| 5.0 classic |
| 40 Watt Sun The Inside Room |
| A Sense of Gravity Travail |
| Abnormal Thought Patterns Manipulation Under Anesthesia |
| I've upped my rating to a 5. Which is to say, the Tipton brothers have finally done it. As eclectically virtuosically theme-ridden as "The Towers of Avarice" (Zero Hour) and "ReEvolution" (Cynthesis) were, "Manipulation under Anesthesia" is probably the most consistent encapsulation of their ethos: (A) that mankind is fundamentally self-destructive; and (B) that that doesn't entirely have to be a downer. |
| Accept Balls To The Wall |
| Accept Restless And Wild |
| Agalloch The Mantle |
| Agalloch Pale Folklore |
| Agalloch Of Stone, Wind and Pillor |
| Agalloch Ashes Against the Grain |
| Alchemist Spiritech |
| Ali Farka Toure The River |
| Amogh Symphony The Quantum Hack Code |
| Amon Amarth Versus the World |
| Amon Amarth Wrath of the Norsemen |
| Amon Amarth Hymns to the Rising Sun |
| Amorphis Tales From The Thousand Lakes |
| Amorphis My Kantele |
| Amorphis Under the Red Cloud |
| The bonus tracks "Come the Spring" and "Winter's Sleep" are as equally strong as the standard tracks, and extend this already phenomenal LP by a good ten minutes. Their most essential since "Tales from the Thousand Lakes." |
| Ana Kefr The Burial Tree (II) |
| Anata The Conductor's Departure |
| Angra Angels Cry |
| Angra Temple of Shadows |
| Angra Holy Land |
| Aquilus Griseus |
| Arcade Fire Funeral |
| Arch/Matheos Sympathetic Resonance |
| Arkona (RUS) Goi, Rode, Goi! |
| Arsis A Celebration of Guilt |
| Arsis A Celebration of Guilt (Re-release) |
| Atoma Skylight |
| Augury Concealed |
| Augury Fragmentary Evidence |
| Avatarium Avatarium |
| Axxis II |
| Ayreon Into the Electric Castle |
| Bad Religion All Ages |
| Bad Religion Suffer |
| Bad Religion No Control |
| Bad Religion Against the Grain |
| Bathory Hammerheart |
| Belenos Spicilege |
| Bell Witch Longing |
| Belle and Sebastian If You're Feeling Sinister |
| Bethlehem Dictius Te Necare |
| Between the Buried and Me Alaska |
| Between the Buried and Me Colors |
| Between the Buried and Me Colors_Live |
| Bjork Homogenic |
| Black Crown Initiate Song of the Crippled Bull |
Nothing less than insta-classic. The lyrics are a fittingly high point, painting a fitful palette of the modern dystopia that is industrial civilization [read: Kali Yuga]. The band has posted the full lyrics at their bandcamp page (http://blackcrowninitiate.bandcamp.com/album/song-of-the-crippled-bull), so what are you waiting for! Oh, and they recently gave an incisive interview with Terrorizer (http://www.terrorizer.com/news/botd/black-crown-initiate-band-day). Choice quotes:
"...there are a couple of themes running through the album. Microcosmic and macrocosmic, in their nature. The overarching apparent theme is based on Hindu texts. A four stage cycle in the universe that goes from the creation to destruction, and then recreation. And the last phase is called Caliuga [read: Kali Yuga]. It's a phase of complete depravity; everything is almost ruined. If I look around, that's what I see. It's symbolized by iron, an extension of the Iron Age, and also by a one-legged bull. The first phase is known as the Golden Age, which you read about in all this different cultures, but that's symbolized by a bull with all his legs. We're now living in the age of the one-legged bull, which is what The Song Of The Crippled Bull is all about. Though lyrically, a big part of the EP is about one looking at the world and feeling completely hopeless, which I think anyone with a brain feels. For example, our government, particularly, is destroying everything. The other part of the lyrics is about women, and my shit experiences with them." |
| Black Sabbath Heaven And Hell |
| Blind Fury Out of Reach |
| Blind Guardian Nightfall In Middle-Earth |
| Blind Guardian Live |
| Blind Guardian Imaginations From The Other Side |
| Blindead Affliction XXIX II MCMXCVI |
| Blindead Impulse |
| Blut Aus Nord Ultima Thulee |
| Blut Aus Nord The Work Which Transforms God |
| Blut Aus Nord Memoria Vetusta I - Fathers Of The Icy Ages |
| Bob Dylan Bringing It All Back Home |
| Bob Dylan The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan |
| Bob Dylan Another Side of Bob Dylan |
| Bob Dylan The Times They Are A-Changin' |
| Bob Marley and The Wailers Catch A Fire |
| Bob Marley and The Wailers Legend |
| Bob Marley and The Wailers Exodus |
| Bob Marley and The Wailers Burnin' |
| Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago |
| Brown Jenkins Death Obsession |
| Bruce Dickinson The Chemical Wedding |
| Bruce Dickinson Accident Of Birth |
| Buckethead Population Override |
| Buckethead Colma |
| Buckethead Electric Tears |
| Buckethead The Elephant Man's Alarm Clock |
| Buckethead The Dragons Of Eden |
| Buckethead A Real Diamond In The Rough |
| Buckethead Shadows Between The Sky |
| Buckethead Chicken Noodles |
| Buckethead Look Up There |
| Buckethead Pearson's Square |
| Buckethead Footsteps |
| Buckethead Hold Me Forever (In memory of my mom) |
| Buckethead Passageways |
| Buckethead Poseidon |
| "Ridiculously awesome" summarizes what, in hindsight, may prove to be the pivotal Pike of 2017. Unlike most recent Buckethead releases ("Glacier," I am glaring at you), this Pike is more than simply an unintelligible grab-bag of discombobulated ideas. There's actually a cohesive intention driving each rifftastic track into the seedy underbelly of the next -- and that intention is to shred. There's little pretension, experimentation, or confusion here. What there is the next best slice of gonzo riffage since "Look Up There" (2011) and "Footsteps" (2014). While those two releases in particular remain my favourite Pikes, the Greek God of polluted oceans everywhere is closing in rapidly. |
| Burial Untrue |
| Burial Kindred |
| Burzum Hvis Lyset Tar Oss |
| Burzum Filosofem |
| Caladan Brood Echoes Of Battle |
| Candlemass Epicus Doomicus Metallicus |
| Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band Safe As Milk |
| Carcass Necroticism: Descanting the Insalubrious |
| Carcass Heartwork |
| Cattle Decapitation The Anthropocene Extinction |
| Celtic Frost Morbid Tales |
| Celtic Frost Monotheist |
| Cloudkicker Beacons |
| Coil Horse Rotorvator |
| Coil ...And The Ambulance Died In His Arms |
| Coil Black Antlers |
| Coil Moon's Milk (In Four Phases) |
| Common Resurrection |
| Converge Jane Doe |
| Corrections House Last City Zero |
| Crimson Glory Transcendence |
| Crimson Glory Crimson Glory |
| Crowbar Crowbar |
| Crowbar Odd Fellows Rest |
| Cult of Luna Salvation |
| Cult of Luna Somewhere Along the Highway |
| Cult of Luna Vertikal |
| CunninLynguists A Piece Of Strange |
| CunninLynguists Oneirology |
| Current 93 Thunder Perfect Mind |
