| AC/DC Black Ice | 2.5 |
| Artistically, this album is pointless. AC/DC hasn't meaningfully evolved since 1981's For Those About to Rock, around which point they also ran out of original ideas for riffs. It's not like they need any material to tour, either, or even any excuse, as the Australian hard rock legends can still fill stadiums with chanting fans anywhere in the world. Of course, all this wouldn't matter if the album could stand on its own as an enjoyable effort. It can't. Get "Rock 'n' Roll Train" and move on. |
| AC/DC Back In Black | 4.0 |
| Adele 21 | 4.0 |
| Agalloch The Mantle | 4.0 |
| One should not try to dissect The Mantle in short takes. It's hard to pick out individual highlights, as the album unfolds so fluently and cohesively, but that doesn't mean it's not memorable - rather, it's a majestic, immersive experience. Vocals and distorted guitars are less polished than they could be, which actually adds to the quaint folk atmosphere, in a way reminiscent of Opeth's Morningrise. Overall, a deeply moody and elegant piece. |
| Alice in Chains Jar of Flies | 4.0 |
| Alice in Chains Black Gives Way to Blue | 4.0 |
| You know what's fucking disgusting? A beautiful, dynamic album like this being sonically compromised by loud production. It still sounds pretty amazing, mind you, but sometimes it gets so muddy you just miss too many little details. Because you know that they're in there. If such a place as hell exists, Nick Raskulinecz will burn in it for what he did to "A Looking in View". |
| Alter Bridge AB III | 3.0 |
| Another group of competent musicians with a couple of great songs and tons of formulaic filler. That's not to say the album's bad, far from it, as Alter Bridge invariably moves as a powerful, synergistic unit, but it feels wasteful to spend that power on such predictable and forgettable material. If only they had the courage not to play it so safe. Because songs like Slip to the Void show they have the talent. |
| Alter Bridge Blackbird | 4.0 |
| There's a fine rock spirit and remarkable performances by Kennedy and Tremonti - the whole band does great, really - but Blackbird is far too long for the palette it really has to offer. Chord progressions and song structures repeat themselves until the songs just turn into white noise and blend into one another, making Blackbird a chore to hear all the way through. The album's highest point is clearly the title track, but a Stairway to Heaven (like many legions of breathless fans will claim) it really ain't. |
| Andy McKee Art of Motion | 3.0 |
| Angra Temple of Shadows | 4.0 |
Angra are fantastic when they stick to their mildly progressive power metal formula, and there's no denying they are technical masters. Drummer Aquiles Priester, particularly, is peerless in the genre.
My first impulse was to give Temple of Shadows a 4.5 out of respect for its driving first half and the majestic centerpiece The Shadow Hunter, but the second half of the album, bloated with symphonic ambitions, makes it too awkward a listen.
While their arrangements are excellent, and some people will certainly be entranced by each individual track, there's only so many times you can use keyboard strings for dramatic effect before the average listener gets jaded. |
| Animals As Leaders Animals as Leaders | 4.0 |
| Sure, the syncopated, djenty virtuoso thing really gets you at first, but by the end of the album it's become rather predictable. The album almost overcomes that, as it's packed with fascinating melodies and technical flourishes, but not quite enough to warrant the "classic" tag. Still, a great listen that made Tosin Abasi an instant metal guitar god. |
| Arcane Chronicles of the Waking Dream | 4.5 |
| Arch/Matheos Sympathetic Resonance | 3.5 |
| Great instrumentation, particularly the drumming - Jarzombek is nothing short of a god. But the arrangements wander without much focus, and John Arch's sprawling vocal melodies fail to provide a connecting thread. The highlight here ends up being the second shortest and most conventionally-structured song, the addictive "Midnight Serenade". And while Arch is obviously a skilled vocalist, had I been born with his voice, I would've just accepted that the gods didn't mean for me to sing. |
| Arsis A Celebration of Guilt | 3.5 |
| About as technical as melodeath can get without turning into full-fledged tech death, ACOG combines a strong sense of harmony and layering with a flair for dramatic melodies. In their best moments, they bring wholly different and unique colors to the death metal palette (The Face of My Innocence may well be one of the greatest songs in the genre), but Arsis recycle their formula far too much. The album lacks enough great riffs to be a true classic. |
| At the Gates Slaughter of the Soul | 4.0 |
| It is no surprise that songs like "Slaughter of the Soul" and "Under the Serpent Sun" are so influential and highly considered; their contorted riffs are far more accessible and expressive than standard death/thrash fare, but still pretty damn heavy. Once you listen to this album, it's hard not to hear inflections of it in every modern melodeath or metalcore album, only the riffs here are much more original. "Efficient" is a word that springs to mind regarding At the Gates' use of melody. |
| Atheist Unquestionable Presence | 4.5 |
| Atheist Jupiter | 4.5 |
