Average Rating: 3.71 Rating Variance: 0.53 Objectivity Score: 68% (Fairly Balanced)
Sort by: Rating | Release Date | Rating Date | Name2017 Brockhampton SATURATION II4.0Bones (USA-CA) Unrendered3.5Much better than GoodForNothing or SoftwareUpdate1.0, in my opinion. There isn't as much variety as there is with most Bones albums (only one non-hip hop song other than the intro and outro) but overall a more consistent release than much of his past stuff.Kendrick Lamar DAMN.3.5Drake More Life2.5Chris Travis Forgive Me3.0Bones (USA-CA) Disgrace3.52016 Run the Jewels Run the Jewels 33.5Bones (USA-CA) SoftwareUpdate1.03.0Bones (USA-CA) GoodForNothing3.0Frank Ocean Blonde3.5Bones (USA-CA) PaidProgramming23.5Radiohead A Moon Shaped Pool4.0Drake Views2.5Kendrick Lamar untitled unmastered.4.0Kanye West The Life of Pablo3.0Bones (USA-CA) Useless3.52015 Freddie Gibbs Shadow of a Doubt4.0Run the Jewels Meow the Jewels2.5Bones (USA-CA) Banshee3.5ASAP Rocky At.Long.Last.A$AP3.5Lil Ugly Mane Third Side of Tape4.0Tyler, the Creator Cherry Bomb2.5Bones (USA-CA) Powder4.0Run the Jewels Blockbuster Night - Part II3.5Sufjan Stevens Carrie and Lowell4.0Earl Sweatshirt I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside4.0The missing link between Earl (the mixtape) and Doris. His voice is finally less monotone sounding. There is a relaxed feeling in this album. While it still has its dark parts, I Don't Like Shit, I Don't Go Outside is overall a much more fun listen than Doris. The features are much better as well.Kendrick Lamar To Pimp a Butterfly5.0I could be just giving into the hype but this thing is one unstoppable monster.Freddie Gibbs Pronto3.5Clarence Clarity No Now3.5Falling in Reverse Just Like You2.0Surprisingly not as horrible as the album cover. Also somewhat of a step up from their previous album, which is surprising. Falling in Reverse become more comfortable with being men in their thirties making music intended for teenagers. I guess it's still monetarily viable. We'll probably stop seeing output from them whenever it's not.Big Sean Dark Sky Paradise2.0Ghostface Killah and BADBADNOTGOOD Sour Soul3.5Lovely production, instrumentation, and rapping throughout this thing. Ghostface somehow manages to capture the soundscapes in Twelve Reasons and 36 Seasons in this, but with a totally different group of musicians. The general sound of this is not mutually exclusive from what he had going on with Adrian Younge; it's just a different perspective. A darker, film noir effect. Sadly, it seems that this is only a short film and not a feature length. It feels as if we only get a glimpse into the adventures of Mr. Starks and the Canadians. This means we can only hope for more.Fashawn The Ecology3.5Drake If You're Reading This It's Too Late3.5FatGyver Talk To Strangers3.5Blind Guardian Beyond the Red Mirror3.0Crisp production, harmonic vocals, but overall somewhat boring songwriting and wordplay. I still don't really get the genre of power metal for the most part so I don't feel that I can give this a "true" rating, but this is just one of those things I don't see how Sputnik adores I guess.Napalm Death Apex Predator - Easy Meat4.0Napalm Death refuse to make any sense. Any pioneer of a prolific metal genre should be verging on irrelevant after 25 years of existence. But these guys just don't. This isn't simply a rehashing of their glory days either; this is a very original record with sounds and production at times that I can't compare to much other grindcore. The clean vocals, while sometimes a little cheesy, are a nice effect. Apex Predator/Easy Meat is a great example of what metal can be in 2015. I hope Napalm Death continue to be senselessly good.Joey Badass B4.DA.$$4.0Death Grips Fashion Week3.52014 Bones (USA-CA) Rotten3.0OG Maco OG Maco2.5OG Maco is an interesting character which makes this entertaining and fun to listen to, but this album suffers from monotony and repetition so much that I don't know if I'll be okay if I hear "O.G.G." again. I had a good time listening to this, but it's not anything spectacular.Hail Mary Mallon Bestiary3.5Full of Hell and Merzbow Full of Hell and Merzbow4.0I don't really know if calling this a "Full of Hell and Merzbow" album is justified because Merzbow's contributions seem mostly like a little layer of sound here and there for the most part, but this is a great record. The collaborative aspect seems to have refreshed Full of Hell's songwriting a bit.Run the Jewels Run the Jewels 24.0Orbs These People Are Animals2.5Pretty big evolution in technique from their last album. Sadly it's a bit more clumsy. Asleep Next to Science was awkward in a small degree, and was an overall charming record for it. In this EP, the charm is lost as entire songs feel unfitting, both for the band and the genre(s) they experiment with. The change in tempo at the end of the first track does make me