| 2009 |
| Vektor Black Future | 4.0 |
| Gaza He Is Never Coming Back | 3.5 |
| Krallice Dimensional Bleedthrough | 4.0 |
| Black Breath Razor To Oblivion | 4.0 |
| Pelican What We All Come to Need | 3.5 |
| Between the Buried and Me The Great Misdirect | 3.5 |
| This took a while to grow on me. It essentially would have taken a miracle for the band to surpass the bar they've rset for themselves with Colors, and we all know how often miracles come around. It's overall an excellent album, rbut has its obvious flaws. "Desert of Song" does nothing to The Great Misdirect's benefit except give you time to get ryourself a beer from the fridge or smoke a cigarette. The rest of the tracks are awesome, but at times show the rband getting a bit stale ("Obfuscation" sounds like a Colors b-side) and pretentious (some of the segments and rtransitions on "Disease, Injury, Madness" and "Fossil Genera" are sub-par for BTBAM standards, disrupting flow and rgiving the songs a sort of "We're trying to write a long song" feel). "Swim to the Moon" is an indication that the band rstill has the ability to blow listeners away. It's like a mini Colors - it flows extremely well and takes listeners on a rworth-while auditory trip. At the same time, it also shows what the rest of The Great Misdirect could have been. |
| The Red Chord Fed Through the Teeth Machine | 4.0 |
| Priestess Prior to the Fire | 4.0 |
| Sole and the Skyrider Band Plastique | 3.0 |
| Skeletonwitch Breathing the Fire | 3.5 |
| Lye By Mistake Fea Jur | 4.0 |
| These guys can play their asses off. Fans of Behold... The Arctopus or similar instrumetal stuff will dig this. Even the more fusion segments are made listenable through their metallic filter. Great songwriting, instrumentation, presentation, production (at first the mix turned me off, but after a couple listens it made more sense), and album art. Does have moments of "Hey look at me play!" stuff that seems more appropriate for an artist like Steve Vai or Paul Gilbert, but most of it feels like a cohesive group effort. |
| Baroness Blue Record | 4.5 |
| an enjoyable listen throughout (definitely not for fans of the "shuffle" option, there's a lot of thematics and variations being taken from licks/riffs here and there). great riffs, awesome harmonies, and most importantly... it SOUNDS awesome. the fuzzed out solos, the bass presence, their ability to be a little more minimalist, and the vocal layering are just some of the features this record has that the red album doesn't. at the same time, i think they forgot how epic some of those heavy parts were on the red album, thus making it about an equal listen. thank god they didn't release the same thing twice. |
| Converge Axe to Fall | 4.0 |
| Revocation Existence Is Futile | 3.5 |
| Doomriders Darkness Come Alive | 4.0 |
| Alice in Chains Black Gives Way to Blue | 3.5 |
| Pearl Jam Backspacer | 3.5 |
| Shadows Fall Retribution | 3.5 |
| Every Time I Die New Junk Aesthetic | 4.0 |
| Megadeth Endgame | 4.0 |
| Raekwon Only Built 4 Cuban Linx... Pt II | 3.5 |
| Liturgy Renihilation | 3.0 |
| The xx xx | 4.0 |
| Iron Age The Sleeping Eye | 4.0 |
| Thrash with doomy tinges. Truly unique balances between blistering speed and crushing slow-tempo sections with some stoner atmospherics. Solos abound and impressive. |
| Clutch Strange Cousins From The West | 3.0 |
| Born of Osiris A Higher Place | 3.0 |
| A Higher Place plays like a mix-tape of modern technical metal - They seem to emulate the sounds of anyone worth imitating (Between the Buried and Me, Protest the Hero, At the Gates, etc.) and in turn create an album thats "good," but truly lacks identity and breaks virtually no new ground. Instrumentally, this band demonstrates that they can do pretty much anything they set their minds to, but the lack of song development (not a single song breaks 4 minutes and many end awkwardly/abruptly) and average vocals oftentimes leave listeners in a stupor and ultimately prevent this album from being a must-have. It is a treat to hear such a flexible group of musicians, but they still need some time to mature and hone their skills. |
| Poison the Well The Tropic Rot | 4.5 |
| Darkest Hour The Eternal Return | 2.0 |
| The Mars Volta Octahedron | 3.0 |
| Ha Ha Tonka Novel Sounds of the Nouveau South | 4.0 |
| Sonic Youth The Eternal | 3.5 |
| Goes Cube Another Day Has Passed | 4.5 |
| Disappearer The Clearing | 4.0 |
| Gallows (UK) Grey Britain | 3.0 |
| Birds of Prey The Hellpreacher | 3.0 |
| Animals As Leaders Animals as Leaders | 4.0 |
| Celeste Misanthrope(s) | 3.5 |
| Poison the Well I/III / II/III / III/III | 3.5 |
| Silversun Pickups Swoon | 4.0 |
| Agoraphobic Nosebleed Agorapocalypse | 4.5 |
| Battlefields Thresholds Of Imbalance | 3.5 |
| Mastodon Crack the Skye | 4.5 |
| Cobalt Gin | 4.0 |
| Kylesa Static Tensions | 4.5 |
| The Number Twelve Looks Like You Worse Than Alone | 4.0 |
| Lazarus A.D. The Onslaught (Re-release) | 4.5 |
| Lamb of God Wrath | 2.5 |
| God Forbid Earthsblood | 4.0 |
| Psyopus Odd Senses | 3.5 |
| Scale the Summit Carving Desert Canyons | 3.5 |
| Irepress Sol Eye Sea I | 3.5 |
| Obscura Cosmogenesis | 4.0 |
| Death (USA-MI) ...For the Whole World to See | 4.0 |
| Absu Absu | 3.5 |
| Giant Squid The Ichthyologist | 4.5 |
| Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion | 4.5 |
| Horseback The Invisible Mountain | 3.5 |
| 2008 |
| Cloudkicker The Map Is Not the Territory | 3.5 |
| Guns N' Roses Chinese Democracy | 4.0 |
| The Faceless Planetary Duality | 4.0 |
| Cynic Traced in Air | 4.5 |
| Sylosis Conclusion of an Age | 3.0 |
| all that remains + metallica + some kerry king influence + a smidgen of prog = this album. pretty good for early 20 year olds. |
| of Montreal Skeletal Lamping | 3.0 |
| Blitzen Trapper Furr | 4.0 |
| Gojira The Way of All Flesh | 4.5 |
| Fucked Up The Chemistry of Common Life | 4.0 |
| Bleeding Through Declaration | 4.0 |
| Avenged Sevenfold Diamonds in the Rough | 2.5 |
| Intronaut Prehistoricisms | 4.0 |
| Burst Lazarus Bird | 4.5 |
| United Nations United Nations | 3.5 |
| The Human Abstract Midheaven | 2.5 |
| Deerhunter Microcastle | 4.0 |
| Scars on Broadway Scars on Broadway | 3.0 |
| It's not the most complicated or pretentious album in recent memory, but it attacks in a simple manner. The songs are very simple in structure, relying primarily on hooks, but this allows for listeners to immediately grasp and remember the song. Much like the Beatles, this album can be sung along to in about 2 listens, which is its greatest strength. It's a FUN listen. It's essentially metal and punk infused pop-rock, but experimental moments do come into play. This is especially interesting because the electronic bits and bites add freshness to what could have been an average stale rock album. The contrast created by this is what makes tracks like "Chemicals," "3005," and "Cute Machines," the most blatantly experimental tracks, so intriguing. This album plays like SOAD took a few hints from Bruce Springsteen and the Beatles. Not any less powerful by any means, but just more accessible. |
| Misery Signals Controller | 3.5 |
| Cloudkicker The Discovery | 4.0 |
| Made Out of Babies The Ruiner | 4.0 |
| Girl Talk Feed the Animals | 4.0 |
| Melvins Nude With Boots | 3.5 |
| Nachtmystium Assassins: Black Meddle Pt.1 | 4.0 |
| Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes | 4.0 |
| Opeth Watershed | 4.5 |
| Ihsahn angL | 4.0 |
| Animal Collective Water Curses | 4.0 |
| No Age Nouns | 4.5 |
| Nine Inch Nails The Slip | 4.0 |
| Cancer Bats Hail Destroyer | 4.0 |
| Thrice The Alchemy Index Vols. III & IV | 4.0 |
| Titus Andronicus The Airing of Grievances | 4.0 |
| Torche Meanderthal | 4.5 |
| The Sword Gods of the Earth | 3.0 |
| Origin Antithesis | 3.0 |
| Fuck Buttons Street Horrrsing | 4.0 |
| Meshuggah obZen | 2.5 |
| Jucifer L'autrichienne | 4.5 |
| Boris Smile | 4.5 |
| Protest the Hero Fortress | 3.5 |
| The Mars Volta The Bedlam in Goliath | 3.5 |
| The Cancer Conspiracy Omega | 3.5 |
| Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend | 4.0 |
| Black Mountain In the Future | 4.0 |
| Saviours Into Abaddon | 4.0 |
| Disfear Live the Storm | 4.5 |
| To my recollection, it's the first non-Zeke album that utilizes all of the best elements of punk - speed, grittiness, gang vocals, and badass pick slides ;) But seriously, this album is quality through and throughout, and everything is LOUD!!! It's as if Motorhead took steroids and started hanging out in seedy alleyways. Perfect for thrash and punk fans, maybe too simple for prog-heads, and probably too difficult for the average listener to get past the dominating vocal presence and the sheer loudness of everything. |
| Valient Thorr Immortalizer | 3.5 |