| Handily reestablishes Atheist at the top of the tech metal food chain. The only sign of aging evident in this album is Kelly Shaefer's breathier, less piercing growl, and even that works out well. Excellent riffs throughout, tech death soloing that isn't nonsense, that characteristic drumming and Atheist's trademark songwriting style - you'll love this as much as Unquestionable Presence. |
| Avenged Sevenfold City of Evil | 3.0 |
| I can't help but wonder if all these people who call The Rev a great drummer have ever, like, heard any metal, ever. He's average. He does double-bass beats. He's like Chris Adler but far less technically capable. He's like Lars Ulrich with really good feet. He's like Joey Jordison if Joey Jordison was in a slightly shittier band. He's like if the guy from Trivium was a worse drummer. He's like if Nicko McBrain had lost control of half his body. He's like if Mike Portnoy had never heard Neil Peart. He's like Richard Christy, except he isn't like him at all because Richard Christy is a fucking god of metal drumming and The Rev is some dime-a-dozen metalcore kid. Stop reaching for the top shelf with your fucking words and save "amazing", "brilliant", "fantastic" and the like for things that actually deserve it. |
| Behemoth Demigod | 4.0 |
| Essentially a solid, 40-minute slab of blistering rage. The songs are all quite similar, but they're sufficiently short and focused to drive the album all the way through, and it really helps to have a longer, epic song to close it up in a grand fashion. Very strong riffing, lightspeed drumming, interesting lead work here and there, clear production; it's just straightforward, quality death metal. |
| Between the Buried and Me Colors | 3.5 |
| Black Sabbath Master of Reality | 4.0 |
| Black Sabbath Vol. 4 | 4.0 |
| Black Sabbath Paranoid | 5.0 |
| If you want to know what is metal and what isn't, refer to this album. War Pigs is a strong contender for best metal epic ever, Iron Man and Hand of Doom carry some of the best riffs ever written and the general atmosphere of the album is darker than many death metal records, what with their gore and screaming, can even approach. If you like any metal at all, this is what every band in the genre is emulating. Get it. |
| Coldplay Mylo Xyloto | 3.5 |
| Almost sickeningly sugary and happy, but has some very interesting hooks and textures (the latter surely a courtesy of producer Brian Eno). Somebody please get Paradise out of my head, it's one of the catchiest songs I've heard in ages. |
| Converge Axe to Fall | 4.0 |
| Converge The Dusk in Us | 4.0 |
| Converge Jane Doe | 4.5 |
| Converge All We Love We Leave Behind | 4.5 |
| Cream Goodbye | 3.5 |
| Cream Disraeli Gears | 4.0 |
| Cynic Carbon-Based Anatomy | 3.5 |
| Cynic Traced in Air | 4.0 |
| Dark Tranquillity The Gallery | 4.0 |
| Death Symbolic | 4.5 |
| Death Human | 4.5 |
| So many old-school death metal albums could benefit from a quality remix like this I can't even begin to list them. Drums are a little louder than I'd like, but at least now you can really tell how brilliant Sean Reinert really was/is - same for Steve DiGiorgio's fantastic bass work. |
| Death The Sound of Perseverance | 5.0 |
| Such high standards of instrumentation would be sufficient to make a respectable metal album, but Chuck Schuldiner is, apart from a superior guitarist, one of the greatest composers in metal. Amazing riffs and solos are allowed to achieve full power by the skilled lineup of Death, framed by what is possibly the definitive metal drum performance. |
| Derek and the Dominos Layla and Other Assorted Love Songs | 5.0 |
| Devin Townsend Ziltoid the Omniscient | 4.0 |
| A very easy and safe listen, especially by Townsend's own standards, but that's exactly what makes it so fun. Ziltoid's strong points lie in its more anthemic moments such as Planet Smasher and Color Your World, which, along with the various other hooks contained within the album, can carry you away in no time - you just need to let them. |
| Devin Townsend Project Addicted | 3.5 |
| Down NOLA | 4.0 |
| Dream Theater Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence | 4.0 |
| Dream Theater A Change of Seasons | 4.0 |
| If it only had the title track, it'd be a perfect EP. The covers can be pretty long-winded and almost boring if you don't like or know the songs already, and even then you're better off listening to the originals, but at least they're quite well executed. Or it could just be that they look bad next to A Change of Seasons, probably the best song Dream Theater has ever done or will ever do; the perfect blend of all they stand for. "Another World" is the greatest moment of DT's career. |
| Dream Theater Black Clouds and Silver Linings | 4.0 |
| Four decent Dream Theater tracks stuck in between two classics. Everything is about four minutes longer than it should be. The Count of Tuscany is the best thing since Scenes. |
| Dream Theater Train of Thought | 4.5 |
| Dream Theater Awake | 4.5 |
| Dream Theater displays remarkable clarity and intelligence in every composition here. They've improved upon all of Images and Words' few imperfections: the long songs are very well structured, LaBrie delivers his most moving and nuanced vocal performance to date, and Portnoy's triggers were replaced a by crisp new kit (just listen to the intro in The Mirror, what a snare). While the melodies themselves end up being a little overwrought and Awake simply lacks its predecessor's spontaneity and energy, it makes up for it with its alluringly dark atmosphere. This is not an easy album by any means, but if any member of Dream Theater is ever criticized for putting instrumentation before songwriting, Awake is their number-one defense. |