| Current 93 All the Pretty Little Horses |
| Current 93 Calling For Vanished Faces |
| Current 93 I Have A Special Plan For This World |
| Current 93 Soft Black Stars |
| Cynic Focus |
| Cynic Traced in Air |
| Dan Swano Moontower |
| Dark Tranquillity The Gallery |
| Darkspace Dark Space II |
| David Bowie The Rise and Fall of Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars |
| David Bowie Hunky Dory |
| David Bowie Low |
| David Bowie Station to Station |
| David Bowie Sound + Vision |
| David Maxim Micic Bilo 3.0 |
| David Sylvian Secrets of the Beehive |
| Dead Can Dance Anastasis |
| Death The Sound of Perseverance |
| Death Individual Thought Patterns |
| Death Symbolic |
| Death Human |
| Deathspell Omega Kenose |
| Deathspell Omega Si Monvmentvm Reqvires Circvmspice |
| Deathspell Omega Fas - Ite, Maledicti, In Ignem Aeternum |
| Deathspell Omega Veritas Diaboli Manet in Aeternum |
| Deathspell Omega Mass Grave Aesthetics |
| Deathspell Omega Paracletus |
| Deathspell Omega Diabolus Absconditus/Mass Grave Aestheti |
| Deathspell Omega The Synarchy of Molten Bones |
| Demilich Nespithe |
| Destroyer 666 Unchain The Wolves |
| Destroyer 666 Terror Abraxas |
| Devin Townsend Ocean Machine: Biomech |
| Dir En Grey Uroboros |
| Dir En Grey Uroboros (Remastered & Expanded) |
| Dir En Grey Rinkaku |
| Dir En Grey Arche |
| diSEMBOWELMENT Transcendence into the Peripheral |
| Disillusion Back to Times of Splendor |
| Dissection Storm of the Light's Bane |
| Dissection The Somberlain |
| DJ Shadow Endtroducing..... |
| Dodheimsgard 666 International |
| Dodheimsgard Satanic Art |
| Dragged Into Sunlight Hatred For Mankind |
| Dream Theater Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory |
| Ea Ea II |
| Edge of Sanity Crimson |
| Elder (USA-MA) Lore |
| Electric Wizard Dopethrone |
| Elliott Smith Elliott Smith |
| Elliott Smith Live at Largo |
| Emptiness Nothing but the Whole |
| Empyrium Songs of Moors and Misty Fields |
| Empyrium Where at Night the Wood Grouse Plays |
| Empyrium Weiland |
| Ensiferum Ensiferum |
| Enslaved Isa |
| Enslaved Vertebrae |
| Enslaved Axioma Ethica Odini |
| Ephel Duath The Painter's Palette |
| Equilibrium Turis Fratyr |
| Equilibrium Sagas |
| Esoteric Metamorphogenesis |
| Esoteric The Pernicious Enigma |
| Esoteric The Maniacal Vale |
| Esoteric Paragon of Dissonance |
| Estatic Fear A Sombre Dance |
| Estradasphere It's Understood |
| Eyehategod Dopesick |
| Eyehategod Take as Needed for Pain |
| Fabrizio De Andre Non al denaro non all'amore né al cielo |
| Fabrizio De Andre Storia di un Impiegato |
| Fair to Midland Inter.Funda.Stifle |
| Fairport Convention Unhalfbricking |
| Fairport Convention Liege and Lief |
| Fairport Convention What We Did on Our Holidays |
| Fates Warning Awaken the Guardian |
| Fates Warning Perfect Symmetry |
| Fates Warning A Pleasant Shade of Gray |
| Finsterforst Weltenkraft |
| Finsterforst Wiege der Finsternis |
| First Fragment The Afterthought Ecstasy |
| Flotsam and Jetsam Doomsday for the Deceiver |
| Forefather Steadfast |
| Francoise Hardy The Vogue Years |
| Frank Zappa Apostrophe |
| Frank Zappa Hot Rats |
| Frank Zappa The Grand Wazoo |
| Frank Zappa Läther |
| Frank Zappa Joe's Garage |
| Freddie Gibbs and Madlib Pinata |
| Freedom Call Master Of Light |
| Fushitsusha Live I |
| Gamma Ray Somewhere Out in Space |
| Gamma Ray Land of the Free |
| Gamma Ray Blast from the Past |
| Garden of Shadows Oracle Moon |
| Gates of Ishtar At Dusk and Forever |
| Gene Clark No Other |
| Gene Clark Roadmaster |
| Gene Clark White Light |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor F♯ A♯ ∞ |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada |
| Gojira From Mars to Sirius |
| Gojira The Way of All Flesh |
| Gorguts Obscura |
| Gorguts The Erosion of Sanity |
| Gorguts Colored Sands |
| Gorod Leading Vision |
| Gorod Transcendence |
| Gov't Mule Live at Roseland Ballroom |
| Grand Belial's Key Judeobeast Assassination |
| Gris Il Était Une Forêt... |
| Gris À L'Âme Enflammée, L'Âme Constellée... |
| Guns N' Roses Appetite for Destruction |
| GZA Liquid Swords |
| Hawkwind Space Ritual |
| Heathen Victims of Deception |
| Helloween Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part I |
| Helloween Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part II |
| Hoth Oathbreaker |
| Howls of Ebb The Marrow Veil |
| Human Fortress Defenders Of The Crown |
| Iced Earth Alive In Athens |
| Iced Earth The Melancholy EP |
| Immolation Here in After |
| Immolation Unholy Cult |
| Immolation Dawn of Possession |
| Immolation Close to a World Below |
| Immortal At the Heart of Winter |
| In Flames The Jester Race |
| In the Woods... Omnio |
| Insomnium In the Halls of Awaiting |
| Insomnium Above the Weeping World |
| Iron And Wine Woman King |
| Iron Maiden Powerslave |
| Iron Maiden The Number Of The Beast |
| Iron Maiden Iron Maiden |
| Iron Maiden Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son |
| J Dilla Donuts |
| Jeru the Damaja The Sun Rises in the East |
| Jex Thoth Blood Moon Rise |
| Joanna Newsom The Milk-Eyed Mender |
| Joanna Newsom Ys |
| Joanna Newsom Joanna Newsom and the Ys Street Band |
| Joanna Newsom Have One on Me |
| John Fahey Blind Joe Death |
| John Prine Great Days: The John Prine Anthology |
| John Prine Sweet Revenge |
| Johnny Cash American IV: The Man Comes Around |
| Johnny Cash American II: Unchained |
| Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison |
| Johnny Cash At San Quentin |
| Johnny Cash American V: A Hundred Highways |
| Johnny Cash American Recordings |
| Johnny Cash American III: Solitary Man |
| Judas Priest Painkiller |
| Jute Gyte Perdurance |
| Kamasi Washington The Epic |
| Katatonia Viva Emptiness |
| Katatonia Brave Murder Day |
| Katatonia Last Fair Deal Gone Down |
| Kate Bush Hounds of Love |
| Kendrick Lamar good kid, m.A.A.d city |
| King Crimson In the Court of the Crimson King |
| Kool G. Rap and DJ Polo Live and Let Die |
| Kyuss Welcome To Sky Valley |
| Kyuss Blues For The Red Sun |
| Liege Lord Master Control |
| Liquid Tension Experiment Liquid Tension Experiment 2 |
| Loreena McKennitt The Book of Secrets |
| Loreena McKennitt The Mask and Mirror |
| Lost Horizon A Flame to the Ground Beneath |
| Lost Horizon Awakening the World |
| Lurker Of Chalice Lurker Of Chalice |
| Lustmord Purifying Fire |
| Lustmord Carbon/Core |
| Lykathea Aflame Elvenefris |
| Mac Lethal The Original 11:11 Sessions |
| Machine Men Scars and Wounds |
| Manilla Road Crystal Logic |
| Manilla Road Mystification |
| Manilla Road Spiral Castle |