want to give this a 3, though. It almost saves it.Cannibal Corpse A Skeletal Domain4.0Earth Primitive and Deadly4.0Bones (USA-CA) SKINNY4.0FKA Twigs LP14.0Braid No Coast4.0Antemasque Antemasque3.5clipping. CLPPNG3.5Bones (USA-CA) Garbage4.0Death Grips The Powers That B - Part I: Niggas on the Moon4.0Wiz Khalifa 28 Grams2.0If people didn't take Wiz Khalifa seriously, I wouldn't have so much of an issue with him. If he were just some guy who liked to smoke a lot who rapped in the corner at some parties and had a small three person audience of amused, equally stoned friends, it would be okay. But this guy has somehow gotten millions of listeners. There's nothing musical about this guy. His lyrics are not witty. Putting "mon" at the end of each line in an entire song is not clever, nor is it really even rapping. Also a Man of the Year sample? Way to spit over the most overplayed song of the year.rPs. James Bong? Dikembe and Dads got this weed pun in songs thing down so much better and neither of them even smoke. :VThe Roots ...And Then You Shoot Your Cousin2.5This is one of those albums that I just don't understand how Sputnik sees the appeal of. This is their worst record I have heard (haven't listened to The Tipping Point).Sorority Noise Forgettable4.0Mac Miller Faces3.5AJJ Christmas Island3.5Freddie Gibbs and The World's Freshest The Tonite Show4.0A fluid mixtape that doesn't drag on one bit. At 10 songs, it's just enough to keep its listeners a mix of satisfied and amazed. Freddie sounds much more like his classic self here than on Pinata, probably because the beats are far more traditional and more like what he's used to rapping over. He sounds more old-school on this. The beats are nothing like what Madlib contributed to Pinata; they are quicker and more to the point. While Madlib's often jazzy production would go in several different directions, The World's Freshest goes down a much more straight line. I recommend this to anyone who appreciates and misses the feel of old-school hip hop. That feeling is here, just modernized.Ronnie Radke Watch Me1.5Girl Talk and Freeway Broken Ankles3.0Hella fun, but not a whole lot of stuff going on. Girl Talk's beats are crazy as usual, but not all of the songs seem to go much of anywhere. The Waka verse is a nice touch. Tell Me Yeah is a great song. Excited for a full LP from these guys.Bones (USA-CA) TEENWITCH2.0Sonata Arctica Pariah's Child3.5Probably my favorite album by the band, which is surprising considering this comes after their three album what-the-fuckery. This contains more of their traditional sound, but through much more mature perspectives. Speed isn't a priority, but the tracks don't drag on as in The Days of Grays. I probably like this as much as Winterheart's Guild.La Dispute Rooms of the House3.5Freddie Gibbs and Madlib Pinata4.5ScHoolboy Q Oxymoron3.5Oxymoron contains some great moments, but has more spots of cheesiness than I would like to hear. ScHoolboy Q is kind of giving the "dad" feel with his music already. Hell of a Night sounds kind of like how a middle-aged person would interpret The Weeknd. Fuck L.A. sounds needlessly aggressive, and Yay Yay is a pretty awful closer, despite the fact that this is a gangster rap LP. Aside from that, this is a solid album. Songs like Los Awesome, Blind Threats, Break the Bank, and Groovelin Pt. 2 deserve the respect (imho) of Kendrick upon the release of good kid maad city. Album isn't too weighed down with features. All in all, despite a few blunders, Oxymoron gives me hope for hip hop's future.Modern Baseball You’re Gonna Miss It All4.0Modern Baseball look at their problems with Sports and manage to fix many of them with the release of eclectic album "You're Gonna Miss it All". This album may not look much different from Sports, judging by the simple and vintage looking album cover, the vague track titles, and the brief track lengths, but it is miles superior. The band change their direction musically, incorporating a more indie-rock sound in many songs and leaving the punk influence for just a few songs here and there. Tracks such as "Going to Bed Now" are given a folk-inspired tinge, showing us a different, slightly ironic side to the band. The lyrics are more mature, with social networking platforms being mentioned less. You're Gonna Miss it All is an all-around better album than Sports, and will probably quickly make the vinyl library of many skramz kids out there.You Blew It! Keep Doing What You’re Doing3.5You Blew It! by no means offer a whole lot new to the angsty emo table that they hadn't in their previous album, but that isn't the point. Keep Doing What You're Doing is a surprisingly cheery record and while it may seem a bit repetitive here and there, it is a pleasant addition to their discography. Grow Up, Dude may one day be considered a classic in the emo genre, and even though this doesn't