| Dream Theater A Dramatic Turn of Events | 4.5 |
| A creative breath of fresh air for DT, who draw heavily from both their old and new selves to create an album that sounds, above all, confident. Drum work is more subdued than I'd expect, but maybe the band needed that in order to relax and find a balance - and craft the excellent, cohesive epics they did, banishing the contrived modern metal influences of their recent releases. I could point out the highlights, but I'd just name the whole album; so instead, a rule of thumb: the longer the song, the better it is. |
| Dream Theater Images and Words | 5.0 |
| I can think of very few metal albums that can boast having four songs like Pull Me Under, Take the Time, Metropolis and Learning to Live. After one gets past an initial awkwardness with the keyboards and high vocals (both of which are excellent, by the way, but an acquired taste), Images and Words captivates them with its beautiful and often very intricate melodies. One can feel a certain lack of dynamics from both LaBrie's whispering-or-yelling delivery and Portnoy's triggered drums, but the varied songwriting makes up for it and then some. |
| Dream Theater Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory | 5.0 |
| Eric Clapton Clapton Chronicles: The Best of Eric Clapton | 3.5 |
| Fleshgod Apocalypse Oracles | 3.5 |
| Very technical and crazy tight. There's great riff ideas in here as well as genuinely interesting symphonic aspects, but holy shit is the mix loud and muddy. Bass drums and rhythm guitars just get mashed into one another creating an often impenetrable mass of sound. This album deserved better. |
| Fleshgod Apocalypse Agony | 3.5 |
| Far from perfect, but one of the most wonderfully chaotic albums I've ever heard. The orchestral elements make it more believable and brutal than countless pure tech death offerings that are technically more "extreme". |
| Franz Ferdinand Franz Ferdinand | 4.0 |
| Genesis The Way We Walk, Volume 2: The Longs | 4.0 |
| Genesis Selling England by the Pound | 4.5 |
| All non-lovers of Firth of Fifth must immediately report to local authorities to have their music fan's licence confiscated and destroyed. |
| Gentle Giant In a Glass House | 2.5 |
| All the weird time signatures and strange synths in the world won't cure a lack of good melodies. What a boring fucking album. It gives me a headache every time I listen to it. |
| Gojira From Mars to Sirius | 4.0 |
| Gojira The Way of All Flesh | 4.5 |
| Wonderfully heavy and addictive. Gojira have mastered their particular style of robotically precise yet anthemic metal, managing to convey a surprising variety of moods. Indeed, the collection of songs that comprises The Way of All Flesh is quite admirable - its shortcoming lies in being far more repetitive than the formula can handle. Any of these songs can be a favorite and the songwriting is original, but the album is tough to stomach in an extended sitting. |
| Gojira L'Enfant Sauvage | 4.5 |
| Move over Brann Dailor, Mario Duplantier is the most interesting drummer in the metal scene right now. |
| Gorillaz Gorillaz | 3.0 |
| Green Day ¡UNO! | 2.0 |
| Some fucking nerve you have, throwing a hissy fit onstage like you're the second coming of Johnny Ramone when you're releasing safe bullshit like this, Billie Joe. Green Day gave up artistic integrity a long time ago, but now they've stopped giving a shit about songwriting altogether. |
| Green Day 21st Century Breakdown | 3.0 |
| Green Day Dookie | 3.5 |
| Green Day American Idiot | 4.0 |
| Guthrie Govan Erotic Cakes | 4.5 |
| Guthrie's playing is delightful to the ears all by itself - in terms of fluidity and technique, he is in a league of his own. One is left wondering if there is any aspect of the guitar he hasn't mastered: he shreds like the very best, only cleaner; he can skip to either extreme of jazz-rock fusion in an instant and loads more styles; his phrasing is intelligent and hooky. He is complemented by a highly competent bass and drum duo, whose easy, nimble groove lets him show his full potential. All this makes for a very pleasurable and engrossing listen, especially recommended if you are a musician yourself. |
| Iced Earth Horror Show | 3.0 |
| Ihsahn Eremita | 3.5 |
| Though appropriately atmospheric and well-arranged, Eremita tries to exploit a creative formula that Ihsahn mostly tapped out with After - its bold compositions are unable to reach quite the same unconventional cohesion as its predecessor's. It would seem that Ihsahn's sound could use a new spice, much like the sax worked for After. But that's not to say this album lacks highlighs: the convoluted "The Eagle and the Snake" is one of his greatest achievements to date. |
| Ihsahn After | 4.5 |
| Immolation Close to a World Below | 4.5 |
| Wickedness, brutality, dissonance, chaos - in other words, exactly what death metal stands for, with just the right measure of technicality. Your ears will bleed and you'll love every second of it. |
| In Flames Reroute to Remain | 3.0 |
