Evermind's v2 Top 50 Albums Thread v. Only once in a lifetime (#1)

[Evermind]

Just listened to A Sort of Homecoming at work, man I love Anathema sometimes.

Now that we're past two thirds of the list, these albums are truly one of my favourites. I love everything from this point onwards.

I don't think I've heard a single Anathema song.

Well maybe you should listen to some! Or maybe not, your choice. Anyway, you're responsible for this next installment...

#17
The Crimson Idol
W.A.S.P.
Genre: heavy metal
1992
Recommended to me by: wolfking

I’m fairly familiar with one side of the classic metal scene, the one branching out from Deep Purple. I’m familiar with Rainbow and Whitesnake, and then I’m familiar with Dio-fronted Sabbath and the Coverdale / Page album, and then I’m familiar with Led Zeppelin. I’m very familiar with some of the older rock acts like Scorpions or Jethro Tull. So, you know, I’m not completely uneducated in that regard. But a lot of the older metal scene is a blur for me. I think I might’ve unknowingly heard a few KISS songs, or a few Alice Cooper songs, or even a W.A.S.P. song once, but the thing is, I never actively sought out these bands’ music, and never gave them a proper chance. I have this ridiculous image of the musicians wearing masks or make-up, trying hard to be all rock’n’roll and shit, and as I wasn’t even alive during this times, I can only take it for what it is—perhaps cool at the time, but also a little ridiculous. Might be a bit hypocritical or just plain stupid of me, writing the bands off without even hearing their music, but what can you do, the stereotypes and the image of the band can both be a blessing and a curse, depending on the listener.

So when I’ve got The Idol in my roulette from Kade, in a fucking ballad round, no less, I think I just shook my head in disbelief. I know from experience that Kade doesn’t put much thought in the roulette submissions, and I won’t lie, the thought that crossed my mind was along the lines of “okay, here we go, WASP in the ballad round, probably also awful production, we’re looking at 4.5/10”.

The song got a perfect 10/10.

This one song I’ve got in my roulette made me realize I’ve been a fool discarding those bands so easily. Whatever their image is, I should let the music do the talking, so to speak, and in case of The Crimson Idol, the music is just so damn good. While yes, it does employ some of the elements I was expecting from the bands like KISS and W.A.S.P. (I’ve never heard KISS though, so I may be way off. Stadler, don’t kill me), it manages to hit all the right spots with this one. This album is ridiculously singalongable, which is probably not a word, but it’s the truth still. And I mean ridiculously. Every vocal melody is a keeper. It also has a ridiculous amount of acoustic stuff on it. I mean, it’s W.A.S.P., not B.U.M.B.L.E.B.E.E., right? The music should be balls to the wall all the time, and the band should be those rock star assholes with edgy lyrics? Double bass and guitars and no keyboards and no stupid acoustic guitars either, just true metal music, right? Well, no, not on this album, not at all. Thinking about this, I think it might be the reason this album is so high on the list. That, and the fact that there are no weak songs at all. Everything on this record is pure gold.

While yes, there are metal clichés like Doctor Rockter (or whatever the name is) or Chainsaw Charlie, they’re there for a reason, as the album tells the story of a young rock star. It sounds pretentious, but I actually thought the story was extremely well done, and the emotional climax in The Idol, the song that introduced me to this album and this band hits me, well, not like a ton of bricks, but like a small pile of bricks.

My only complaint about this whole thing is that my version of the album, probably remastered or whatever, has the 16-minutes spoken track named The Story of Jonathan in the end of the album, which is even more stupid than having an unrelated bonus track in the end of the concept record. I need to delete that from my phone.

Favourite songs: Arena of Pleasure (YouTube, Spotify), I Am One (YouTube, Spotify), The Idol (YouTube, Spotify)

[jingle.boy]

Kade did the same for me with this album - though it was Arena of Pleasure.  Funny, I too had a preconception of what W.A.S.P. would sound like - though different from yours, as I had always lumped them in with the late-80s more 'thrashy' bands - ie, too heavy for my tastes as a teenager.

And yeah... I always stop the album at The Great Misconceptions of Me.

I really need to dig thru their discog from '92 to '15... Golgatha was great, but there's a lot to sift thru in that 20-ish year period.  Maybe I just need to find a best-of compilation?

[wolfking]

 

And, I got my first mention at number 17!!!!

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

Another fantastic album

[lonestar]

Just catching up after a busy week, good to see myself mentioned a few times there, though there is one notable band I have yet to see, hoping they're coming up.

[bl5150]

And, I got my first mention at number 17!!!!

https://youtu.be/GlN3oEjMpUQ?t=116

[Evermind]

Stupid works gets in the way of updates, which I can't do from my phone. Let's move on!