| This unheralded opus of garage stoner metal psychedelia sees Manilla Road brazenly riff, solo, and croon their way through Robert E. Howard-inspired epic after epic. Largely in the same fuzz-shrouded, downtempo "trippin' balls" genre as "Mark of the Beast," "Spiral Castle" is essential fodder for all sativa-suckled ears. Behold! Another inscrutably festive slab of Hyperborean Kansas metal arises. |
| Manilla Road Mark of the Beast |
| Mar De Grises The Tatterdemalion Express |
| Masterplan Masterplan |
| Mastodon Crack the Skye |
| maudlin of the Well Bath |
| maudlin of the Well Leaving Your Body Map |
| Megadeth Rust In Peace |
| Megadeth Peace Sells... But Who's Buying? |
| Megadeth Last Rites |
| Melechesh Emissaries |
| Meshuggah Destroy Erase Improve |
| Meshuggah I |
| Metal Church Metal Church |
| Metallica Master Of Puppets |
| Metallica Ride The Lightning |
| Metallica Live Shit: Binge & Purge |
| Metallica Metal Up Your Ass |
| Midnight Odyssey Funerals from the Astral Sphere |
| Milton Nascimento and Lo Borges Clube da Esquina |
| Mobb Deep The Infamous |
| Monks Black Monk Time |
| Moonsorrow Verisäkeet |
| Moonsorrow Kivenkantaja |
| Moonsorrow Jumalten Aika |
| Morbid Angel Altars of Madness |
| Motorhead Ace Of Spades |
| Motorhead Bomber |
| Mournful Congregation The Monad Of Creation |
| Mournful Congregation The Dawning Of Mournful Hymns |
| My Dying Bride The Angel and the Dark River |
| My Dying Bride Turn Loose the Swans |
| Myrkgrav Trollskau, Skrømt Og Kølabrenning |
| Nadja The Bungled and the Botched |
| NAMI Fragile Alignments |
| Nas Illmatic |
| Necrophagist Epitaph |
| Neil Young Rust Never Sleeps |
| Neil Young After the Gold Rush |
| Neil Young On the Beach |
| Neil Young Everybody Knows This Is Nowhere |
| Neil Young Live Rust |
| Neurosis The Eye Of Every Storm |
| Neurosis Through Silver In Blood |
| Neurosis Souls At Zero |
| Neurosis A Sun That Never Sets |
| Neurosis Times Of Grace |
| Neurosis Enemy Of The Sun |
| Nevermore Dreaming Neon Black |
| Nevermore This Godless Endeavor |
| Nick Drake Pink Moon |
| Nick Drake Five Leaves Left |
| Nick Drake Bryter Layter |
| Nile In Their Darkened Shrines |
| Nocturnus The Key |
| Novembre Materia |
| Novembre Classica |
| Nuclear Assault Survive |
| Nuclear Assault Handle with Care |
| Obliteration Black Death Horizon |
| Oidupaa Vladimir Oiun Divine Music from a Jail |
| Old Man Gloom Seminar III: Zozobra |
| On The Virg Serious Young Insects |
| Onslaught The Force |
| Onward Evermoving |
| Opeth Orchid |
| Opeth Still Life |
| Opeth Morningrise |
| Opeth My Arms, Your Hearse |
| Opeth Apostle in Triumph |
| Os Mutantes A Divina Comédia ou Ando Meio Desligado |
| Overkill The Years of Decay |
| Overkill Horrorscope |
| Overkill Taking Over |
| Overkill Feel the Fire |
| Overkill Ironbound |
| Overkill !!!Fuck You!!! |
| Oz Fire in the Brain |
| Pagan Altar Volume 1 |
| Pagan Altar Lords Of Hypocrisy |
| Pagan Altar Mythical & Magical |
| Pagan Altar Pagan Altar |
| Pain of Salvation The Perfect Element, Part 1 |
| Pain of Salvation Entropia |
| Pallbearer Foundations of Burden |
| Paysage d'Hiver Nacht |
| Paysage d'Hiver Paysage d'Hiver |
| Paysage d'Hiver Steineiche |
| Paysage d'Hiver Kristall und Isa |
| Paysage d'Hiver Winterkälte |
| Pelican The Fire in Our Throats Will Beckon... |
| Pelican Pelican |
| Pendragon (UK) The Masquerade Overture |
| Pentagram Day Of Reckoning |
| Pentagram Pentagram |
| Pentagram First Daze Here (The Vintage Collection) |
| Persefone Core |
| Peste Noire La Sanie des Siècles |
| Peste Noire Mors Orbis Terrarum (Best Of) |
| Pestilence Testimony of the Ancients |
| Pharaoh The Longest Night |
| Porcupine Tree In Absentia |
| Porcupine Tree Stupid Dream |
| Primordial The Gathering Wilderness |
| Primordial To The Nameless Dead |
| Propagandhi Failed States |
| Queensryche Operation: Mindcrime |
| Radical Face The Family Tree: The Roots |
| Rapture Silent Stage |
| Reverend Bizarre In The Rectory Of The Bizarre Reverend |
| Rhinocervs RH-11 |
| Right Away, Great Captain! The Church of the Good Thief |
| Robyn Hitchcock I Often Dream Of Trains |
| Rorcal Heliogabalus |
| Rotten Sound Exit |
| Running Wild Black Hand Inn |
| Running Wild Death Or Glory |
| Running Wild Port Royal |
| Sabaton Carolus Rex (Swedish Version) |
| Sabbat (UK) Dreamweaver |
| Sacramentum Far Away from the Sun |
| Sacrifice Forward to Termination |
| Saint Vitus Born Too Late |
| Saint Vitus Hallow's Victim |
| Sanctuary Into The Mirror Black |
| Santana Abraxas |
| Saor Aura |
| Saracen Heroes, Saints & Fools |
| Satan Into the Future |
| Satan's Host Virgin Sails |
| Satan's Host's latest may ultimately prove to be the power-black-thrash metal hybrid classic of their cult careers. A band nigh 30 years in the making finally strikes its penultimate zenith - and no one seems to notice. *THIS* is the Harry Conklin album we've been waiting for. No longer is "Ample Destruction" the sole metal album worthy of the Tyrant's tyrannical pipes. And after the limelight and luster of 2013 tarnishes with time, time will remember only this: "Virgin Sails." |
| Satyricon Dark Medieval Times |
| Savatage Edge of Thorns |
| Scald Will of the Gods is Great Power |
| Scale the Summit The Collective |
| Schammasch Triangle |
| Scott Walker Scott 4 |
| Scott Walker Scott Walker Sings Jacques Brel |
| Shadow Gallery Tyranny |
| Shadow Gallery Digital Ghosts |
| Shining (SWE) V - Halmstad |
| Shining (SWE) IV - The Eerie Cold |
| Shpongle Tales of the Inexpressible |
| Sieges Even The Art of Navigating by the Stars |
| Sigur Ros Agætis byrjun |
| SikTh The Trees Are Dead and Dried Out, Wait for Something Wild |
| SikTh Death of a Dead Day |
| Skepticism Stormcrowfleet |
| Slough Feg Traveller |
| Sodom Persecution Mania |
| Sodom Agent Orange |
| Solitude Aeturnus Into The Depths Of Sorrow |
| Solitude Aeturnus Beyond The Crimson Horizon |
| Solstice (UK) Death's Crown Is Victory |
| Sonata Arctica Reckoning Night |
| Sonata Arctica Silence |
| Sonata Arctica Winterheart's Guild |
| Sorne House of Stone |
| Spectral Lore III |
| Stargazer (AUS) A Merging to the Boundless |
| Strapping Young Lad Alien |
| Strapping Young Lad City |
| Stratovarius Episode |
| Stratovarius Visions |
| Strid Strid [7''] |
| Strid End of Life / Strid |
| Strid Strid (Compilation) |
| Suffocation Effigy of the Forgotten |
| Sufjan Stevens Illinois |
| Summoning Nightshade Forests |
| Summoning Dol Guldur |
| Summoning Minas Morgul |
| Sunn O))) and Boris Altar |
| Supertramp Crime Of The Century |
| Swallow the Sun Plague Of Butterflies |
| Swans The Great Annihilator |
| Swans Various Failures |
| Sylosis Conclusion of an Age |
| Symphony X The Divine Wings of Tragedy |
| Symphony X The Odyssey |
| Symphony X V: The New Mythology Suite |
| System of a Down Toxicity |
| System of a Down Sugar |
| Taake Nattestid Ser Porten Vid |
| Taake Hordalands Doedskvad |
| Tantara Based on Evil |
| Krongle speaks the truth; Tantara's debut is an exemplar retro thrash release. They hit all of the key targets for Bay Area revival thrash: the requisite razor-bladed riffs ("Negligible Souls": check), the requisite ecological degradation ("The Killing of Mother Earth": check), the requisite mandatory bonus track ("Untitled": check), the requisite ten-minute epic fest ("Prejudice of Violence": check), and the requisite Flemming Rasmussen production (of Blind Guardian, Metallica, Morbid Angel, and Rainbow fame: check). It's all here, folks. It's all here. |
| Tenhi Kauan |
| Tenhi Folk Aesthetic 1996-2006 |
| Testament The New Order |
| Testament The Legacy |
| Thanatopsis Anatomize |
| The Beach Boys Pet Sounds |
| The Beach Boys The Smile Sessions |
| The Devin Townsend Band Accelerated Evolution |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan Calculating Infinity |
| The Fall of Every Season Amends |
| The Gathering if_then_else |
| The Gathering How to Measure a Planet? |
| The Gathering Nighttime Birds |
| The Hidden Hand Mother * Teacher * Destroyer |
| The Morningside The Wind, The Trees And The Shadows... |
| The Mothers of Invention We're Only in It for the Money |
| The Mothers of Invention Freak Out! |
| The Mothers of Invention Absolutely Free |
| The Mothers of Invention Uncle Meat |
| The Mothers of Invention One Size Fits All |
| The Mountain Goats All Hail West Texas |
| The National Alligator |
| The National Boxer |
| The Obsessed Lunar Womb |
| The Obsessed The Church Within |
| The Obsessed The Obsessed |
| The Ocean Precambrian |
| The Ocean Pelagial |
| The Ruins of Beverast Rain Upon the Impure |
| The Ruins of Beverast Unlock the Shrine |
| The Smith Street Band No One Gets Lost Anymore |
| The Tallest Man on Earth The Wild Hunt |
| Theatre Of Tragedy Aégis |
| This Heat Deceit |
| This Heat This Heat |
| Thy Catafalque Roka Hasa Radio |
| Todtgelichter Angst |
| Tom Waits Rain Dogs |
| Tom Waits Closing Time |
| Tom Waits Swordfishtrombones |
| Tom Waits Alice |
| Tom Waits Orphans: Brawlers, Bawlers and Bastards |
| Tom Waits Small Change |
| Tom Waits The Heart of Saturday Night |
| Tori Amos Little Earthquakes |
| Tori Amos Crucify |
| Trans-Siberian Orchestra Christmas Eve and Other Stories |
| Triptykon Eparistera Daimones |
| Twilight Monument To Time End |
| Ulcerate Everything Is Fire |
| Ulcerate Shrines of Paralysis |
| Ulver Perdition City |
| Ulver Bergtatt - Et eeventyr i 5 capitler |
| Ulver A Quick Fix of Melancholy |
| Ulver Shadows of the Sun |
| Ulver Silence Teaches You How to Sing EP |
| Ulver Silencing the Singing |
| Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats Blood Lust |
| Uncle Acid and The Deadbeats Vol. 1 |
| Usnea Usnea |
| Vader De Profundis |
| Vali Skogslandskap |
| Van der Graaf Generator Pawn Hearts |
| Van der Graaf Generator Godbluff |
| Vicious Rumors Digital Dictator |
| Vildhjarta Måsstaden |
| Vinterland Welcome My Last Chapter |
| Virgin Steele The House Of Atreus: Act I |
| Virgin Steele The House Of Atreus: Act II |
| Virgin Steele Invictus |
| Vital Remains Dechristianize |
| W.A.S.P. W.A.S.P. |
| Walknut Graveforests and Their Shadows |
| Warning Watching from a Distance |
| Warning Bridges |
| Windir Arntor |
| Windir 1184 |
| Windir Soknardalr |
| Windir Likferd |
| Wingnut DishwashersUnion Burn the Earth, Leave it Behind |
| Winterfylleth The Divination Of Antiquity |
| Wintersun Wintersun |
| Wolfchant Bloody Tales of Disgraced Lands |
| Wuthering Heights Far from the Madding Crowd |
| Wuthering Heights Salt |
| Yasunori Mitsuda Chrono Cross Original Soundtrack |
| Yasunori Mitsuda Chrono Trigger Original Sound Version |
| 4.5 superb |
| '68 In Humor and Sadness |
| 4Arm Submission for Liberty |
| A Sound of Thunder The Lesser Key Of Solomon |
| Aborted RetroGore |
| Accept Blood Of The Nations |
| Accept Stalingrad: Brothers In Death |
| Accept Blind Rage |
| Akhlys The Dreaming I |
| Alchemist Organasm |
| Alkaloid The Malkuth Grimoire |
| Ridiculously awesome. This is only tangentially related to technical death metal. (Modern progressive metal strikes closer to the truth). The bassist is a fretboard maniac; the guitarists are precision machinists; the vocalist is distinctly peculiar, largely preferring to gutturally rasp than grunt or roar; the track titles and lyrics are decisively intelligent; each track distinguishes itself in one or more memorable ways. This is the complete package, assuming you can get past the vocalist's teutonic eccentricities. |
| Allegaeon Fragments of Form and Function |
| Allegaeon Elements of the Infinite |
| Allegaeon Proponent for Sentience |
| Altar of Plagues Teethed Glory and Injury |
| Alunah White Hoarhound |
| Amenra Mass III |
| Amenra Mass V |
| Amia Venera Landscape The Long Procession |
| Amon Amarth With Oden on Our Side |
| Amon Amarth Twilight of the Thunder God |
| Amon Amarth Jomsviking |
| Amorphis Silent Waters |
| Anaal Nathrakh Vanitas |
| Anais Mitchell Hadestown |
| Ancient Bards Soulless Child |
| Ancient Bards A New Dawn Ending |
| Anciients Heart of Oak |
| Andy James Andy James |
| Andy James In the Wake of Chaos |
| Angel Vivaldi Universal Language |
| Animals As Leaders Animals as Leaders |
| Animals As Leaders The Joy of Motion |
| Apostle of Solitude Sincerest Misery |
| Apostle of Solitude Of Woe And Wounds |
| Appearance of Nothing A New Beginning |
| Substantially improved upon prior outings. With just enough of a grim dash of death gruntings, AoN unapologetically play to all their proggy strengths: hook-laden dainty keyboard tinklings, auspiciously grandiose seven-minute-plus epic after epic, and all the lyrically decipherable clean vocals you can shake an alpine Swiss stick at. My only complaint is simple: the band seems a bit torn between the overly brutal and the underly saccharine sweet. While flexibility is a virtue, I do wish they'd commit to a firmer, more resolute style (death, prog, or otherwise). Next LP around, let's hope they choose... wisely. |
| Arch Enemy Burning Bridges |
| Archspire All Shall Align |
| Arckanum ÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞÞ |
| Arcturus The Sham Mirrors |
| Arcturus Arcturian |
| Argus (USA-PA) Argus |
| Argus (USA-PA) Beyond The Martyrs |
| Arkona (RUS) Yav |
| Aspherium The Fall of Therenia |
| Astral Doors New Revelation |
| Ataraxie Slow Transcending Agony |
| Ataraxie L'être et la Nausée |
| Atlantean Kodex The White Goddess (A Grammar Of Poetic Myth) |
| Avantasia The Metal Opera Pt. II |
| Ayreon The Human Equation |
| BATS The Sleep of Reason |
| Battlecross War of Will |
| Batushka Litourgiya |
| Be'lakor Stone's Reach |
| Be'lakor Vessels |
| Behemoth The Satanist |
| Between the Buried and Me The Silent Circus |
| Between the Buried and Me The Parallax II: Future Sequence |
| Bjork Medulla |
| Bjork Vespertine |
| Black Anvil Hail Death |
| A considerable grower. While my dissatisfaction with the irresolute, weak vocals remains, the remainder of the band is really firing on all cylinders here. The Oslo-cum-Bay Area blackened thrash riffage is strong with this one. |
| Black Fast Terms of Surrender |
| Blaze Bayley Infinite Entanglement |
| Blind Guardian Somewhere Far Beyond |
| Blood Ceremony The Eldritch Dark |
| Bloodbound Nosferatu |
| Blotted Science The Machinations of Dementia |
| Blotted Science The Animation of Entomology |
| Bob Dylan Desire |
| Bob Marley and The Wailers Babylon By Bus |
| Boris Smile |
| Boris Noise |
| Brainstorm Firesoul |
| Brimstone Coven Black Magic |
| Bruce Dickinson Tyranny Of Souls |
| Buckethead 3 Foot Clearance |
| Buckethead The Silent Picture Book |
| Buckethead Worms for the Garden |
| Ludicrously, orgasmically, ridiculously over-the-top ejaculatory riff-fest. And we wouldn't have it any other way. |
| Buckethead Twisterlend |
| Buckethead Coat Of Charms |
| Buckethead Claymation Courtyard |
| Buckethead Closed Attractions |
| Buckethead Leave The Light On |
| Buckethead Listen for the Whisper |
| Buckethead The Mighty Microscope |
| Buckethead Project Little Man |
| Buckethead Infinity of the Spheres |
| Buckethead Down The Bayou Part One |
| Buckethead Shapeless |
| The stoner metal is pungent with this one. Also notable for being the last respectable Pike over Buckethead's notoriously vomitous period of Halloween (by which I mean B-rate 80's slasher porn, of course) veneration. After this, it would be a gruelling five month wait for the next non-cringe-worthy Pike to be excreted out. The masturbatory sixteen-minute title track is the obvious standout. Sludgy riffganza, I choose you! |
| Buckethead Buildor |
| Terrible name. Fantastic pike. ("Buildor"? What in the three greasy layers of KFC-bred factory mutant chicken hells is "Buildor"? Actually, I don't want to know.) Buckethead can do no riffmaestro wrong on the extended studio workout jam. This pike is only extended studio workout jams. Ergo, it is not wrong. Indeed, it's possibly his only essential work since "Shapeless" (2015). We can only hope for more shapeless buildors and less misshapen Halloweens. Less is more, Buckethead. Buildor lives! |
| Buckethead Glacier |
| Buckethead The Squaring of the Circle |
| Buckethead Decoding the Tomb of Bansheebot |
| Caligula's Horse The Tide, the Thief and River's End |
| Candlemass Nightfall |
| Captain Beefheart and His Magic Band Shiny Beast (Bat Chain Puller) |
| Carcass Surgical Steel |
| Casualties of Cool Casualties of Cool |
| Chaos Divine The Human Connection |
| Chaos Divine Colliding Skies |
| Chevelle La Gárgola |
| Chevelle The North Corridor |
| Children of Bodom Follow the Reaper |
| Children of Bodom Hatebreeder |
| Chimp Spanner Imperium Vorago |
| Chthonic 武徳 Bu-Tik |
| Cloudkicker Subsume |
| Coil The Ape Of Naples |
| Converge Petitioning the Empty Sky |
| Converge When Forever Comes Crashing |
| Converge Axe to Fall |
| Corelia Nostalgia |
| Cosmosquad Acid Test |
| Counterparts Tragedy Will Find Us |
| Cradle of Filth Cruelty and the Beast |
| Crowbar Equilibrium |
| Crowhurst Crowhurst |
| Cult of Luna Vertikal II |
| Cultes Des Ghoules Henbane |
| Cynthesis DeEvolution |
| Cynthesis ReEvolution |
| D'Angelo Black Messiah |
| Dark Tranquillity Character |
| Dark Tranquillity Damage Done |
| Dark Tranquillity The Mind's I |
| Dark Tranquillity Fiction |
| Dark Tranquillity Of Chaos and Eternal Night |
| Darkest Era Severance |
| Darkspace Dark Space I |
| David Maxim Micic Bilo 2.0 |
| Dawnbringer Nucleus |
| Deafheaven Sunbather |
| Death Angel Relentless Retribution |
| Destroyer 666 Phoenix Rising |
| Destroyer 666 Cold Steel...for an Iron Age |
| Dethklok Dethalbum III |
| Devin Townsend Project Addicted |
| Devin Townsend Project Ghost |
| Dio Strange Highways |
| Dir En Grey Dum Spiro Spero |
| Dir En Grey The Unraveling |
| Dodheimsgard A Umbra Omega |
| DOOM VS Dead Words Speak |
| DOOM VS Earthless |
| Dopamine Dying Away In The Deep Fall |
| Dornenreich Bitter ist's dem Tod zu dienen |
| DragonForce Maximum Overload |
| Substantially improved over prior outings. If you were ever on the fence about DragonForce (so, basically everyone?), the Limited Edition of "Maximum Overload" is the only place to start. And stop, really. Their back catalogue is obviously sense-obliviating blissless trash. Thankfully, that no longer matters. For at least one glorious cheese fest, these inveterate British pop-metallers _finally_ rise above masturbatory joke status and release an appallingly fun, mildly tasteful slice of happy-go-lucky speed thrash. With a ridiculous 6 bonus tracks (!), the Limited Edition serves up nearly 77 minutes of all the DragonForce you can stomache and will probably ever need. Go, go speed dragon! |
| Dysrhythmia Test Of Submission |
| Eden Circus Marula |
| El-P Cancer 4 Cure |
| Elder (USA-MA) Dead Roots Stirring |
| Elder (USA-MA) Live at Roadburn 2013 |
| Elderwind The Magic of Nature |
| Elliott Smith New Moon |
| Elvenking The Pagan Manifesto |
| Enforcer Diamonds |
| Ensiferum Iron |
| Enslaved Below the Lights |
| Enslaved Mardraum - Beyond the Within |
| Enslaved RIITIIR |
| Enslaved In Times |
| Entropia (PL) Vesper |
| Epica The Quantum Enigma |
| Esoteric Subconscious Dissolution Into the... |
| Ethereal Riffian Aeonian |
| Ethereal Shroud They Became the Falling Ash |
| Evergrey In Search Of Truth |
| Evergrey Hymns For The Broken |
| Every Time I Die From Parts Unknown |
| Evoken Quietus |
| Evoken Antithesis of Light |
| Eye of Solitude Canto III |
| Sufficiently bleak British doom-death expels all happiness. Not even beer-goggled giddiness or substantially substance-induced euphoria could break through this dismal miasma of dirge-like gurgling and funereal lassitude. (Admit it, guys: British weather is a hard come-down.) The Limited Edition sports a spiffy best-of EP collecting remastered B-sides and rare older tracks. While I enjoy both, the first CD is exhausting to the point of debilitating; at which point, I often find myself reaching for the nominally-less-soul-crushing second CD. Behold the lidless Eye of Solitude. |
| Eyehategod Confederacy of Ruined Lives |
| Fair to Midland Fables From a Mayfly: What I Tell You Three Times is True |
| Fallujah Nomadic |
| Fallujah The Flesh Prevails |
| Fates Warning Parallels |
| Finsterforst Rastlos |
| First Fragment Dasein |
| While I wouldn't go quite as hype-fueled hyperbolic as Mitch Worden, I'll still go pretty far: this bests the new Gorguts EP ("Pleiades' Dust") for tech-death release of the year. It's all about the dysphoric acid jazz. It's what sets First Fragment apart. It's what other tech-death lacks. It's what death metal in general needs: a contemptible dose of schizophrenic uninhibition. This album knows no boundaries. Its absurd circus menagerie of off-kilter crushing riffs has already broken every conceivable wall of established genre conventions into a thousand vomitous fragments of ear-dizzying French nausea. |
| Flying Lotus You're Dead! |
| Forefather Ours is the Kingdom |
| Forseti Windzeit |
| Freedom Call Beyond |
| Frigoris Wind |
| Funeral Tragedies |
| Galar De Gjenlevende |
| Galneryus The Flag Of Punishment |
| Galneryus Angel of Salvation |
| Galneryus Under the Force of Courage |
| Gamma Ray No World Order |
| Gates of Ishtar A Bloodred Path |
| Ghost Bath Moonlover |
| Gloryhammer Space 1992: Rise of the Chaos Wizards |
| Goatsnake Goatsnake Vol. 1 |
| Gordian Knot Gordian Knot |
| Gorguts From Wisdom to Hate |
| Gorguts Pleiades' Dust |
| Gotsu Totsu Kotsu Retributive Justice |
| Grave Digger The Grave Digger |
| Grave Miasma Realm Of Evoked Doom |
| Graveyard Dirt For Grace Or Damnation |
| GridLink Longhena |
| Gruesome Savage Land |
| Haken The Mountain |
| Halford Resurrection |
| Hannes Grossmann The Radial Covenant |
| Hate Solarflesh |
| Hawkwind Yule Ritual |
| Heathen The Evolution of Chaos |
| Heidevolk Walhalla Wacht |
| Hell (UK) Curse and Chapter |
| Hibria Defying the Rules |
| High on Fire Luminiferous |
| Horn of the Rhino Summoning Deliverance |
| Horrendous Anareta |
| Horseback The Invisible Mountain |
| Howls of Ebb Vigils of the 3rd Eye |
| Howls of Ebb Cursus Impasse: The Pendlomic Vows |
| Hypocrisy Abducted |
| Hypocrisy Hypocrisy |
| Hypocrisy A Taste of Extreme Divinity |
| Iced Earth Burnt Offerings |
| Iced Earth Night Of The Stormrider |
| Iced Earth Something Wicked This Way Comes |
| Ihsahn Arktis. |
| Immolation Failures for Gods |
| Immolation Hope and Horror |
| Immolation Majesty and Decay |
| Immolation Providence |
| Immortal Sons of Northern Darkness |
| Immortal Pure Holocaust |
| In Solitude Sister |
| In The Nursery Anatomy of a Poet |
| In the Silence A Fair Dream Gone Mad |
| In the Woods... Heart Of The Ages |
| In the Woods... Strange In Stereo |
| In Vain (NO) Aenigma |
| Inanimate Existence A Never-Ending Cycle of Atonement |
| Incarnator (RUS) Caeca Superstitio |
| Inferi (USA) The Path of Apotheosis |
| Inquisition Ominous Doctrines of the Perpetual Mystical... |
| Inquisition Obscure Verses for the Multiverse |
| Insomnium Since the Day It All Came Down |
| Insomnium Shadows of the Dying Sun |
| Inter Arma Sky Burial |
| Intronaut The Direction Of Last Things |
| IQ The Road of Bones |
| Iron And Wine Our Endless Numbered Days |
| Iron And Wine The Creek Drank the Cradle |
| Iron Maiden Somewhere In Time |
| Iron Maiden Piece Of Mind |
| Iron Maiden Brave New World |
| Iron Maiden The Book Of Souls |
| Jakub Zytecki Wishful Lotus Proof |
| Jamie Lenman Muscle Memory |
| Janus Nox Aeris |
| John Arch A Twist of Fate |
| John Prine The Missing Years |
| Kalmah They Will Return |
| Kalter Ubuntu |
| Kamelot The Black Halo |
| Kamijo Symphony of the Vampire |
| Kardashev Peripety |
| Katatonia The Great Cold Distance |
| Kauan Lumikuuro |
| Kauan Tietäjän Laulu |
| Kauan Pirut |
| Kayo Dot Hubardo |
| KEN mode Mennonite |
| Kenn Nardi Dancing With the Past |
| Killer Mike R.A.P. Music |
| Kobong Chmury Nie Bylo |
| Crazy phenomenal, particularly considering the year. This was well ahead of the djent curve, and still compares favourably to the most highly regarded releases in that genre. Numerous tracks transcend the often stifling confines of modern djent -- including impromptu banjo jamming, undecipherable noise rock, and angular post-punk ramblings. So why has no one ever heard of this? The answer, depressingly, is obvious: it's not in English. The future will regard this LP more highly than the past. |
| Kontinuum Earth Blood Magic |
| So indescribably awesome. While special mention goes to the Gregorian chant-backed climactic finale of "Stranger Air", every track has its metal-tinged merit. Never stop being eclectically musical, Iceland. |
| Kontinuum Kyrr |
| Kool G. Rap and DJ Polo Wanted: Dead Or Alive |
| Kreator Phantom Antichrist |
| Leviathan Scar Sighted |
| Lil B God's Father |
| Locktender Kafka |
| Locktender Rodin |
| Lord Mantis Death Mask |
| Loreena McKennitt An Ancient Muse |
| Loreena McKennitt To Drive the Cold Winter Away |
| Loreena McKennitt A Midwinter Night's Dream |
| Loreena McKennitt A Winter Garden: Five Songs for the Season |
| Lustmord The Place Where The Black Stars Hang |
| Macabre Omen Gods Of War - At War |
| Machine Head The Blackening |
| Mael Mordha Damned When Dead |
| Magic Circle Magic Circle |
| "Pagan Altar" and "Black Sabbath" bred a bastard stepchild and forgot to tell anyone. 2013, may we present your doom metal album of the year. |
| Mandroid Echostar Citadels |
| Manilla Road Open the Gates |
| Manilla Road Voyager |
| Manilla Road The Blessed Curse |
| Mar De Grises Draining The Waterheart |
| Mare Cognitum Phobos Monolith |
| Marillion Script For A Jester's Tear |
| Mastodon Blood Mountain |
| maudlin of the Well My Fruit Psychobells... A Seed Combustible |
| Maximum the Hormone Yoshu Fukushu |
| Megadeth Countdown To Extinction |
| Mekong Delta Dances of Death (and other Walking Shadows) |
| Mekong Delta In a Mirror Darkly |
| Melechesh Enki |
| Melechesh is back -- now with 314% more Emissaries and 413% less Epigenesis. The predictable decline of Nile got you down? Well, Melechesh bring the Sumerian medicine. And it's name is wrathful intensity. Holy shit is this wrathful and intense in equal parts. It's like listening to the depraved genocidal rantings of the Old Testament YHWH, only with better drumming. |
| Meshuggah Chaosphere |
| Meshuggah obZen |
| Meshuggah The Violent Sleep of Reason |
| Metallica Kill 'Em All |
| Metallica ...And Justice For All |
| Mgla Exercises in Futility |
| Midnight Satanic Royalty |
| Midnight No Mercy for Mayhem |
| Unholy fecal matter! Throwback Motorhead worship bordering on black metal parody shouldn't be this fun. But it is. Oh, how it is. Honestly, I think it's the frenzied musicianship: from the rampant frets-on-fire soloing to the scathingly gritty guitar tone, these 80's troubadours are firing on all retro cylinders. Unhesitatingly recommended. |
| Minsk The Crash and the Draw |
| Mithotyn King of the Distant Forest |
| Mithotyn In the Sign of the Ravens |
| Mithras On Strange Loops |
| Modern Day Babylon Travelers |
| Monuments (UK) The Amanuensis |
| Moonsorrow Voimasta ja Kunniasta |
| Moonsorrow Viides Luku - Hävitetty |
| Moonsorrow Tulimyrsky |
| Mors Principium Est ...And Death Said Live |
| Motorhead 1916 |
| Motorhead Inferno |
| Motorhead Bastards |
| Motorhead Another Perfect Day |
| Motorhead Bad Magic |
| Rocks it hard. I mean, just gape at those elderly-bludgeoning track titles: "Teach Them How to Bleed," "Tell Me Who to Kill," and (...yes) "Choking on Your Screams." HOW IS THIS POSSIBLE. |
| Mourning Beloveth The Sullen Sulcus |
| Mourning Beloveth Dust |
| Murmuure Murmuure |
| My Dying Bride Feel the Misery |
| Nadra Allir vegir til glötunar |
| NAILS You Will Never Be One Of Us |
| Native Construct Quiet World |
| Ne Obliviscaris The Aurora Veil |
| Ne Obliviscaris Portal of I |
| Necrophagist Onset of Putrefaction |
| Negative Plane Stained Glass Revelations |
| Negura Bunget 'N Crugu Bradului |
| Neil Young Harvest |
| Neil Young Tonight's the Night |
| Neil Young Zuma |
| Nero di Marte Derivae |
| Neurosis Given To The Rising |
| Nevermore Enemies of Reality |
| Nevermore Dead Heart in a Dead World |
| Night Verses Lift Your Existence |
| Nile Annihilation Of The Wicked |
| Noble Beast Noble Beast |
| Nokturnal Mortum The Voice of Steel |
| Nokturnal Mortum Verity |
| Norma Jean Wrongdoers |
| Norther Mirror of Madness |
| Novembers Doom The Pale Haunt Departure |
| Novembers Doom Bled White |
| A demonstrable improvement over prior works. The overly repetitive and derivative stylistic mimicry of the "Pale Haunt Departure" era have been abandoned for resonant clean vocals (which actually work!), lush acoustic interludes (Scorpius: a personal favorite), and intentionally compact song-writing. In a word, "Novembers Doom" has gone goth. And while that's typically a miserable thing, the band has studiously avoided most of the standard trappings and pitfalls of that lamentable genre [read: spoken word doggerel and the token pop female track]. Is this perhaps what "Novembers Doom" always intended to sound like but quite never had the artistic pluck to try? Given the aesthetic shift, it's half-surprising the band didn't adopt for a name change as well. Regardless, colour me modestly impressed and eagerly awaiting more. |
| Novembre Novembrine Waltz |
| Novembre Dreams D'Azur |
| Novembre Ursa |
| Nuclear Assault Game Over |
| Oathbreaker Eros|Anteros |
| Obliteration Nekropsalms |
| Obliveon From This Day Forward |
| Obscure Sphinx Void Mother |
| Obsequiae Aria of Vernal Tombs |
| Obsidian Kingdom Torn and Burnt |
| Oceans of Slumber Winter |
| So. Awesome. The sideshow metalcore and death metal antics are mostly ignorable here and, with any distempered luck, will be dropped for the next full-length. Thankfully, the female-fronted clean leads more than make up the progressive metal balance. These are, without a semblance of a shadow of an enigma of a doubt, the most salient feminine musings I've ever heard -- even moreso than Avatarium's Jennie-Ann Smith and Triosphere's Ida "Pico" Haukland, my prior go-to staples in the growing field of metallic goddesses. But this... it's insane. The deep and abiding soulfulness in these vocals; it's clear that Ocean of Slumber's new frontwoman Cammie Gilbert means exactly what she croons and croons exactly what she means. And from Texas, of all cultural and ecological wastelands! I'm fairly floored after the first several listens. Please Odin let this be a grower. |
| Old Man Gloom Christmas |
| Om Advaitic Songs |
| Omit Medusa Truth - Part 1 |
| Opeth Ghost Reveries |
| Oranssi Pazuzu Valonielu |
| Orden Ogan Ravenhead |
| Overkill The Electric Age |
| Overkill White Devil Armory |
| A return to "Ironbound" (2010) form for this formative Rust Belt thrashfest. After the slight disappointment that was "The Electric Age" (2012), their newest LP sees these veteran thrashers clamp down on the NYHC (New York hardcore) and tone back up the venerable riffage. While experimentation is applaudable, "The Electric Age" dabbled a bit too overtly with the worrisome, wormy trendiness of hardcore "bro"-music machismo. I'm pleased to report that that's largely absent here, traded in whole for wholesome gang vocals, frenetic soloes, and precision thrashing. Thanks for reupping the overkilled irons, guys! (It should also be noted that the "The Fight Song" and "Miss Misery" bonus tracks are worth hunting down. Further evidence that post-2010 Overkill can do no wrong? Given their stylistic conflicts with the core material, however, it's understandable why these knuckle draggers were omitted from the official release.) |
| Pain of Salvation One Hour by the Concrete Lake |
| Panopticon Roads to the North |
| Panopticon Autumn Eternal |
| Paradise Lost The Plague Within |
| Holy shit this rocketh the goth. That is all. Very well: this is absolutely up there with "Icon" and "Draconian Times." An unexpectedly stunning comeback. |
| Paysage d'Hiver Das Tor |
| Pelican Australasia |
| Pelican March Into the Sea |
| Pendragon (UK) Men Who Climb Mountains |
| Neo-prog British mainstays Pendragon go metal (or, at least, their best neo-prog facsimile thereof). As guilty pleasures go, you could certainly do worse than the lyrical witticisms and gentle guitar ministrations of neo-prog -- and this LP is no exception. As the drastic change in cover art suggests, "Men Who Climb Mountains" couples a grim dollop of post-apocalyptic aggression to the customary prog trappings. While that could have turned out terribly, Pendragon nail it! This probably won't receive as much mainstream lavish as IQ's "The Road of Bones" (2014), which would be unfortunate, unsurprising, and unjustifiable in equal measure. Consider this requisite listening for erstwhile fans of the genre, and every chord the contender for neo-prog album of the year. |
| Pentagram Be Forewarned |
| Persuader Evolution Purgatory |
| Persuader When Eden Burns |
| Plini Sweet Nothings |
| Polyenso One Big Particular Loop |
| Pomegranate Tiger Entities |
| Porcupine Tree Signify |
| Porcupine Tree Lightbulb Sun |
| Porcupine Tree Nil Recurring |
| Powerwolf Bible of the Beast |
| Powerwolf Blessed and Possessed |
| Primal Fear Seven Seals |
| Primordial Spirit The Earth Aflame |
| Primordial Where Greater Men Have Fallen |
| Protest the Hero Volition |
| Psychotic Waltz Mosquito |
| Psycroptic The Scepter of the Ancients |
| Pyramaze Disciples of the Sun |
| Queens of the Stone Age ...Like Clockwork |
| Quo Vadis Day Into Night |
| Quo Vadis Defiant Imagination |
| Radiance The Burning Sun |
| Raven Rock Until You Drop |
| Rest Among Ruins Fugue |
| Revelation ...Yet So Far |
| Reverend Bizarre Harbinger of Metal |
| Reverend Bizarre Return to the Rectory |
| Revocation Revocation |
| Revocation Deathless |
| Rhinocervs RH-12 |
| Rishloo Living as Ghosts with Buildings as Teeth |
| Rotten Sound Murderworks |
| Rotting Christ A Dead Poem |
| Rotting Christ Sanctus Diavolos |
| Run the Jewels Run the Jewels |
| Run the Jewels Run the Jewels 2 |
| Rwake Voices of Omens |
| Sabaton Carolus Rex |
| Saint Vitus Saint Vitus |
| Saintseneca Last |
| Samothrace Life's Trade |
| Saor Roots |
| Satan Life Sentence |
| Satan's Host Pre-Dating God Part 1 |
| Satan's Host Pre-Dating God Part 2 |
| Saturnus Martyre |
| Savage Messiah Spitting Venom |
| Improves considerably with repeat listens, largely thanks to the hypnotically entrancing riff machinery at constant work here. Essential listening for the modern retro thrash connoisseur. |
| Savage Messiah The Fateful Dark |
| Savatage Dead Winter Dead |
| Scale the Summit The Migration |
| Secret Band Secret Band |
| Septicflesh The Great Mass |
| Shade Empire Omega Arcane |
| Shadow Gallery Room V |
| Shadow Gallery Carved In Stone |
| Shadow of the Colossus End Game |
| Shape of Despair Monotony Fields |
| Shiina Ringo Shouso Strip |
| Sigh Hail Horror Hail |
| Sigh In Somniphobia |
| Sigur Ros Kveikur |
| SikTh Flogging the Horses |
| Sinbreed When Worlds Collide |
| Sinbreed Shadows |
| Sithu Aye Isles |
| Skagos Ast |
| Skepticism Lead and Aether |
| Skepticism Alloy |
| Skepticism Ordeal |
| I can't think of anything quite like this. Skepticism, the lacrimose diety of Finnish funeral doom, release six new tracks and two prior tracks ("Pouring" and "The March and the Stream") in front of a live studio audience. It shouldn't work. It's funeral doom. It's six new tracks. It's live. But they totally own the concept, the performance, and the new compositions. Essential material for long-standing Skepticism devotees. (You know who you are.) |
| Slough Feg Down Among the Deadmen |
| Slough Feg Twilight Of The Idols |
| Sodom M-16 |
| Sodom In War And Pieces |
| Soilwork The Living Infinite |
| Soilwork The Ride Majestic |
| Solitude Aeturnus Through The Darkest Hour |
| Solstafir Otta |
| Soul Cycle Soul Cycle II |
| Stam1na Stam1na |
| Stam1na Nocebo |
| Stargazer (AUS) The Scream That Tore the Sky |
| Stormwarrior Thunder And Steele |
| Stratovarius Unbreakable |
| Stratovarius Eternal |
| A distinct improvement over "Nemesis" (2013), itself a distinct improvement over everything not named "Episode" or "Visions." The only truly execrable track is, of course, the obligatory piano-drenched ballad "Fire in Your Eyes." (Delete that track post-haste and you're good to go.) The nearly twelve-minute viking epic "The Lost Saga" is suitably epic and the remaining tracks are suitably cheesy Finnish power metal. Which is to say, a class act the whole way. Memorable fun, thy name is Stratovarius. |
| Streetlight Manifesto The Hands That Thieve |
| SubRosa (US) No Help for the Mighty Ones |
| SubRosa (US) More Constant Than The Gods |
| Subsignal Beacons of Somewhere Sometime |
| SuidAkrA Emprise to Avalon |
| Summoning Stronghold |
| Summoning Old Mornings Dawn |
| Sun Kil Moon April |
| Supertramp Breakfast In America |
| Sylosis Edge of the Earth |
| System of a Down System of a Down |
| Taake Over Bjoergvin Graater Himmerik |
| Tacoma Narrows Bridge Disaster Exegesis |
| Tempel (USA-AZ) On the Steps of the Temple |
| Temple of Void Of Terror And The Supernatural |
| Tenhi Vare |
| Tenhi Maaaet |
| Terra Tenebrosa The Purging |
| Testament Live at the Fillmore |
| The Agonist The Escape |
| The Black Twilight Circle Worship Black Twilight |
| The Body and Thou You, Whom I Have Always Hated |
| The Chariot One Wing |
| The Contortionist Exoplanet |
| The Contortionist Language |
| The Crinn Shadowbreather |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan One of Us Is the Killer |
| The Gathering Souvenirs |
| The Gathering Black Light District |
| The Great Gamble Book 1 |
| The Mayan Factor Yesterday's Son |
| The Mire Glass Cathedrals |
| The Mothers of Invention Burnt Weeny Sandwich |
| The National High Violet |
| The Ocean Fluxion |
| The Sword Warp Riders |
| The Tallest Man on Earth Shallow Grave |
| The Tallest Man on Earth Sometimes The Blues Is Just A Passing Bird |
| The Waters Deep Here Sunden |
| The Wonder Years Suburbia I've Given You All and Now I'm Nothing |
| Theatre Of Tragedy Velvet Darkness They Fear |
| This Mortal Coil It'll End in Tears |
| Thorns Thorns |
| Thou Heathen |
| Thy Light No Morrow Shall Dawn |
| Tiluland Axes of the Universe |
| Tom Waits Franks Wild Years |
| Tom Waits Bad As Me |
| Tool Undertow |
| Tool 10,000 Days |
| Tribulation The Children Of The Night |
| Triptykon Melana Chasmata |
| Turbid North Orogeny |
| Typhoon (USA-OR) White Lighter |
| Ufomammut Idolum |
| Ufomammut Eve |
| Ulcerate The Destroyers of All |
| Ulcerate Vermis |
| Ulver Kveldssanger |
| Ulver Messe I.X-VI.X |
| Uneven Structure Februus |
| Unexpect Fables of the Sleepless Empire |
| Unhuman Unhuman |
| Unisonic Light of Dawn |
| Unleash The Archers Time Stands Still |
| Gods and Godesses be both damned and praised, but this is hyperbolically-amazing female-fronted balls-to-the-Canadian-walls super-powered power metal. I have utterly no experience with their prior work. That should probably change, because... Holy Five Hells of Explosive Musical Shockery! Where did this slab of impeccable awesomeness even come from? Only time will tell if "Time Stands Still" stands the insensate test of time. But for the short-term moment, I'm relishing every metal-studded inch of this immaculately crafted, melody-encrusted jewel of the Great White North. Every Canadian has an oath-bound obligation to support this ridiculous band live. (Because, let's face it: they're all we've got.) |
| Vader Black to the Blind |
| Vallendusk Black Clouds Gathering |
| Ved Buens Ende Written In Waters |
| Ved Buens Ende Those who Caress the Pale |
| Vektor Terminal Redux |
| Vintersorg Cosmic Genesis |
| Vintersorg Ödemarkens son |
| Vintersorg Till fjälls |
| Vintersorg Till Fjälls Del II |
| Virgin Black Sombre Romantic |
| Virgin Black Requiem - Fortissimo |
| Virgin Steele The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell: Part II |
| Virgin Steele The Marriage Of Heaven And Hell: Part I |
| Visigoth Final Spell |
| Visigoth The Revenant King |
| Visigoth Vengeance (Demo) |
| Voivod Target Earth |
| Voyager V |
| Vulture Industries The Tower |
| W.A.S.P. The Last Command |
| Wanzwa Wanzwa III |
| Watchtower Concepts of Math: Book One |
| We Lost the Sea The Quietest Place on Earth |
| We Lost the Sea Departure Songs |
| Wedrujacy Wiatr Tam, Gdzie Miesiac Oplakuje Swit |
| Whispered Shogunate Macabre |
| Wine From Tears Glad To Be Dead |
| Wo Fat The Black Code |
| Wolfchant Call Of The Black Winds |
| Wolfchant Embraced By Fire |
| Wolves in the Throne Room Two Hunters |
| Woods of Desolation Torn Beyond Reason |
| Words of Farewell The Black Wild Yonder |
| Xanthochroid Blessed He With Boils |
| Yasunori Mitsuda Xenogears Original Soundtrack |
| YOB Live at Roadburn 2010 |
| YOB The Unreal Never Lived: Live at Roadburn 2012 |
| Zealotry The Charnel Expanse |
| Zero Hour The Towers of Avarice |