| Well written but ultimately harmless, Reroute to Remain marks the point where In Flames decided not to challenge listeners anymore. While their bag of musical tricks remains recognizable to attentive fans, it's subjected to so many mainstream sensibilities and clich?s that it hardly matters, and they might as well be a different band. There's definitely a way to make a quality metal album with mass appeal, but this wasn't it. |
| In Flames Whoracle | 3.5 |
| Some of the songs here, like Gyroscope and Jotun, display a sort of raw majesty matching that of the highest points of The Jester Race, their guitars interweaving beautifully - and with a vastly improved lead tone. Yet In Flames seem to distrust their capacity to write engaging, layered melodies, as they also pump out some more energetic, riff-driven tracks; those end up being less interesting. Had Whoracle focused more on lush compositions, it might have perfected its predecessor's sound, but instead it's the first step down from the melodic zenith that In Flames would never quite reach again. |
| In Flames The Jester Race | 4.5 |
| The Jester Race is the sort of metal album that ages well. It doesn't strive for brutality nor does it aim for technicality, like so many Reign in Bloods of ages past whose shock value is long gone. Instead, In Flames invest in crafting solid melodies, often mixing acoustic and heavy to keep their sound fresh but being sensible enough to avoid anything too corny, and the result are instant classics like Moonshield and December Flower. |
| Iron Maiden No Prayer for the Dying | 2.5 |
| Iron Maiden The Final Frontier | 3.0 |
| Satellite 15 had me fooled for a moment that Iron Maiden were actually going to do something different, but no, I've definitely heard all these songs before. Had any other band released this album, they'd be vilified for blatantly replicating the Maiden sound. I don't see why Maiden itself should get a free pass, especially when they could have done it better. |
| Iron Maiden Brave New World | 3.5 |
| Iron Maiden The Number of the Beast | 4.0 |
| Iron Maiden Iron Maiden | 4.0 |
| Iron Maiden Piece of Mind | 4.0 |
| Jack White Blunderbuss | 3.5 |
| Jaco Pastorius Jaco Pastorius | 4.0 |
| James Blunt Back To Bedlam | 2.5 |
| "You're Beautiful", "Wisemen" and "No Bravery" I can actually quite stand. I'd even call them good. Still of very little consequence, of course, but that's more than I can say of most mainstream/pop music. |
| James LaBrie Static Impulse | 3.5 |
| Catchy - almost poppy - vocal-driven melodeath with a dash of technicality. LaBrie's vocal hooks and harmonies hold the album together, but guitarist Marco Sfogli and drummer Peter Wildoer (who also does the death growls) also manage to impress. Highlights are "One More Time" and "Jekyll or Hyde", though it's a pretty easy album to get all the way through. |
| Jan Johansson Jazz Pa Svenska | 4.0 |
| Joe Satriani Surfing With The Alien | 4.5 |
| One can tell that Joe Satriani, regardless of his virtuosic abilities, still has a deep love for rocking power chords and catchy riffs. Even when he's in full-on shredder mode, he cares just as much about flashiness as how his solos fit his baseline grooves and the overall progression of a composition. Satch's various exotic techniques and sounds are not the spotlight of the album, but rather employed to craft original and interesting melodies. This is an album pretty much every rock guitarist should listen to. |
| John Coltrane A Love Supreme | 4.5 |
| John Mayer Continuum | 3.5 |
| Judas Priest Painkiller | 4.0 |
| Karl Sanders Saurian Meditation | 3.5 |
| Koji Kondo The Legend of Zelda: The Wind Waker OST | 3.5 |
| Koji Kondo The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask OST | 3.5 |
| Koji Kondo Super Mario 64 Original Soundtrack | 4.0 |
| Koji Kondo The Legend of Zelda 25th Anniversary Symphony | 4.0 |
| Koji Kondo The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time OST | 4.5 |
| Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin | 4.0 |
| Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin IV | 4.5 |
| Led Zeppelin Led Zeppelin II | 4.5 |
| Leprous Bilateral | 3.5 |
| Limp Bizkit Results May Vary | 1.0 |
| In a way, this is a remarkable achievement: making an album worse than Chocolate Starfish is extremely difficult. |
| Limp Bizkit Chocolate Starfish and the Hot Dog Flavored Water | 1.5 |
| I wonder how I could listen to this back when I was younger and not gag. This is the source of my Fred Durst allergy. |
| Lou Reed and Metallica Lulu | 2.5 |
Surprisingly not horrible, just a little boring. The album is basically centered around Reed's lyrical concept,
with some quite nice soundscapes and trademark Metallica riffing as a backdrop - indeed, I'd call this a Lou
Reed album featuring Metallica. Which is a shame, because some of the riffs here could have amounted to
something, especially the one in Dragon. That would be fine, though, if the lyrics weren't so awfully
pretentious and repetitive, often sounding like some angsty teenager's tries at being artsy. Not to mention
the laughable vocal delivery. Really, does Lou Reed even listen to his own recordings? All in all, Lulu feels like
an unsuccessful experiment.
I should give it a lower rating but... I have to admit, the sheer strangeness of the thing is appealing,
somehow. I hated The View, but I can sing Reed's droning lyrics by heart. It's just so alien.
