of Energy) over the course of 10 songs. It goes without saying that Ashe O’Hara is one of my favorite singers, this guy was a little difficult for me to comprehend at first, but I’m used to it now. I should also mention that 425 introduced me to his current band (Voices from the Fuselage) in which he sounded even better IMO! Anyway, TesseracT is a progressive metal band with clean, harmonic sounding vocals, so what I’m getting from this album is a combination between the sometimes all-over-the-place instruments and the peaceful as ever sounding Ashe, and though they have some heavier songs, it’s never that in your face type of metal, it’s either very harmonic, or very powerful in a fresh kind of way, not sure how to describe it any better.


For this album I decided to do it a little differently with the favorite song section, my favorite “theme“ of the album is Of Reality, consisting of the three songs “Eclipse“, “Palingenesis“ and “Calabi-Yau“.

Every theme has its own flavor to it, we have the big opening scene with what I believe to be the best theme on a vocal level, then the second starts off a little heavier, but flows perfectly into the peaceful beginning of the third theme, which quickly changes pace and become a super powerful song, you could say it’s just Eclipse and Palingenesis that make this theme so powerful, but Calabi-Yau is basically a 30-60 seconds interlude followed by an EPIC saxophone solo, it may sound pretty lame but that’s one of my favorite parts of the album. Though as almost always, you should check out the whole thing, but if for some reason you don’t have time, I’d recommend “Of Reality“. 





#51: Protest The Hero – Scurrilous (2011)


Genre: Progressive Metal


Another pretty recent discovery of mine, not sure exactly how I stumbled upon this band, but when I did, oh man did it hit me. I think Rody comes off as one of the biggest hit or miss singers, because he has a very distinctive style of singing, quite obviously that was a hit for me, it popped right out of the music. In terms of instrumentals, everything’s just technicality to the max, I even heard Luke Hoskin talk about how they didn’t really think through what they were putting out on Kezia, so it made some transitions very hard to perform live, that was pretty easy to tell by the music, they would just go jam in some studio and play whatever thought comes to their mind, and creating songs like some randomly picked out puzzle pieces. They did work on that (hell, it isn’t even necessarily a bad thing to begin with), but we can still see this style back in their music here, in Scurrilous, and I personally love it. You’ll be caught off guard numerous times when listening to this record by all the crazy odd time signatures and tempo switching’s and whatever may come. Definitely not the most consistent of their discography, but it has some of my favorite songs. Oh and last but not least, they laid down the growls on this album, well almost no growls, but it’s by no means the most accessible album of
theirs.

Favorite song:
C’est La Vie: The big single, I think this one’s generally liked a lot. It also reminds me a bit of a clean vocals alternative of the masterpiece that is called Sequoia Throne.

Other recommendations:
The Reign of Unending Terror: I feel kinda weird saying this, but it feels like there’s some Avenged Sevenfold influences in here, both musically and vocally, only way quicker and more technical, anyway it’s a short song with a lot of fun vocal sections, cool riffs, I guess it does feel a little disjointed but it’s one of my favorites regardless.

Dunsel: One of the less chaotic songs, this one is probably a lot easier to digest on first listen, oh and this moment up until the end is pure genius, love it.












#50,5: Aerosmith - Just Push Play (2001)



This album is great, unfortunately just missed the top 50 by a hair .


Recommended songs: Just, Push, Play

[jakepriest]

Altered State is my favourite TesseracT album. Would definitely make my top 30 if I was to make an album list. Of Reality is my least favourite of the movements (I'm not that big on Calabi-Yau and Eclipse compared to the other songs, though Palingenesis kicks major ass  ), that prize would go to Of Matter followed closely by Of Energy.

[Train of Naught]

Of Matter is a close second, I'm a fairly new fan, and Ashe has been standing most, probably being the reason I picked AS as my favorite album, and I feel Matter and Reality are his best two movements, also I love the sax.

[Anguyen92]

Reading the honorable mentions so far and I look at this part of the post.

I wouldn’t be surprised if this was the first ever mention of Shinedown in a top 50 album thread.

I would be lying if I didn't say that I wanted to be the first guy here to put a Shinedown album in a top 50 album thread.

Other than that, and the fact that I was surprised to see a Three Days Grace album, I shall be following this thread then.