#16
Who’s the Boss in the Factory?
Karmakanic
Genre: progressive rock
2008
Recommended to me by: Dr. DTVT

What makes a good epic? You know, a lot of people non-familiar with progressive genre or just with rock or metal music in general think that songs that are over 10 minutes are ridiculous, and don’t get me started on the ones over 20 minutes. How do you write a song that keeps the audience engaged for all this huge timespan? Well, truth is, it’s an effort from both the band and the listener, because even the best epics out there could fall flat if you aren’t paying enough attention. But best epics require just a tiny bit of that, drawing the listener in, making the whole “paying attention” thing a willing one, not a chore where you have to maintain enough self-discipline to keep focusing on the song to keep track of what’s happening. If the epic keeps you engaged and interested during the whole duration, well, that’s the goal achieved. Often you would glance on your watch after listening to a song and see that 20+ minutes have passed, when in truth it felt like 4 or 5 minutes, that’s how captivated you were by that particular song. That’s also a mark of a good epic.

The opening track of Who’s the Boss in the Factory, called Send a Message from the Heart is one of the best progressive rock epics I know, a worthy rival to the best Dream Theater or Transatlantic work. A song with a wholesome, positive message to the world, it undergoes a lot of phases, intense, grim, sad and, most important of all for this song, hopeful. For all my affection towards the bleak metal music, this passage has got to be one of my favourite lyrics from the albums featured on this list:

When the world of colors turns different shades of grey
Send a message from the heart
When there is no justice anywhere to be found
Turn around and face the sun
If you look around you and everyone is blind
Send a message from the heart

Sometimes we're blind and cannot see
How beautiful the world could be

You know that I love the album when I start to quote lyrics not only in the thread title, but also in the actual writeup. Gets the word count higher too.

Now, even if the rest of the album was a steaming turd, this song alone would’ve probably be enough to elevate it at least to honourable mentions, because it’s just so good. Fortunately, not only the rest of Who’s the Boss in the Factory? lives up to the expectations, but the title track can give the opening epic a run for his money. Then you have two quirkier tracks, and the gorgeous album closer, Eternally, a bit jarring in comparison to the rest of the album, but very fitting. Every song here has its distinctive personality, and there are no similar songs on this album. It goes from classical approach to country, from jazz to noodly progressive rock to awesome progressive rock, from rhythmic heaven to melodic bliss. This album explores a lot of musical landscapes in its allotted time, and does it with a flourish and assurance, a cocky showcase of extremely good music when it seems that even the band knows how good they are—and they’re not afraid to show their songwriting chops. This is honestly an essential progressive rock album I would recommend to anyone who’s interested in the genre.

Favourite songs: Send a Message from the Heart (YouTube, Spotify), Who’s the Boss in the Factory? (YouTube, Spotify), Eternally, Part 2 (YouTube, Spotify)

[Nekov]

Awesome album!

[Podaar]

Ev,

I just wanted you to know that I'm reading all your entries, and when time allows, selectively listening to the albums. Most of these I've never heard.

I'm listening to Crimson Idol right know and am completely surprised by my reaction to the music. Much like you, I've had a preconceived negative image of W.A.S.P.

[Evermind]

Ev,

I just wanted you to know that I'm reading all your entries, and when time allows, selectively listening to the albums. Most of these I've never heard.

I'm listening to Crimson Idol right know and am completely surprised by my reaction to the music. Much like you, I've had a preconceived negative image of W.A.S.P.

This is awesome to hear! I'm glad you're discovering some new music because of this little thread. W.A.S.P. ended up being one of the biggest surprises I've found here on DTF. I've never expected them to have such an emotional album like Crimson Idol in their discography.

[Evermind]

#15
The Mountain
Haken
Genre: progressive rock / progressive metal
2013
Recommended to me by: DTF

You know, I have no idea about the rest of the social media, because I’m barely there, but when you’re on DTF, you encounter the mentions of Haken anywhere you go. Screw Devin Townsend (not in that way) and to hell with Opeth and Porcupine Tree / Steven Wilson (although SW might be a worthy rival here)—Haken is everywhere on DTF. And with that, there’s a lot of debate about Haken everywhere on DTF. Are they worthy contenders for the throne among the recent progressive metal bands? Are they carrying the prog metal torch now that DT supposedly dropped it? Does their last album sound like Leprous? How can you listen to Haken when they suck and their singer sucks even more? How can you not listen to Haken and call yourself a fan of progressive music? Is The Mountain the pinnacle of the genre? Is The Mountain not the pinnacle of the genre? How can Haken top The Mountain. Well didn’t they already do that with [insert Haken album name]? The possibilities for debate are endless!