I sure hope Metallica tries some of this ambient stuff in their next album, as it really goes well with their riffs. |
| Machine Head Unto the Locust | 4.0 |
| Unto the Locust may not be quite as aesthetically satisfying as The Blackening, as it just doesn't have the same amount of great riffs, but it easily beats its predecessor for atmosphere and maturity. More than ever, Machine Head's songwriting comes off as ambitious rather than disjointed, even if they still have a way to go until they master just exactly the sound they've been trying to achieve since Through the Ashes of Empires - and did, at times, with songs like Imperium, Halo and now This Is the End. Oh, and Robb's vocals are better than ever. |
| Machine Head The Blackening | 4.5 |
| Probably the album that best encompasses the many facets of this "new wave" of American metal, and it stands as one its highest achievements. Thrilling drumming, tight riffing both groovy and melodic, accomplished (if overextended) songwriting... It's surprising that this should come from Machine Head of all bands, and they'll probably never do anything quite like it again. But the mastering is painfully loud - clipping is very audible throughout the album, which kills its replay value for me. |
| Marilyn Manson Antichrist Superstar | 4.0 |
| Maroon 5 Songs About Jane | 3.5 |
| Mastodon Blood Mountain | 4.0 |
| Mastodon Crack the Skye | 5.0 |
| Megadeth Endgame | 3.0 |
| This album has something to prove. All that lifeless shredding would certainly be pointless and misplaced otherwise, isn't it? It certainly doesn't seem to fit the songs a lot of the time, and it's a shame, because Dave Mustaine can still write riffs pretty well. Back in the day he used to try to impress people with complex, layered songwriting; now he just plays fast. |
| Megadeth Youthanasia | 3.5 |
| Megadeth Countdown to Extinction | 4.0 |
| Megadeth Rust in Peace | 5.0 |
| Meshuggah I | 4.5 |
| This is absolutely fantastic and unique. I will never listen to it again. |
| Meshuggah Nothing (Re-Release) | 4.5 |
| "Nothing" was my first Meshuggah album and it utterly redefined groove and changed the way I think about music. This is "Nothing" with amazing production. Acquire this album. |
| Metallica Reload | 2.5 |
| The atmosphere is exactly like Load, because these are its leftovers - and it shows. This time there are no saving graces like The Outlaw Torn, and apart from Fuel and Fixxxer this album just festers in its own mediocrity for over seventy long minutes. |
| Metallica St. Anger | 3.0 |
| Metallica tries to be a band they're simply not, and pay the price for it. Aiming to sound raw like a garage band, they succeed far too well and sound like total ass. In attempting to be angsty and confused, their lyrics became annoying, stupid and messy, trying far too hard to express rather than embody those emotions. Trying to catch up to modern "alternative metal" bands, Metallica waste their legendary writing skills on other people's shitty formulas. Having said all that, it's still Metallica, so it's not devoid of good moments. All Within My Hands, particularly, is a lost gem in their discography, a song that defies all odds to tell a unique, violent and honest tale of anger and control. |
| Metallica Load | 3.0 |
| The songwriting in here generally hovers just above average, but the extremely high points Bleeding Me and Outlaw Torn (the latter being one of the band's best songs in my book) make this album worthy of remark. Unfortunately, Load is so overlong that the general feeling is unimpressive despite these sparse moments of brilliance. What exactly about this music warranted 79 minutes of play time is beyond this reviewer. |
| Metallica Death Magnetic | 3.5 |
| Great songwriting which proves Metallica were made to play real heavy metal and that Hetfield is unquestionably one of the greatest riff writers ever - now if he could only restrain his genius and cut down on song lengths, we'd be set. The real shame here is that they just threw this material away with shit production. Look for one of the remasters lurking around the web (in BitTorrent form) based on the Guitar Hero stems, they're really worth it; the only thing they don't fix is Lars Ulrich's obvious lack of practice. |
| Metallica Beyond Magnetic | 3.5 |
| Almost as if to minimize the damage from the preposterous Lulu, Metallica releases a short collection of leftovers from the Death Magnetic sessions, appeasing their ever-hungry fans' cries for thrashier material. The EP shares several of the album's flaws - namely, subpar production, predictable drumming and a distinct lack of spontaneity. While nothing in here is revolutionary for the band (in fact, "Hate Train" has a main riff very reminiscent of "Fuel" from ReLoad), the highlight Just a Bullet Away, which features a Hetfield solo, is a beacon of hope for future Metallica releases. |
| Metallica Kill 'Em All | 4.0 |
| While today's metal bands go to great lengths to make their music sound rawer and edgier, Metallica achieved it through pure honesty: this is the sound of a talented bunch of kids off the street who know exactly what they want and how loud they want it. Displaying the combined compositional power of both Hetfield and Mustaine, arguably the most important guitarists in thrash metal, the riffs are fresh, catchy and driving, and are supported by the famed bass work of Cliff Burton. Kirk Hammett also does a fine job of taking Mustaine's leads into a more melodic direction. Their youth and lack of experience leads to a few imperfections like Hetfield's unpolished vocals and Lars Ulrich's generic drumming, but overall Kill 'Em All is the debut most thrash bands wish they had come up with. |
| Metallica Ride the Lightning | 4.5 |
| Metallica Metallica | 4.5 |
| Metallica Master of Puppets | 5.0 |
| Metallica ...And Justice for All | 5.0 |
| Whereas Ride the Lightning had "Escape" and Master had "The Thing that Should Not Be", Justice doesn't contain a single track that's anything short of excellent. This album is the technical apex of Metallica, which is a double-edged sword; while the material is their most advanced so far, it tends to be a little overwrought. Coupled with the subpar production, this robs Justice of its atmosphere somewhat, but is made up for with consistency. |
| Miles Davis Kind of Blue | 4.5 |
| Morbid Angel Illud Divinum Insanus | 2.0 |
| Couple good songs; the rest, total St. Anger. I never thought I'd ever hear David Vincent go "yay". |
| Muse Origin of Symmetry | 4.0 |
| Ne Obliviscaris Portal of I | 4.5 |
| Ne Obliviscaris make their influences quite clear from the get go - their sound owes everything to the likes of Skyclad, Agalloch, Dan Swano, early Opeth. Like many of its references, Portal of I can be blindingly aggressive or lush at a moment's notice. Tinges of black metal are readily detectable. But their sense of melody and progression is absolutely their own; every track unfolds without a hiccup and offers plenty of interesting ideas and riffs. The album is a triumph of tasteful, majestic songwriting unbound by any formula. |
| Nevermore Dead Heart In A Dead World | 4.5 |
| Jeff Loomis is a technically impeccable guitarist, among the very best soloists and rhythm players in metal - his counterpart Warrel Dane is perhaps one of the most distinctive and skilled metal vocalists ever, whether you like his style or not. What unites the two is a passion for melancholic, grandiose drama which they are more than qualified to express through heavy, downtuned grooves and neoclassical solos combined with a tortured, idiosyncratic baritone. If you share that passion, you'll find many thrills in Dead Heart in a Dead World. I know I do. |
| Nevermore This Godless Endeavor | 4.5 |
| Nirvana In Utero | 4.0 |
| Nirvana Nevermind | 4.0 |
| Oasis (What's the Story) Morning Glory? | 4.0 |
| Opeth Deliverance | 4.0 |
| Opeth Damnation | 4.0 |
| The bulk of the album's great melodies and ideas seems to be focused on the first three tracks, which makes for an impressive opening but a gradual decay of the distinction between individual tracks. Nonetheless, every song has interesting parts, and Damnation is capable of capturing the listener's attention throughout with its generally emotional and nostalgic atmosphere. |
| Opeth Watershed | 4.0 |
| While Watershed should sound familiar if you're acquainted with Ghost Reveries and Deliverance, Opeth does expand their palette a little with this one. They're definitely more technically inclined than ever, with Heir Apparent displaying some unusually speedy riffing and The Lotus Eater boasting some pretty solid blastbeats - in fact, there's strong hints throughout the album that ?kerfeldt had been listening to a lot of death metal. But it's still an Opeth album, and as such it features the usual light-dark contrast (maybe even more dramatic than ever) and that very typical mystique. |
| Opeth Still Life | 4.5 |
| Opeth Blackwater Park | 5.0 |
| Bleak and Harvest to me are simply Opeth's best songs, the very peak of ?kerfeldt's songwriting ability. The Leper Affinity and Blackwater Park are the two greatest "heavy" Opeth songs, easily beating anything that came before them and anything on Deliverance. |
| Opeth Ghost Reveries | 5.0 |
| Opeth Heritage | 5.0 |
| Beautiful album. Lush, dense, a real journey. Expect nothing - let it take you. Two warnings, though: you just won't fully grasp it at first listen (and possibly for a couple more), as the songwriting is far from conventional; and if you intend to listen to it on your iPod earbuds or some shitty sound system, don't even bother - it's like seeing The Starry Night on your computer screen. |
| OSI Fire Make Thunder | 3.0 |
| OSI Blood | 4.0 |
| OSI often go into their flights of fancy with electronica and off-time riffing, but they don't forget to be catchy for a single moment. Blood is a very "cool" album, in a traditional way: a breeze to listen through and impossible not to sing along with, after the first time. Drum work is predictably top-notch, and the vocals make me wish Kevin Moore had stayed with Dream Theater, so we wouldn't have had to withstand Portnoy's background bleating. |
| Pain of Salvation One Hour by the Concrete Lake | 3.5 |
| Pain of Salvation Scarsick | 3.5 |
| Bashing PoS for turning to nu-metal and mainstream influences for this album is, in many ways, like proclaiming you didn't understand it at all. Scarsick turns the broken aesthetics of the modern consumerism it denounces against that very culture - creating anomalies like Spitfall, the cynical anti-bragging rap song or Disco Queen, the nihilistic anti-fame dance song. They certainly do sacrifice quality for the sake of message here, and that's a shame, but the album mostly accomplishes what it sets out to do. All the while maintaining that distinct Pain of Salvation touch, with top-quality instrumentation and extended song structures throughout. "Kingdom of Loss" is the last great song of their prog era. |
| Pain of Salvation Linoleum | 3.5 |
| Pain of Salvation Entropia | 4.0 |
| A strong album, but hurt by its excessive ambition and overshadowed by PoS' future releases. If I'd heard this in 1997, I'd remark on how promising it is. One interesting aspect to note is a prominent early Queen influence in the harmonies and some of the melodies, especially on the piano, which isn't nearly as evident in later albums. |
| Pain of Salvation Road Salt One | 4.0 |
| PoS attempt to capture a quaint vintage rock feel, forgoing the grandeur and ambition of albums like Perfect Element and Be. Road Salt is a very pretty album and quite easy to fall in love with; the highlight "She Likes to Hide" is somewhat representative of the general atmosphere: playful, passionate, catchy. One feels like they've known some of these songs for ages. It can also be serious, like in "Sisters" - which, by the way, might be the greatest vocal performance of Gildenlow's career. |
| Pain of Salvation Road Salt Two | 4.0 |
| Pain of Salvation Be | 4.5 |
| Be is one of the most incredibly overblown pieces of music I've ever heard, but also one of the most dense and ambitious. It deserves praise for daring to aim so high, but also criticism for not realizing its own faults. What to make of an album this grandiose and self-important? It almost feels like Be itself doesn't know. Love it or hate it, though, you can't deny it's a remarkable, incomparable opus. A lot of potential was sacrificed in the name of lyrical concept, but I dare you to listen to cuts like "Iter Impius" and "Imago (Homines Partus)" and say Be is musically lacking. |
| Pain of Salvation Remedy Lane | 5.0 |
| Pain of Salvation The Perfect Element, Part 1 | 5.0 |
| A compositional and instrumental tour de force. Pain of Salvation pepper the album with self-references and dense arrangements, lining up one memorable melody after another. The result is complex and layered, but lacking in the pure spontaneity PoS would perfect in Remedy Lane - much like Remedy Lane lacks TPE's own grandeur and atmosphere. They are two sides of the genius of PoS. |
| Pearl Jam Ten | 5.0 |
| Pink Floyd A Saucerful of Secrets | 3.5 |
| Pink Floyd The Wall | 4.5 |
| Pink Floyd The Dark Side of the Moon | 5.0 |
| Pink Floyd Animals | 5.0 |
| Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here | 5.0 |
| Porcupine Tree Lightbulb Sun | 3.5 |
| Porcupine Tree In Absentia | 4.0 |
| Porcupine Tree Deadwing | 4.0 |
| Porcupine Tree Nil Recurring | 4.0 |
| A more than welcome addition to the PT catalogue despite its short running time, Nil Recurring delivers the standard of complexity, depth and musicianship we've all come to expect from these prog masters. An essential companion and extension to Fear of a Blank Planet for any and of all lovers of the album. "Cheating the Polygraph", in particular, is one of the brightest moments of post-In Absentia Porcupine Tree. |
| Porcupine Tree The Incident | 4.0 |
| Porcupine Tree Fear of a Blank Planet | 4.5 |
| Queen A Night at the Opera | 5.0 |
| Radiohead The King of Limbs | 3.0 |
| Radiohead Kid A | 4.5 |
| Radiohead OK Computer | 4.5 |
| Rage Against the Machine Rage Against the Machine | 4.5 |
| Riverside Second Life Syndrome | 4.0 |
| While they sound very derivative, Riverside are capable of creating interesting melodies and sounds that should appeal to any fan of modern prog metal bands like Porcupine Tree, Pain of Salvation, Dream Theater and Tool. It somehow lacks the sophistication of those bands, though. "I Turned You Down" is an absolute gem. |
| Riverside Shrine Of New Generation Slaves | 4.5 |
| Sophisticated and idiosyncratic beyond what Riverside had ever suggested they could be - their greatest achievement to date. They finally sound like peers to their various influences, rather than simply admirers. They sound... like Riverside! I really didn't think they had this in them. It might lack the raw passion of earlier records, but SONGS is intelligent and layered. |
| Shawn Lane Powers of Ten | 3.0 |
| Let's get it out of the way: Shawn Lane is quite possibly the fastest guitarist ever to walk the earth, his playing is utterly impeccable. But this is some terribly pretentious music. It reeks of self-indulgence; be it his "genius" emotive playing showcased with little thought to the repetitive, uninspired rhythm section, or the extremely ill-advised synth pieces, which redefine cheesy. It's a shame he's dead, but it's no disrespect to him to admit that this is no Passion and Warfare. |
| Slayer Reign in Blood | 3.5 |
| Slayer Christ Illusion | 3.5 |
| Cult, Jihad, Flesh Storm and Supremist are Slayer classics, the rest is just decent quality Slayer. There really isn't much to say about this album except that it's standard, mostly up-tempo Slayer, and probably the best Slayer album since Seasons. Slayer Slayer Slayer. |
| Slayer Seasons in the Abyss | 4.5 |
| Slipknot Vol. 3: The Subliminal Verses | 3.5 |
| Soen Cognitive | 4.0 |
| Yes they're ripping off Tool, but they're all great musicians and Tool is awesome, so it works. Hell, this album is more consistent than 10,000 Days. Though it lacks any amazing highs like Vicarious or Lateralus. I hope these guys find a sound, Martin Lopez and Steve DiGiorgio have some remarkable musical chemistry. |
| Steve Vai Passion and Warfare | 4.5 |
| Steven Wilson Grace for Drowning | 4.0 |
| Steven Wilson The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) | 4.5 |
| This is exactly as good as you'd imagine a Steven Wilson album with Marco Minnemann and Guthrie Govan being. |
| Stormtroopers of Death Speak English or Die | 3.5 |
| Symphony X The Divine Wings of Tragedy | 3.5 |
| Testament The Formation of Damnation | 3.5 |
| Tasty tasty riffs. Eric Peterson is a god of thrash metal. That's not to diminish his bandmates - Chuck Billy is probably the greatest thrash vocalist ever; drummer Paul Bostaph gives a bombastic, relentless performance; Alex Skolnick remains second only to Marty Friedman as far as thrash soloists go. The album rarely rises above being just a great collection of thrash tunes, but I suppose that's good, as it delivers. Testament has new classics in "More Than Meets the Eye", "The Persecuted Won't Forget" and "Henchmen Ride". |
| Testament The Gathering | 4.0 |
| The Aristocrats The Aristocrats | 3.5 |
| Mind-blowing technical chops and versatility on all fronts make this a great musician's album. Shame the arrangements fail to engage me in any significant way. If you like this, you'll love Guthrie's solo album. |
| The Beatles Let It Be… Naked | 3.5 |
| The Beatles Rubber Soul | 4.0 |
| The Beatles The Beatles | 4.0 |
| The Beatles 1 | 4.0 |
| The Beatles Love | 4.0 |
| The Beatles Revolver | 4.5 |
| The Beatles Abbey Road | 5.0 |
| This is the best album ever. The closest thing to a flaw in here is Maxwell's Silver Hammer, which is still kind of catchy but forgettable. Because is the greatest song The Beatles ever made. |
| The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour | 5.0 |
| The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band | 5.0 |
| The Human Abstract Digital Veil | 3.0 |