quite live up to it, it's an excellent follow-up.Bones (USA-CA) DEADBOY3.52013 Sorority Noise Quiet Hours3.5Xavier Wulf and Bones Caves3.0Death Grips Government Plates3.5Bones (USA-CA) PaidProgramming4.0Danny Brown Old4.0Sorority Noise Young Luck3.5Touche Amore Is Survived By4.0The Weeknd Kiss Land2.5Arctic Monkeys AM3.5AJJ Live At The Crescent Ballroom4.0ASAP Ferg Trap Lord3.0Earl Sweatshirt Doris3.5A Great Big Pile of Leaves You're Always on My Mind3.5Joey Badass Summer Knights3.5Xavier Wulf and Bones ダサい3.5Run the Jewels Run the Jewels3.5Run the Jewels Run the Jewels (Instrumentals)4.0Falling in Reverse Fashionably Late1.5Kanye West Yeezus3.0Ronnie Radke Fair-Weather Fans1.0The Front Bottoms Talon of the Hawk4.5Vampire Weekend Modern Vampires of the City4.0The Wonder Years The Greatest Generation4.0The Dillinger Escape Plan One of Us Is the Killer4.0Kid Cudi Indicud2.5Random Holiday Space to Grow3.5Ghostface Killah Twelve Reasons to Die4.0Tyler, the Creator Wolf3.5Justin Timberlake The 20/20 Experience4.0ASAP Rocky LONG.LIVE.A$AP3.52012 Pro Era PEEP: The APROcalypse3.5Batten Down The Hatches Batten Down The Hatches/Random Holiday4.0Modern Baseball Sports3.5Working review summary: This is the album Modern Baseball will look back and cringe at 15 years from now for its confessional tendencies and references to social networking, and it is all the better for it.The Weeknd Trilogy4.0Kendrick Lamar good kid, m.A.A.d city4.5Wintersun Time I3.5The Mountain Goats Transcendental Youth3.5Death Grips No Love Deep Web4.0Two Door Cinema Club Beacon3.5Swans The Seer4.5Yellowcard Southern Air4.0Frank Ocean channel ORANGE4.0The Tallest Man on Earth There's No Leaving Now4.0Joey Badass 19994.0Regina Spektor What We Saw from the Cheap Seats4.0El-P Cancer 4 Cure4.0Sonata Arctica Stones Grow Her Name2.0Sonata Arctica is just a band you can't set expectations for. Their old fans miss their classic, dangerously fast epic style, while others would criticize them for having no depth. I am not with either dissenting group. I just wish they could make some music without so damn awkward. This isn't substantially worse than known piece of trash The Days of Grays, but still lacks any moment of interest. It's more simple and loosely put together than probably all of their previous stuff. It's boring even writing a sound off for this nonsense.Killer Mike R.A.P. Music4.5You Blew It! Grow Up, Dude4.0Death Grips The Money Store4.5Pro Era The SECC$ Tap.E.3.0Lil Ugly Mane Mista Thug Isolation4.0First Aid Kit The Lion's Roar4.02011 The Weeknd Echoes of Silence4.0The Roots undun4.0Childish Gambino Camp2.5I'm fairly conflicted over Donald Glover's musical project. It is entertaining, to say the least, to a see Community actor and 30 Rock writer rap about girls sucking his dick. The beats overall are good, but as a whole feel pretty sterile. They feel almost too clean, as if they were hip-hop samples found on a website. The dubstep-ish beat in Heartbeat and the speeding up orchestral part at the end of That Power are the most shining moments of the album beat-wise. The lyrics are okay here and there, but it feels like Glover's whole purpose for about half of the album is convincing his audience why they should be his fans. Despite the lack of real meaning within the lyrics, he can actually flow. Other lyrics on this album are about him growing up, his experiences with women, and pretty much why he is an awesome guy. The choruses are interesting because for the most part, he actually sings in them. His singing isn't terrible, but the lyrics he sings never really seem to relate to the song. Choruses such as in "That Power" seem more cringe-worthy than anything. Despite how otherwise talented Glover may be, his skills as a rapper are lacking. My favorite track from the album would have to be L.E.S.Cynic Carbon-Based Anatomy3.0La Dispute Wildlife3.5AJJ Knife Man4.5The Front Bottoms The Front Bottoms4.0The Weeknd Thursday3.5Danny Brown XXX3.5Falling in Reverse The Drug in Me Is You2.0Bomb the Music Industry! Vacation4.0Kendrick Lamar Section.804.0The Wonder Years Suburbia I've Given You All and Now I'm Nothing4.0Touche Amore Parting The Sea Between Brightness And Me4.0Arctic Monkeys Suck It and See3.5Frank Turner England Keep My Bones4.5Autopsy Macabre Eternal3.5Tyler, the Creator Goblin2.5Death Grips Exmilitary4.0Laura Stevenson Sit Resist4.5Between the Buried and Me The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues3.5Born of Osiris The Discovery4.0The Weeknd House of Balloons3.5Radiohead The King of Limbs3.5Frank Ocean Nostalgia, Ultra.3.0Bright Eyes The People's Key4.0Gates (USA-NJ) The Sun Will Rise and Lead Me Home3.52010 The Damned Things Ironiclast3.5Frank Turner Rock & Roll3.5Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy4.0Skrillex Scary Monsters and Nice Sprites3.5Women Public Strain4.0How to Dress Well Love Remains3.5Autopsy The Tomb Within3.0Autopsy's first material as a band in over a decade, and obviously their best since death/doom crossover classic Mental Funeral. The lyrics are, in my opinion, better than many of the lyrics on Severed Survival and Mental Funeral. There are still vile, but they have a sense of eloquence and aim for something other than pure shock. The way they are sung, however, is disappointing. Either Reifert's throat is a little tired from all that growling over the years or he was just sick in the studio. They are very loud, often taking precedence over the other instruments, and shouted in an oftentimes pretty funny way. Other than that, this is a solid EP and thankfully strays very far away from the crust punk- inspired Acts of the Unspeakable and Shitfun.The Tallest Man on Earth Sometimes The Blues Is Just A Passing Bird4.0The Contortionist Exoplanet4.0Never Shout Never Harmony1.5Orbs Asleep Next to Science3.0Good in a weird way. Quite original instrumental work throughout. Runs too long and Fisher's vocals get old, but it's decent in small doses. Something Beautiful can forever get it, though.Iron Maiden The Final Frontier3.5Emphasis that this is a strong 3.5, verging on a 4. The Final Frontier is a memorable album. The songs are long but for the most part don't feel boring. In fact, they're all pretty great. They experiment more with prog in this album. Imagine if Iron Maiden never lost Adrian or Bruce in the 90s and kept building upon the sound they made in Seventh Son. It would sound quite a bit like this. Whereas A Matter of Life and Death had a somewhat raw edge, this record feels anthemic with crystal-clear production and heavy synthesizer use. Pretty much it's Maiden with their best lineup. Listen to it.Arcade Fire The Suburbs4.5Best Coast Crazy For You3.0Black Veil Brides We Stitch These Wounds1.5United Nations Never Mind the Bombings, Here's Your Six Figures4.0The Roots How I Got Over4.0Eminem Recovery2.5Whitechapel A New Era of Corruption3.5Go-Zen Hinamatsuri2.0I've never been the biggest grind fan, I'll admit. I've listened to my share of grind and I've discovered I typically like the more straight-faced, serious grindcore and maybe some more violent grind of the early 90s, which was more influenced by old-school death metal. GO-ZEN, an admittedly interesting grindcore band from Japan, is neither of those things. The drumming is pure blast beats, the guitar riffs are all similar. The production is horrible. The vocals sound like they're just messing around. I'm not sure if there are lyrics. The cover was more interesting than the listen.The Black Keys Brothers3.5Cynic Re-Traced3.5LCD Soundsystem This Is Happening4.0Janelle Monae The ArchAndroid4.0OFWGKTA Radical3.5Deftones Diamond Eyes4.5Flying Lotus Cosmogramma4.5Periphery Periphery4.0The Tallest Man on Earth The Wild Hunt4.5Veil of Maya [id]3.5Earl Sweatshirt EARL3.5The Dillinger Escape Plan Option Paralysis5.0Immolation Majesty and Decay4.0Daughters Daughters3.5Titus Andronicus The Monitor4.0Burzum Belus4.0Two Door Cinema Club Tourist History4.0The Wonder Years The Upsides3.5Vampire Weekend Contra4.02009 Tyler, the Creator Bastard4.0Eminem Relapse: Refill2.5Devin Townsend Project Addicted4.0Say Anything Say Anything3.0Gotta emphasize that this is a low three. This is still definitely Say Anything, just with crystal-clear production and with a pop base instead of punk. This has mixed results. "Do Better" and "Less Cute" are good examples of this, but "Hate Everyone" and "Crush'd" are a little embarrassing. I found myself enjoying this more than I like to admit at times, because some of the songs are so damn cheesy but at the same time catchy. That solidifies Say Anything as more of a pop record than anything. This is a much different band than who we gleefully met in ...Is a Real boy and In Defense of the Genre, but they're not terrible... I guess.Between the Buried and Me The Great Misdirect3.5Between the Buried and Me present much originality here that has never been heard in their previous albums, but it oftentimes sounds too predictable and like they're trying to imitate Colors.Fashawn Boy Meets World4.0Converge Axe to Fall4.0Sonata Arctica The Days of Grays2.0The coolest thing about this album is the cover. Look at it nice and deep. Take time to enjoy it, because that's about as much artistic enjoyment you'll get from this entire thing. The instrumental intro track "Everything Fades to Gray" is kinda cool and an interesting way to start an album. Deathaura, the following track, is terribly deceptive into making you think this is going to be a good listen. It is a good song, not even too cheesy. After that, however, is an even worse version of the trash we heard on Unia. We get it, Tony Kakko has a nice emotional voice. We don't need several tracks of softness to showcase it. Their whole power metal tag gets dropped in this album with the exception of maybe two songs. People call this prog, but that is a tricky way to make it sound like something even remotely interesting.Brand New Daisy4.5Children of Bodom Skeletons in the Closet2.0Kid Cudi Man on the Moon: The End of Day3.5AJJ Can't Maintain4.0Frank Turner Poetry of the Deed3.0Haywyre Lotus3.0Old-school as hell and simple. Easygoing keyboards and light percussion. Haywyre was much more of a traditional hip-hop producer at the time. Get your pipe out like the weird deer human and enjoy.Born of Osiris A Higher Place3.0Wren Rainy Days3.5Touche Amore ...To the Beat of a Dead Horse3.5brokeNCYDE I'm Not a Fan, but the Kids Like It!1.0Devin Townsend Project Ki3.0Eminem Relapse2.5Exivious Exivious4.0Animals As Leaders Animals as Leaders4.0Cursive Mama, I'm Swollen3.0Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion4.02008 Kanye West 808s and Heartbreak3.0The Faceless Planetary Duality4.0La Dispute Somewhere at the Bottom of the River Between Vega and Altair 4.0La Dispute shows a great amount of potential with their debut LP, but it almost suffers from too much variation (which is something I rarely ever see as a bad thing). I'm oftentimes left overwhelmed at the huge difference between songs. Dreyer's clean voice also gets somewhat dry. Aside from this, the lyrics are fantastically written and you can tell how much time they put into each song.Cynic Traced in Air5.0Between the Buried and Me Colors_Live5.0Defeater Travels4.5DragonForce Ultra Beatdown2.5The Gaslight Anthem The '59 Sound4.5The Front Bottoms I Hate My Friends3.0Iced Earth I Walk Among You3.0Opeth Watershed4.5Children of Bodom Blooddrunk2.0Frank Turner Love, Ire & Song4.0Veil of Maya The Common Man's Collapse4.0The Tallest Man on Earth Shallow Grave4.0Alestorm Captain Morgan's Revenge2.5Vampire Weekend Vampire Weekend3.52007 The Dillinger Escape Plan Ire Works3.0Burial Untrue4.0Say Anything In Defense of the Genre4.0This is such an interesting record. Is a Real Boy, in my opinion, is a modern classic. In Defense isn't, but not in a bad way. It's obscenely long. That's about its defining point. This album is the length of a movie. There is much more variation to be found here, which works for the band at times and against them more than they would like. The lyrics are very good. The production is superior. Say Anything follow up their classic without letting hype and better tools for recording take away their songwriting quality.The Wonder Years Get Stoked on It!3.0Born of Osiris The New Reign3.0Between the Buried and Me Colors5.0Kanye West Graduation3.5AJJ People Who Can Eat People are the Luckiest People4.0Municipal Waste The Art of Partying3.5Scale the Summit Monument4.0Sonata Arctica Unia2.5Arctic Monkeys Favourite Worst Nightmare4.5Psyopus Our Puzzling Encounters Considered3.5Better than you might think initially, this band is more than a headache if you give them a chance.Fall Out Boy Infinity on High3.0Frank Turner Sleep Is For The Week3.5Frank Turner's debut LP is more than just enough to perform, with catchy riffs, interesting lyrics, and a nice balance of emotion between songs. However, there is a bit of redundancy within the songs after listening to them a few times, so the appeal doesn't definitely doesn't last forever. This album will probably never be looked at as a classic by many people, but is a great, humble beginning for an acoustic musician with a huge amount of potential.2006 The Tallest Man on Earth The Tallest Man on Earth3.5Brand New The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me4.5Fear Before The Always Open Mouth4.5Iron Maiden A Matter of Life and Death4.0Arctic Monkeys Whatever People Say I Am, That's What I'm Not4.5DragonForce Inhuman Rampage2.0The Faceless Akeldama4.02005 Bomb the Music Industry! To Leave or Die in Long Island3.5Children of Bodom Are You Dead Yet?2.5Sigur Ros Takk...4.0Between the Buried and Me Alaska4.5Kanye West Late Registration4.0Sufjan Stevens Illinois4.5Fall Out Boy From Under the Cork Tree3.5AJJ Candy Cigarettes and Cap Guns3.0The Mars Volta Frances the Mute4.5Bright Eyes I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning4.52004 MF DOOM MM.. Food4.5Sonata Arctica Reckoning Night3.0Wintersun Wintersun4.0Converge You Fail Me4.0Iced Earth The Blessed and the Damned3.0Say Anything ...Is a Real Boy4.5The Dillinger Escape Plan Miss Machine4.5Madvillain Madvillainy4.5Circle Takes the Square As the Roots Undo5.0Kanye West The College Dropout4.52003 Between the Buried and Me The Silent Circus4.0Kevin Devine Make the Clocks Move3.5Viktor Vaughn Vaudeville Villain4.0Iron Maiden Dance of Death3.5Sufjan Stevens Michigan4.0Madlib Shades of Blue3.5The Mars Volta De-Loused in the Comatorium5.0Brand New Deja Entendu4.0I have had a love/hate relationship with Deja Entendu ever since teenage girls got it on their hands. It seemed like just another great Brand