I do think that the general DTF obsession with Haken is borderline ridiculous, and then again, I can overlook that because Haken became one of my favourite bands during my stay on DTF, so there must be something behind that. Now a proud owner of the whole discography save Restoration, I can safely say that Haken is one of my best discoveries from here. I went as far as organizing a little birthday vacation in Germany next February to go and see them live, since they don’t play Russia, or at least they didn’t as of yet, not counting the Shattered Fortress show with Mike Portnoy.

It’s hilarious how some of the band’s aspects are memorable and glorious for me and then annoying for other people. Here are some of the complaints I saw about Haken, just in case you missed them, and I’m probably misquoting these a fair bit, but still. “You know, you don’t need to hold each note for full four bars” (could be not four, I’m a total noob in musical theory) — vocal melodies are my main guilty pleasure about Haken, they’re always so good it’s ridiculous. “Their ballads are dull and the singer sounds lifeless and emotionless” — Sun, Deathless, Somebody, Host are among my favourite Haken songs. “They play generic prog copying DT” — hell, as I said, I love DT, but it’s been a while since ADTOE, and in that time Haken released three fantastic albums. Well, I just count myself lucky I’m able to enjoy this band.

The Mountain holds the title of the most polished album of theirs, I would say, with once again unconventional structure and brilliant pacing, showing off every side of the band and doing a spectacular job of presenting the record as a whole picture. Once again, I don’t think this album is such a genre-defining record, but you can tell there are strands of brilliance behind it. The whole album feels special. Even the most standard song, In Memoriam, does a great job pulling the listened on, and then you have Falling Back to Earth and Pareidolia which will send you on an ethereal journey. However, the fact this album is so polished down to perfection takes away some of the points, in my opinion—I sometimes love to see that sheer spark of energy and talent on the album unrestrained, and this album, while it doesn’t feel quite lifeless to my ears, definitely doesn’t have that. The musicianship here is top notch, the songwriting is heavenly, the execution is flawless, and the album is fantastic. But it is missing something to my ears, and if that “something” was there, it would’ve been up there in my Top 5.

Favourite songs: Falling Back to Earth (YouTube, Spotify), Pareidolia (YouTube, Spotify), Somebody (YouTube, Spotify)

[Crow]

I sympathize

With a cockroach
And a cockroach
And a cockroach
And a cockroach
And a cockroach
And a cockroach

[Crow]

i cri everytim 

aoty 2014 i love it

[Elite]

This album is pretty good

[TAC]

When I saw that Evermind was doing a Top 50 V.2, I was excited, but man, I think I've only heard like two of these albums so far.

[bl5150]

When I saw that Evermind was doing a Top 50 V.2, I was excited, but man, I think I've only heard like two of these albums so far.

Evermind's honorary fogey status has been revoked.

[wolfking]

Yeah, a lot less for me than I expected too. 

[TAC]

When I saw that Evermind was doing a Top 50 V.2, I was excited, but man, I think I've only heard like two of these albums so far.

Evermind's honorary fogey status has been revoked.

Reading this thread, my fogey status renewed automatically.

[Sacul]

Always glad to see Anathema on these lists, and The Mountain is just 

[Indiscipline]

The Mountain.

I discovered Haken one month ago, via roulette. Got a bit into it and found a lot of marvellous things as well as a lot of irritating ones. Funny thing - thinking about a lot of opinions floating around - what I've found always constantly enjoyable is the singing.

[lonestar]

The Mountain is a straight up masterpiece.


Out before Chad shits on it.

[jingle.boy]

I was taught if I don't have anything nice to say, don't say anything at all.























P.S. Haken sux. 

[King Puppies and the Acid Guppies]

P.S. Haken sux. 

Saw that coming a country mile away 

[jingle.boy]

[wolfking]

Yeah, I've tried Haken but just don't get the appeal whatsoever.

[The Walrus]

I've been ignoring this thread but I intend to start digging into some of these this weekend. Gonna try to follow people's favorite music a bit better in 2019.

[Nekov]

Not sure why everyone loves that album so much. Before Vector came out that was to me Haken's worst album. It has some good songs but I that's about it.

[425]

Great choice. The Mountain is Haken's Images and Words.

Both are truly great albums that would be way up high on my list. Both are also totally distinct in a very good way, not only in their band's discography, but in all the music I'm at all familiar with, in terms of their style and especially their emotional tenor.

In both cases, I know that the band will never make another album like it (even though both bands have other stellar albums), and in both cases I'm coming to be okay with that.

[Bolsters]

The Mountain is a modern classic, although now I am more partial to Affinity.

Why don't you have Restoration?

[Kwyjibo]

The Mountain 

[Evermind]

The Mountain is a modern classic, although now I am more partial to Affinity.

Why don't you have Restoration?