| Great instrumentals, excellent soloing, unique classically-tinged take on metalcore. Now all we need is some interesting songwriting. Apart from the massive highlight "Faust", the album mostly blends into a continuum of arpeggios, chugga-chugga and start-stop double bass. There's good riffs to be found for sure, but one wants for a more dynamic, ups-and-downs experience. |
| The Mars Volta De-Loused in the Comatorium | 4.0 |
| The Mars Volta flaunt such a unique dynamic and mastery of rhythm that it's no surprise they're one of the most influential prog acts of modern times. However, De-Loused just lacks enough strong melodic ideas to fulfill the enormous potential it obviously has. A rewarding and fascinating listen, nonetheless. |
| The White Stripes Get Behind Me Satan | 3.5 |
| The White Stripes Icky Thump | 3.5 |
| The White Stripes White Blood Cells | 4.0 |
| The White Stripes Elephant | 4.5 |
| Tool Ænima | 4.0 |
| Tool's discography so far can be seen as being centered on Lateralus, where the Tool sound came to its fullest expression. Its predecessor, Aenima, shows the band sharpening their instrumental prowess and songwriting focus, hinting at their later brilliance. Of course, there is still fat to be trimmed, like the overtly hard-rocking duds "Hooker with a Penis" and "Jimmy" and perhaps a couple of minutes from the great "Eulogy". |
| Tool 10,000 Days | 4.0 |
| This album would probably get a 4.5 if Lateralus didn't already exist, doing what 10,000 Days tries to do but with much less meandering. Still, it has their best song, Vicarious, and in its best moments showcases a more intelligent, technical and catchy Tool than we'd ever seen, if that was even possible. Their next album is what I'm really looking forward to. |
| Tool Lateralus | 5.0 |
| I didn't understand this album at first because I was told it was progressive rock. Which it is, but not in the usual "keyboards, weird sounds and long solos" sense. Rather, Tool are a traditional rock band in many ways, but the way each member goes about their role is the progressive thing about them - the bassist oftentimes takes the lead role; the guitarist likes to create soundscapes, rarely soloing; the drummer draws pictures with his beats and is arguably the most important aspect of the band; the vocalist is unpredictable and downright abrasive at times. But never once does this mix become cumbersome, neither is there conflict between egos: Lateralus is focused and fluent as it recites each one of its epics. All of which deserve the full force of that term, except perhaps Triad. |
| Trivium The Crusade | 3.0 |
| Matt Heafy really isn't a great vocalist, and if I had been a Trivium fan during this stage in their career, I'd have wondered why they bother writing subpar verse riffs just to have singing over them. Because they can write awesome riffs - Tread the Floods, To The Rats, Contempt Breeds Contamination and the juggernaut title track contain quite a few of those. Yet Trivium insistently attempt to be catchy and commercial, and the result is derivative, oversimplified metal, weak vocal hooks and frankly terrible lyrics. The fact that the instrumental album closer works so incredibly well and stands so high above every other track says everything about The Crusade. |
| Trivium The Sin and the Sentence | 3.0 |
| Trivium Ascendancy | 3.5 |
| Every song in the album follows a similar formula. Trivium's melodies are very dramatic and thrilling when they succeed, the contrived screams actually giving them a more compelling edge, but the low points are pretty bland. No extra points for creativity, sure, but an engaging album nonetheless from a remarkably tight band. (Seriously, though, these guys need to learn how to scream.) |
| Trivium In Waves | 3.5 |
It's nowhere near as intelligent as Shogun or as fresh as Ascendancy, but something of a balance between the
two - and shows Trivium at their absolute catchiest. Nothing in here reaches the heights of, say, Torn
Between Scylla and Charybdis or Pull Harder, but if this doesn't get them some serious radio play, nothing
short of selling out completely ever will.
Still, it's painfully obvious that Trivium themselves seem not to know their strengths, as they distance
themselves from the technicality of their masterpiece, Shogun, as if it were some flaw. Instead they turn back
to the mass appeal tactics that brought down The Crusade, and the only reason why In Waves doesn't repeat
that disappointment is that Trivium are far better at writing riffs than before. This isn't a band "finding their
sound" - they had one already and dumbed it down. |
| Trivium Shogun | 4.0 |
| Trivium manage to create a recognizable sound they can call their own, turning their worship of Gothenburg death metal and 80's thrash into workable influences for their songwriting. This is Trivium's best album on average and the best songs in here, such as Torn Between Scylla and Charybdis and the title track, are gripping beyond anything they've done before. Still, they continue to work with a similar pattern for every song, so the dull moments are quite forgettable. |
| U2 How to Dismantle an Atomic Bomb | 3.0 |
| U2 All That You Can't Leave Behind | 3.5 |
| Van Halen A Different Kind of Truth | 3.5 |
| This was supposed to be total shit. Tattoo was harmless radio rock, Van Halen III was a disaster, Michael Anthony left the band - long story short, these guys were about 20 years too late on their breakup. But it isn't. Eddie and Alex are every bit as good as ever, David still sounds great and Wolfgang proves his worth on bass. Some songs rank among the heaviest stuff they've ever released, and feel mature without being forced or losing that VH personality. Overall, my favorite Van Halen release since 1984. |
| Yes 90125 | 3.5 |
| Yes Close to the Edge | 5.0 |
| Despite what the song lengths might suggest, Close to the Edge is quite a straightforward album. Each track is packed with quality ideas and high-end musicianship, with little meandering or indulgence - the album clocks at a rather succinct (for prog) 38 minutes - but instead taking odd yet successful twists and turns. As a result, these are the most dynamic epics in Yes' entire career, and their best album. |