New album until the Tumblr generation of girls started reblogging its album art and quoting lyrics from it all over Facebook. As unfair to the record as it was, I began to not be able to stand seeing anything involving this album anywhere. "What makes this album so special?" I would ask myself. "Why do girls love this record so much when they would completely surpass it with the next one?" I began listening to it more, and unfortunately, I still don't have an answer. I believe that The Devil and God are Raging Inside Me and Daisy are far superior albums to Deja Entendu, but looking at this record critically finally gave me some time to truly appreciate it. This is the album that took Brand New from being your everyday pop-punk outfit to becoming something truly great, fusing influences of post-hardcore and indie into their songs. Existentialism, loneliness, and other new topics are now discussed. This is the record that would slowly form Brand New into the introspective, dark band they are today. While I may never entirely understand the affinity girls have for this album, I still understand that Deja Entendu would change Brand New completely.Deftones Deftones3.5Fall Out Boy Take This to Your Grave3.5The Number Twelve Looks Like You Put On Your Rosy Red Glasses4.0Cursive The Ugly Organ4.5Sonata Arctica Winterheart's Guild3.5Sonata Arctica just keep on building upon and refining their sound with all of their first three albums. Silence fixed many of the problems that Ecliptica faced, and this one works on some of the issues of Silence. I can listen to this all the way through without even cringing too much, which for power metal sure is something. Two problems face this album, and it is the same two problems that everything they made prior to this one also had. 1) The ballad-like feel of some songs is just way too cheesy and melodramatic. I don't think they need to be aggressive all the time or anything, but they can't write a soft song without it sounding like it belongs in a Lifetime movie about knights breaking the hearts of maidens or something. 2) The length of this is still slightly bloated. It does not justify a 55 minute length.DragonForce Valley of the Damned2.5About the highest rank of power metal possible: okay but unmemorable. These were the young days of Dragonforce, before they were brought down by Guitar Hero and computerized solos. This album actually has an idea of how to structure songs. The self-titled track has an end solo. The "ballad" of the record has a piano intro accompanies by acoustic guitars. Despite these things, I don't want anyone to get the misconception that this was a different band. Aside from a different bassist (hence the lack of death growls), all of the members are the same that I know of. Solos still litter each song after the second chorus. The vocals are still cheesy. The lyrics are still senseless (at least as far as I'm concerned). I actually find the lo-fi production better than the too-clean, crisp production of Inhuman Rampage and their following albums, as it gives them a more gritty feel. Overall, if you hated Inhuman Rampage, you probably won't feel much better after listening to this. If you thought the band may have some potential despite glaringly obvious flaws, maybe this will do something for you. It did for me when I was thirteen as well.Fear Before Odd How People Shake4.02002 Sigur Ros ( )4.5Bright Eyes Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground 4.0Bright Eyes There Is No Beginning To The Story4.0Between the Buried and Me Between the Buried and Me3.5The Red Chord Fused Together in Revolving Doors4.02001 Saul Williams Amethyst Rock Star3.5Brand New Your Favorite Weapon3.5I think this album would be one of the best to introduce to your friend to "good pop-punk." If you were a teenager in the previous decade or the current one, you likely had at least one friend who listened to a lot of pop-punk. Some of it make have been good, but it my experience, I remember hearing a lot of All Time Low, Infinity on High and beyond-era Fall Out Boy, and American Idiot-era Green Day. Contained in Brand New's first album are ironic song titles (Jude Law and a Semester Abroad), songs about having a hard time growing up (Failure by Design), and about girls you just can't stand any longer (Mix Tape), but what separates this album from so many others is that it actually contains some originality. The album is very juvenile and immature for the most part, and that is why it is so fun to listen to. Whether you are currently going through the problems mentioned in the album or you are just reminiscing upon when life was that simple, Your Favorite Weapon is an undeniably fun listen. There are little hints here and there as to the dark, much deeper band that Brand New would become in the future such as in The No Seatbelt Song, but as a whole, this album is simple, light, and young.Wilco Yankee Hotel Foxtrot4.5Sonata Arctica Silence3.0This album is much better than their debut Ecliptica. The synthesizers feel better placed, even if they do sound a bit cheesy still. Kakko's vocals fit the songs more for the most part. The production has improved. Their songwriting has some form of variation now, whereas with the first album every song felt structured together like bricks. The problem still remains with the cheesiness. The keyboards at times feel awkwardly placed, the voice samples at the beginning of one song just seems totally out of place for the genre, and there are too many sickeningly sweet ballads. I would give this a 3.5 for sure if they worked those things out. Lastly, this thing is way too long. It does not really deserve a length over 40 minutes, but they drag the affair out to over an hour.Converge Jane Doe5.0Cannibal Ox The Cold Vein4.02000 Radiohead Kid A5.0At the Drive-In Relationship of Command5.0There is rarely ever a time I consider a record to be completely flawless. Seldom is there nothing whatsoever I can gripe about in an album. Relationship of Command is one of the only albums I can legitamitely say there is absolutely nothing wrong with. With such flawless transitions between songs, At the Drive-In perfectly fuses great amounts of emotion into each and every second. The drumming is great and fits with the songs well, the guitars are always original, and Cedric's vocal range, although it would be expanded in The Mars Volta, it is still greatly varied, going from a punk-ish deep voice, to high pitched (such as Pattern Against User), to occasional screams and yells. Off-key, but oh so wonderful sounding. Relationship of Command can't really be compared to any other album, even older ATDI works. It is quite possibly my favorite album of all time.Glassjaw Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Silence4.5Cursive Domestica4.0Deftones White Pony4.5Iron Maiden Brave New World4.5Iron Maiden start off the new century with a surprise even bigger than computer still working just fine. Brave New World is a monster of an album, in the sense of both its length and quality. This sort of passion died off with Seventh Son and was never really brought back for all of the nineties. Maiden become a sextet with this album (bringing back Adrian and leaving Janick) and again incorporate keys. Like their last two not-so-stellar albums, this continues the trend of creating a longer record length. It doesn't drag on too much, surprisingly (certainly much easier to listen to all the way through than The X Factor). Pretty much, fans can calm down. The Maiden we missed came back with this one.Eminem The Marshall Mathers LP4.0Decapitated Winds of Creation4.0Bright Eyes Fevers & Mirrors4.01999 The Dillinger Escape Plan Calculating Infinity4.5At the Drive-In Vaya4.0The Roots Things Fall Apart4.0Eminem The Slim Shady LP4.5MF DOOM Operation: Doomsday4.0Sonata Arctica Ecliptica3.0Sonata Arctica create an album that I can't quite call bad but that I can't say much else about either. The songs are plagued by mostly generic structures with solos littered clumsily in each song (there are some okay synth solos every now and then to at least switch it up). Tony is a good vocalist, but the harmonic singing in almost every chorus is horribly cheesy. The guitar work is fairly technical. The drums don't stand out grandly. The lyrics talk about somewhat more than the average album of the genre, with a song about governmental control and another with a fictional character undergoing a modern circumstance (something you rarely see in this genre). Sonata Arctica give a passable debut that is somewhat fun to listen to, but that few will look back at with wonderfully fond memories.rEdit: also, what is up with the Christian song telling the listener they're going to hell? lmao.1998 Death The Sound of Perseverance5.0Black Star Black Star4.0Elliott Smith XO5.0At the Drive-In In/Casino/Out4.0Buckethead Colma3.5Iron Maiden Virtual XI2.51997 Deftones Around the Fur4.0Godspeed You! Black Emperor F♯ A♯ ∞4.5HammerFall Glory To The Brave2.5Radiohead OK Computer4.5Children of Bodom Something Wild3.5Elliott Smith Either/Or5.01996 Eminem Infinite4.0Cryptopsy None So Vile4.5DJ Shadow Endtroducing.....4.5Converge Petitioning the Empty Sky3.0At the Drive-In Acrobatic Tenement4.01995 Iron Maiden The X Factor2.5If nothing else, The X Factor is definitely the most boring album Iron Maiden has put out to this point. Their first several albums are almost all considered classics in the genre of heavy metal. Even when they began to falter in 1990, No Prayer for the Dying and Fear of the Dark were at least definitely Maiden albums, and they weren't totally cringe-inducing. This album features a new vocalist. His voice is much more tiring than Dickinson. He tries to have just as powerful of a voice, but no