Couldn't find it anywhere in local stores and forgot that I don't have it when ordering the Vector bundle. I bought Visions and The Mountain from FlyingBIZKIT here on DTF, Affinity and the 2CD reissue of Aquarius in a local store, but they don't have Restoration, and with rouble to $ conversion rates being shitty for the past few years I'm not ordering as many CDs from abroad I used to. Should've gotten it with Vector though.

Well perhaps they'll be selling it on their merch stand.

I've been ignoring this thread but I intend to start digging into some of these this weekend. Gonna try to follow people's favorite music a bit better in 2019.

Well, you joined in time for some good stuff.

When I saw that Evermind was doing a Top 50 V.2, I was excited, but man, I think I've only heard like two of these albums so far.

#14
Manifestation of Progress
Dimension Act
Genre: progressive metal
2012
Recommended to me by: jingle.boy

Another obscure progressive metal act that was already mentioned in this list in Echoes – Nature | Existence writeup, this Dimension Act CD was my favourite purchase from that record label. Given how I was already familiar with the main bulk of the album—a brilliant sprawling 32-minutes long epic called Drawing the Lines of Mortal Existence—and that left only three songs on the disc that I didn’t know, this was an easy decision to go ahead and purchase that. In fact, this record was the main draw of the deal, and the fact it was only $5 helped, of course.

This album doesn’t do anything extraordinary: good mix, solid male vocals (and female in the main epic), sensible songwriting, memorable riffs. I honestly don’t know why I like it so much, but I guess sometimes simple music works best; and keep in mind that it’s not actually that simple—the epic is very well-structured, and even the instrumental intro that I seem to remember was just short of 10 minutes (don’t quote me on that) manages to stay engaging and interesting for all the duration. It’s just solid on all counts, and nothing stands out in a bad or even mediocre way, it’s great all the way through, and there are no clear “holy shit!” moments that are amazing. Given that, and how I already wrote the story of its purchase, and that it’s also Monday as I'm writing this, I don’t even have to say a lot about this one.

I think Chad missed the epic round in my first roulette, likely due to being eliminated or being absent from DTF that time around (I don’t remember if you sent me Slaughter in the first or the second one, Chad), and then he decided to just send me songs for Round 7 and 8 via e-mail. I don’t remember which band you used for the former, but I remember getting this song after the epic round, listening to it and being sure that it was actually better than any epic I’ve received in the actual roulette. Well, only slightly better than the Karmakanic song I quoted in the writeup above, but better. One of the few epics that I would rate 10/10, and always it’s always a pleasure to be taken on that progressive metal journey.

Unfortunately, I’ve never seen this album mentioned anywhere except DTF.

I’ll mention only two songs this time, as the whole album is just four songs. For the epic on Spotify, just start with Drawing the Lines of Mortal Existence and listen to the end of the album.

Favourite songs: Cosmic Chaos (YouTube, Spotify), Drawing the Lines of Mortal Existence (YouTube (240p), Spotify)

[jingle.boy]

iirc, your first roulette was during one of my hiatus', and I shared with you what I would have sent a few months later when I returned.  Glad this showed up - I was worried it didn't make the cut when you referenced it earlier in the Echoes post.

Indiscipline .... see!?!?!!?   

[Evermind]

iirc, your first roulette was during one of my hiatus', and I shared with you what I would have sent a few months later when I returned.  Glad this showed up - I was worried it didn't make the cut when you referenced it earlier in the Echoes post.

I think you're right. Also, I just realized after linking it on YouTube and looking at the booklet that the epic is actually called "Perspectives - Chapter 1" and then it says "Drawing the Lines of Mortal Existence". Did the band stop existing or are we getting a chapter 2 in the future?

[jingle.boy]

My 'rip' of the CD lists the epic as 6 parts (or chapters??). First part and track 4 of the album:

Drawing the Lines of Mortal Existence I - Pre-spective
Drawing the Lines of Mortal Existence II - Transparent Reality
etc...

Spotify really bunged up the song titles.  I'm not aware that the epic is Chapter 1... I think Pre-spective is just PART 1 (of 6).  Whether each track is a *part* or a *chapter* ... it's really semantics.

[Evermind]

My 'rip' of the CD lists the epic as 6 parts (or chapters??). First part and track 4 of the album:

Drawing the Lines of Mortal Existence I - Pre-spective
Drawing the Lines of Mortal Existence II - Transparent Reality
etc...

Spotify really bunged up the song titles.  I'm not aware that the epic is Chapter 1... I think Pre-spective is just PART 1 (of 6).  Whether each track is a *part* or a *chapter* ... it's really semantics.

No no, it's not "Pre-spective", it's literally Perspectives - Chapter 1. Here's a photo of it: