| 4.0 excellent |
| 16 Horsepower Secret South |
| 16 Horsepower Low Estate |
| Against Me! Crime as Forgiven By |
| Against Me! Against Me! |
| Agalloch Pale Folklore |
| Agalloch The White |
| Agalloch and Nest Split |
| Amesoeurs Ruines Humaines |
| Amesoeurs Amesoeurs |
| Amesoeurs manage to keep each track on this album interesting. The music if often surprisingly upbeat seeing as this is the "darker half" of the Alcest/Amesoeurs duality. There is more energy and freedom expressed here than in anything I've heard from Neige thus far. Audrey Sylvain's vocals fit the atmosphere like a glove. It is my understanding that Amesoeurs is no more after the release of this album which is truly a shame. |
| Amorphis Tales from the Thousand Lakes |
| Amorphis Eclipse |
| Amorphis Skyforger |
| Amorphis seems unlikely to release a bad album anytime soon, so I'm not really surprised by this quality album. While perhaps lacking the immediate "wow" factor of Silent Waters, this album is smooth, satisfying, and contains one of my new favorite Amorphis tracks, "Majestic Beast" - a track that solidifies my opinion that at their finest, this group makes Opeth less isolated in their Ascended status. While Opeth arguably exhibits superior technical skill, Amorphis delivers a solid package that doesn't need to show off to stand out. Most tracks on Skyforger are, as I said, smooth - easy to listen to, unobtrusive, and perhaps that's what keeps this from being a true masterpiece. Continuing in the vein of Silent Waters shouldn't come as a surprise given the warm reception of that album, and it shouldn't really be seen as a disappointment. "If it isn't broke, don't fix it" surely applies here. |
| Anathema A Natural Disaster |
| Anathema Hindsight |
| As Cities Burn Come Now Sleep |
| Assemblage 23 Storm |
| Autumn Leaves As Night Conquers Day |
| Black Math Horseman Wyllt |
| Blood Of The Black Owl A Feral Spirit |
| Bush Sixteen Stone |
| Coheed and Cambria In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 |
| Dark Tranquillity Character |
| Dawn of Tears Dark Chamber Litanies |
| Disillusion Back to Times of Splendor |
| Draconian Turning Season Within |
| dredg Leitmotif |
| dredg The Pariah, The Parrot, The Delusion |
| Certainly much better than I expected, but beyond surpassing my expectations, it is an excellent album. More pop than Catch Without Arms, yet much more reminiscent of El Cielo/Leitmotif than CWA as well. Loaded with numerous quality tracks, there are only two full-length tracks on this album that I don't absolutely love, and those are still quite tolerable. |
| Drudkh Autumn Aurora |
| Eluveitie Spirit |
| Empyrium Where at Night the Wood Grouse Plays |
| Explosions in the Sky The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place |
| Faunts Feel.Love.Thinking.Of. |
| Fear Factory Obsolete |
| Fen The Malediction Fields |
| Gwynbleidd Nostalgia |
| Hanging Garden Inherit the Eden |
| Hawksley Workman Treeful of Starling |
| Hawksley Workman For Him And The Girls |
| In Flames The Jester Race |
| In Flames Colony |
| In Flames Clayman |
| In Flames Whoracle |
| In Mourning Shrouded Divine |
| Insomnium Across the Dark |
| Finland's finest Insomnium return with an album that will challenge established fans to stomach the addition of clean vocals on a handful of tracks, but as someone who fits in that category I can safely say "do not despair." There is a lot to digest in the eight tracks that have been leaked, and by the time "Where The Last Wave Broke" ends you will be assaulted with so much rich, swirling melodic metal that you'll forget you just heard what sounded like a less abrasive, more Finnish, later-era James Hetfield singing on top of what I think is only fair to call Insomnium's most radio-friendly track since their beginnings. A dedicated sit-down with this album after weeks of worry following the post-card release of 3 of the new tracks (aforementioned track included) dissolved my fears. Here is a band that even when walking out on a potentially weak limb toying with a new style cannot help but churn out some of the most inspired, brooding, nebulous melodic death metal they have become known for with masterpieces such as Since The Day It All Came Down and Above The Weeping World. A quick word about the production: Though the leak is not the final mix, the quality is very good. Any improvement on it would make the production value top notch. (From my blog, 5/5 rating is placeholder to prevent pre-release buzzkill but my rating will be pretty high.) |
| ISIS Oceanic |
| Killing Joke Killing Joke (2003) |
| Killing Joke Brighter Than a Thousand Suns |
| Killing Joke Pandemonium |
| Lifelover Konkurs |
| Lykathea Aflame Elvenefris |
| Mar De Grises The Tatterdemalion Express |
| Matisyahu Light |
| maudlin of the Well Part the Second |
| Melechesh Emissaries |
| Modest Mouse The Lonesome Crowded West |
| Modest Mouse Building Nothing Out of Something |
| Modest Mouse This Is a Long Drive for Someone with Nothing to Think About |
| Mount Eerie Wind's Poem |
| Perry Farrell Song Yet To Be Sung |
| Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here |
| Pink Floyd A Saucerful of Secrets |
| Ruhr Hunter Moss & Memory |
| Ruhr Hunter Torn Of This |
| Samael Above |
| Secret Chiefs 3 Book of Horizons |
| This album only falls short of a 4.5 or 5 star rating due to the weak metal elements that only serve to detract from the brilliance of the progressive majority. I personally never cared much for Mr. Bungle or any other project dominated by Patton, and that influence is what ultimately ruins the ADD, frantic tracks (ie the metal tracks) for me. |
| Sigh Imaginary Sonicscape |
| Sigh Hangman's Hymn |
| Solstafir Köld |
| Sun of the Blind Skullreader |
| Surface Of Eceon The King Beneath The Mountain |
| The Flaming Lips Yoshimi Battles the Pink Robots |
| The Flaming Lips Clouds Taste Metallic |
| The Gentleman Losers The Gentleman Losers |
| Tiamat Wildhoney |
| Tool Lateralus |
| Ulver Perdition City |
| Ulver Kveldssanger |
| Ulver Blood Inside |
| Wintersleep Welcome To The Night Sky |
| Wolves in the Throne Room Two Hunters |
| Wolves in the Throne Room Black Cascade |
| 1:1 Wolves In The Throne Room sacrificed post-rock and ambient to make a true metal album... 1:2 The metal god saw that it was good, and there was a second day. While those elements aren't truly absent from this album, they are further buried and less showcased. I think what some find boring about this album is its consistency and the persistence of the stylistic direction. But when you're creating landscapes with sound, you have to stick to it. (Dropped from 4.5 because, well, I listened to Two Hunters a few times and this stopped seeming as magical.) |
| World's End Girlfriend Hurtbreak Wonderland |
| World's End Girlfriend The Lie Lay Land |
| World's End Girlfriend Dream's End Come True |
| Wovenhand Ten Stones |
| Yonlu A Society In Which No Tear is Shed... |
| 3.5 great |
| 16 Horsepower Folklore |
| Against Me! Reinventing Axl Rose |
| Against Me! As the Eternal Cowboy |
| Agalloch Of Stone, Wind and Pillor |
| Alexi Murdoch Time Without Consequence |
| Anathema A Fine Day to Exit |
| Anathema Alternative 4 |
| Assemblage 23 Defiance |
| Bat For Lashes Two Suns |
| Coheed and Cambria From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness |
| Cop Shoot Cop White Noise |
| Deconstruction Deconstruction |
| dredg Orph |
| dredg Catch Without Arms |
| Earth Crisis Slither |
| Fauna Rain |
| I'd love to give this a higher rating, but I found that after 20 minutes of lead up, I didn't like the BM vocals... which is a lousy thing to discover 20 minutes into a song. Otherwise, this is a really enjoyable way to spend a contemplative hour or so, and further convinces me of my need to move to woods of the pacific northwest and become a reclusive environmentalist anti-establishment full time black metal fan. |
| Forest of Shadows Six Waves Of Woe |
| Fuel Sunburn |
| Gevolt Sidur |
| Gill Landry The Ballad of Lawless Soirez |
| Gill Landry of Old Crow Medicine Show goes solo with this folk/blues debut full of dusty, downtrodden-dream lyrics. Something like a concept album, there is a story here that, simple as it is, never really paints a compelling enough picture to follow, but that doesn't detract from the value of the record a whole. The music conjures the atmosphere of a smoky hole in the wall bar in the south where, beneath the raucous of the patrons, a no-name band in the corner lays out sincere, no frills folk/blues, the kind you'd feel bonded with from across the room and raise your beer up to between tracks. That's a genuine compliment. |
| Hawksley Workman (Last Night We Were) The Delicious Wolves |
| If These Trees Could Talk Above the Earth, Below the Sky |
| Killing Joke Hosannas From The Basements Of Hell |
| Killing Joke Killing Joke |
| Killing Joke Democracy |
| Killswitch Engage The End of Heartache |
| Longing For Dawn Between Elation And Despair |
| Modest Mouse Good News for People Who Love Bad News |
| Modest Mouse Everywhere and His Nasty Parlour Tricks |
| Modest Mouse Sad Sappy Sucker |
| Modest Mouse The Fruit That Ate Itself |
| Modest Mouse Interstate 8 |
| Moving Mountains Pneuma |
| Mudvayne L.D. 50 |
| Orphaned Land Sahara |
| Pink Floyd The Piper at the Gates of Dawn |
| Pink Floyd A Momentary Lapse of Reason |
| Poison the Well The Tropic Rot |
| Samael Ceremony Of Opposites |
| Savage Garden Savage Garden |
| Shai Hulud Hearts Once Nourished With Hope... |
| Shai Hulud A Profound Hatred of Man [Reissue] |
| Sleeping at Last Keep No Score |
| Sleepingdog Polar Life |
| Soap and Skin Lovetune for Vacuum |
| Sombres Forets Royaume De Glace |
| The Absence Riders of the Plague |
| Tristania World of Glass |
| Ulver Themes From William Blake's The Marriage of Heaven and Hell |
| VNV Nation Matter and Form |
| 2.5 average |
| Against Me! New Wave |
| Anathema The Silent Enigma |
| Apocalyptica Worlds Collide |
| Assemblage 23 Meta |
| Bush Golden State |
| CKY Infiltrate Destroy Rebuild |
| CKY An Answer Can Be Found |
| CKY Carver City |
If you aren't afraid of a little synth in your rock, this is a very enjoyable album from
start to finish. While many will likely regard this as simply above-average alt-rock
filler music, I am going to hold it aloft with my mighty anointed hands anyway. There
certainly is filler on this album, tracks such as "Woe Is Me" just didn't do anything for
me at all (though I'd still call them better than 90% of what I hear on the modern rock
station.) However, there are truly some gems here. The opening track, "Hellions on
Parade" is just plain good rock and roll with much improved vocals, the second track
"...And She Never Returned" invokes Propagandhi and actually does it justice, "Rats In
The Infirmary" is equally good. After that exciting introductory trilogy, the songs stop
standing out as much but still aren't bad. The album makes a surprising comeback with "A
#1 Roller Rager" - It's just an excellent, catchy, fun song with a lot of replay value.
If CKY did this style throughout the album it would get old, but on its own it
contributes greatly to the whole package. The album wraps up with an average track
followed by what the band probably intended to be an epic closer. It falls short of that
goal but still does the rest of the album justice enough. Don't expect anything
monumental when you give it a spin, but go into it with an open mind and you might be
pleasantly surprised like me.
|
| Cynic '90 Demo |
| Cynic Reflections of a Dying World |
| Cynic '88 Demo |
| Eluveitie Evocation I: The Arcane Dominion |
| As I've explored this album, I've found holes in it that have caused me to drop my rating from 3.5 to 2.5. While at times this is an energetic Gaulish folk album with true Eluveitie spirit, at others it is a dull and poorly executed meandering into dead-ends that cut tracks short of their potential. Like many of the tracks, one of the potentially strongest, "The Cauldron of Renascence," fades out into oblivion just when it's getting good. It's a build-up to nothing at all. Instead, it leads into the (perhaps intentionally) roughly-sung "Nata" which only furthered my disappointment. This plagues a lot of tracks on this album, but it doesn't have as noticeable or negative of an affect elsewhere as it does here. It feels as though all of the tracks (Other than Omnos, which is already a bit too repetitive) could have been understandably extended by at least a full minute or two. Some probably could have just been scrapped entirely, or re-written to fit better into the album. I hope part two of this project sees Eluveitie focusing more on quality rather than quantity. Otherwise (someone has to say it), they ought to stick to folk-metal. They are phenomenal at it, not so much at this. |
| Eternal Tears of Sorrow Chaotic Beauty |
| Eternal Tears of Sorrow Before the Bleeding Sun |
| Green Day Bullet In A Bible |
| High on Fire Blessed Black Wings |
| High on Fire Death Is This Communion |
| In Flames Come Clarity |
| In Flames A Sense of Purpose |
| ISIS Celestial |
| Killing Joke Fire Dances |
| Killswitch Engage As Daylight Dies |
| Mudvayne Lost and Found |
| Our Lady Peace Burn Burn |
| Pelican City of Echoes |
| Primus Pork Soda |
| Samael Worship Him |
| Samael Blood Ritual |
| The Haunted One Kill Wonder |
| Tool 10,000 Days |
| Trivium Ascendancy |
| Trivium Shogun |
| Ulver Lyckantropen Themes OST |
| Virginia Creeper Who's Your God |
| Independently produced Christian industrial metal. While not entirely set apart from their influences (Manson, CoF, etc, all bands I never cared much for incidentally), they manage to hold my interest for far longer. Perhaps it's the novelty of having a Christian act stir up a little bit of controversy in the Christian scene. The band was banned from the Christian social networking site ShoutLife (more than once if I recall) after users of the site heavily condemned images of the lead singer depicting himself in a Manson-esque Christ get-up. As cheap as it sounds, I actually respect the band a tad bit more for refusing to fit in with the Christian scene while still actively participating in it. The music isn't anything remarkable, but it isn't bad at all for an independent release. Even if you hate the band's influences you might find it worth a listen. |