one can be deceived. Despite everything bad about it, it is definitely an original album with a much darker tone and longer length. This isn't 100% awful but it's just not fun to listen to. At all. I can't imagine it being considered anything but average.Radiohead The Bends4.0Death Symbolic5.0The Roots Do You Want More?!!!??!4.0Burzum Burzum/Aske4.01994 Elliott Smith Roman Candle3.5Emperor In the Nightside Eclipse4.5Nas Illmatic5.0The Notorious B.I.G. Ready to Die4.51993 Death Individual Thought Patterns4.5Radiohead Pablo Honey3.0Cryptopsy Ungentle Exhumation3.5Atheist Elements4.0Cynic Focus4.51992 Autopsy Acts of the Unspeakable2.5Many Autopsy fans consider their work after Severed Survival and Mental Funeral to be less good, and a deviation from the sound of the band. It is true that Autopsy changed with this record. They started combining (crust?) punk and hardcore influences into the songs, and made tracks of shorter lengths. Aside from that, however, the band does have their old sound. There is a doom-y feel to some songs and solos in the same style as Mental Funeral. The lyrics are ridiculous as usual, but have reduced in quality. It feels as if Reifert was trying to shock listeners more by writing in a less skilled manner about topics more disgusting than before. After track nine or ten, the album really started to drag for me and I couldn't wait for it to be over. Where Mental Funeral might have felt a little too long, Acts of the Unspeakable feels horribly like it overstays its welcome. I guess to conclude, this album still contains the old band's sound to a degree, but are more tiring and come off as more boring.Iron Maiden Fear of the Dark3.0Iron Maiden continue their nineties streak in a confusing fashion with Fear of the Dark. They still have a slightly stripped down sound, without the keyboards in Seventh Son and guitar synthesizers are used sparingly. The songwriting has jumped in quality from their last album, but that's not saying much. Bruce still experiments with a new, hard rock style raspy voice, but shows his real talent more often with this than on No Prayer for the Dying. Some songs (looking at you, Weekend Warrior) feel out of place. Overall, I just want to hear what Iron Maiden would sound like evolving their classic heavy metal sound rather than trying to reinvent the classic rock wheel 15 or so years after its time.Burzum Burzum4.5Aphex Twin Selected Ambient Works 85-924.5Vital Remains Let Us Pray4.51991 Death Human4.5Atheist Unquestionable Presence4.5Autopsy Mental Funeral4.51990 Slayer Seasons in the Abyss4.0Iron Maiden No Prayer for the Dying3.0No Prayers for the Dying shows that there is a difference between reviving a sound from the rpast and just imitating it. Sadly, it seems they do the latter more than anything else with rthis. They try to replicate the style of their debut and, to a lesser extent, Killers. Bruce rtrades off his operatic voice for a more scratchy sound similar to their past vocalist. This risn't really a bad album. If you listen to it alone, it is pretty catchy despite a severe rlack of depth and an over-simplification of the band's sound. It just doesn't shine much in rlight of any of their past efforts and isn't a great way to start out the 1990s for the rband.Death Spiritual Healing3.5Atheist Piece of Time3.51989 Autopsy Severed Survival4.0Fugazi 13 Songs4.01988 Death Leprosy4.5Slayer South of Heaven4.5Iron Maiden Seventh Son of a Seventh Son4.0Bathory Blood Fire Death4.51987 Death Scream Bloody Gore4.0Bathory Under the Sign of the Black Mark4.0Napalm Death Scum4.51986 Slayer Reign in Blood5.0Iron Maiden Somewhere in Time4.5Death Mutilation3.51985 Helloween Walls of Jericho3.5Bathory The Return of the Darkness and Evil4.0Slayer Hell Awaits4.0Helloween Helloween EP3.5Possessed Seven Churches4.01984 Death Reign of Terror3.5Iron Maiden Powerslave5.0The definition of a metal classic. My personal favorite Iron Maiden album. This is one of those few records that doesn't seem to lose its momentum throughout its whole duration. Bruce Dickinson showcases some of the best vocals in the genre. Sam Harris' basslines are audible and distinguishable from the rhythm guitar, making the listen more interesting. Just listen to this album. Show it to anyone indifferent toward the metal genre. it's perfect.Venom At War with Satan3.5Bathory Bathory3.01983 Slayer Show No Mercy3.5Iron Maiden Piece of Mind4.01982 Iron Maiden The Number of the Beast5.0Venom Black Metal4.01981 Venom Welcome to Hell3.5Iron Maiden Killers4.51980 Iron Maiden Iron Maiden4.01970 Black Sabbath Black Sabbath5.01969 King Crimson In the Court of the Crimson King5.01965 The Beatles Rubber Soul4.01963 Bob Dylan The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan4.51959 Miles Davis Kind of Blue5.01958 Cannonball Adderley Somethin' Else5.0
Bands: A B C D E F G H I J K L M N O P Q R S T U V W X Y Z
