| Propagandhi Supporting Caste | 4.0 |
| Reflection Eternal Revolutions Per Minute | 3.5 |
| Pharoahe Monch PTSD: Post Traumatic Stress Disorder | 3.0 |
| Epica The Holographic Principle | 3.5 |
| The Jezabels The Brink | 4.0 |
| The Jezabels Synthia | 4.0 |
| Regina Spektor Remember Us To Life | 3.5 |
| Epica The Quantum Enigma | 4.0 |
| The Roots undun | 3.5 |
| Lin-Manuel Miranda Hamilton - Original Broadway Cast | 5.0 |
| Rx Bandits Gemini, Her Majesty | 3.5 |
| The Mighty Mighty Bosstones Let's Face It | 4.0 |
| Less Than Jake GNV FLA | 3.5 |
| Rise Against The Black Market | 3.0 |
| Weird Al Yankovic Mandatory Fun | 3.5 |
| Robin Skouteris The King of ArtPOP | 4.0 |
| Soundtrack (Video Game) Mass Effect 3 | 4.5 |
| Steven Price Gravity OST | 4.0 |
| Katy Perry Teenage Dream | 3.0 |
| Wold Screech Owl | 1.5 |
| Maroon 5 It Won't Be Soon Before Long | 3.5 |
| Set Your Goals Burning At Both Ends | 3.0 |
| Set Your Goals This Will Be the Death of Us | 4.0 |
| Streetlight Manifesto The Hands That Thieve | 4.0 |
| The Ascendicate To Die As Kings | 3.0 |
| A Fine Frenzy Pines | 3.0 |
| Anberlin Vital | 4.0 |
| Priscilla Ahn A Good Day | 4.0 |
| Converge All We Love We Leave Behind | 4.0 |
| Coheed and Cambria The Afterman: Ascension | 4.0 |
| fun. Some Nights | 3.5 |
| Judas Priest Painkiller | 4.5 |
| The Fall of Troy Doppelganger | 4.0 |
| Birdy Birdy | 3.0 |
| John Mayer Born and Raised | 3.0 |
| Nas STILLmatic | 4.0 |
| Metric Synthetica | 3.5 |
| Regina Spektor What We Saw from the Cheap Seats | 4.0 |
| Erin McCarley Love, Save the Empty | 3.0 |
| Fear Before The Always Open Mouth | 4.5 |
| Misery Signals Of Malice and the Magnum Heart | 4.0 |
| Coldplay Mylo Xyloto | 3.5 |
| Set Your Goals Mutiny! | 4.0 |
| Florence and the Machine Ceremonials | 4.5 |
| The Roots How I Got Over | 3.5 |
| Polar Bear Club Clash Battle Guilt Pride | 3.0 |
| Christina Perri lovestrong. | 3.5 |
| Florence and the Machine Lungs | 4.0 |
| Jay-Z and Kanye West Watch the Throne | 3.0 |
| Streetlight Manifesto Somewhere in the Between | 4.5 |
| Streetlight Manifesto Everything Goes Numb | 4.5 |
| AFI Sing the Sorrow | 4.0 |
| Pharoahe Monch W.A.R. | 3.5 |
| Protest the Hero Scurrilous | 3.0 |
| Cursive Mama, I'm Swollen | 4.0 |
| Less Than Jake TV/EP | 3.0 |
| maudlin of the Well Bath | 3.0 |
| My Chemical Romance Danger Days: The True Lives of the Fabulous Killjoys | 2.5 |
| After the Burial In Dreams | 2.5 |
| Chiodos Illuminaudio | 4.0 |
| John Powell How to Train Your Dragon | 4.5 |
| Kanye West My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy | 3.0 |
| Kanye West has made an amazing album, worthy of the praise it's received and more. I am of course referring to his debut The College Dropout, which follows the unofficial hip-hop guideline of therefore being his best album. As always, West's unbelievable ego is very apparent on My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, but this time it manifests itself through overly long songs and now un-modified singing, mainly in the second half. The album starts out good: "Dark Fantasy" and "Gorgeous" are both good opening tracks, even if Kanye lacks whatever fire he used to have. "Power" is fantastic, even if it's outdone by the GOOD Friday remix. "All of the Lights" sports the best beat here and Rihanna's guest spot is - as usual - a welcome highlight, and "Monster" is better than anything from 808s and Heartbreak, despite Nicki Minaj's annoying performance. It's here where the problems - and the singing - start. "So Appalled" has uninspired performances from everyone involved. "Devil in a New Dress" sounds like a College Dropout b-side, with the most mundane beat here. "Runaway" sports the most annoying use of piano I've ever heard, and ends with 3 minutes of pointless noise. "Blame Game" basically wastes the usually-awesome guest John Legend before ending with pointless Chris Rock banter. Why it took people six years and the wrong album to realize West's quality as an artist is beyond me, but this is Merriweather Post Pavilion once more and somebody forgot to spike my drink - again. |
| Soulstice (USA-MD) Dead Letter Perfect | 3.5 |
| Sarah Fimm Karma Phala | 4.0 |
| John Murphy Sunshine (Soundtrack) | 4.0 |
| Death Cab for Cutie Narrow Stairs | 3.5 |
| Metric Live It Out | 4.0 |
| Sara Bareilles Kaleidoscope Heart | 4.0 |
| The Calm Blue Sea The Calm Blue Sea | 4.0 |
| Linkin Park A Thousand Suns | 2.5 |
| Kamelot Poetry for the Poisoned | 3.0 |
| Anberlin Dark Is the Way, Light Is a Place | 3.5 |
| VersaEmerge Fixed at Zero | 3.5 |
| Dropkick Murphys The Meanest of Times | 4.0 |
| Bright Eyes Cassadaga | 4.0 |
| MyChildren MyBride Lost Boy | 1.5 |
meh riff meh riff drum fill barf barf barf meh riff drum fill barf barf brodown meh riff brodown
Repeat ten times, and end with a tiny, ineffective antidote in the form of a clean instrumental. (No stupid but amusing song about Halo this time)
Enjoy LOST BOY!! |
| Attack Attack! Attack Attack! | 2.0 |
| This Time Next Year Road Maps and Heart Attacks | 3.5 |
| Bob Dylan Highway 61 Revisited | 4.0 |
| Lupe Fiasco Food & Liquor | 3.5 |
| Nas and Damian Marley Distant Relatives | 4.0 |
| Faith No More Angel Dust | 3.5 |
| Converge Petitioning the Empty Sky | 3.5 |
| Manchester Orchestra I'm Like a Virgin Losing a Child | 3.5 |
| Iron Maiden Seventh Son of a Seventh Son | 4.5 |
| Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and John Frusciante Omar Rodriguez-Lopez and John Frusciante | 2.5 |
| B.o.B The Adventures of Bobby Ray | 3.0 |
| Bullet for My Valentine Fever | 2.5 |
| Bob Dylan The Freewheelin' Bob Dylan | 4.0 |
| Rise Against The Unraveling | 3.0 |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan Option Paralysis | 4.0 |
| Demon Hunter The World Is a Thorn | 3.0 |
| Coheed and Cambria Year of the Black Rainbow | 4.0 |
| David Bazan Curse Your Branches | 3.0 |
| U2 Achtung Baby | 4.0 |
| Owl City Ocean Eyes | 2.5 |
| Feist Let It Die | 4.0 |
| Edge of Sanity Crimson II | 4.0 |
| SikTh Death of a Dead Day | 3.5 |
| John Mayer Room for Squares | 3.5 |
| Bright Eyes Lifted or The Story is in the Soil, Keep Your Ear to the Ground | 4.5 |
| Megadeth Rust in Peace | 4.5 |
| Angels and Airwaves Love | 3.0 |
| The Roots Phrenology | 3.5 |
| Rx Bandits The Resignation | 4.0 |
| Common Be | 4.0 |
| Mutemath Flesh and Bones Electric Fun DVD | 3.0 |
| Dark Tranquillity We Are the Void | 3.0 |
| Rx Bandits ...And the Battle Begun | 4.0 |
| Eisley Room Noises | 3.0 |
"It is a Christianality theme, it is fictional, but no religion in the music, it is Okay, it is funny, do you need some coffee from a Christian coffee shop?"
The quickest way to describe Room Noises is to compare it to Feist or Metric - female-fronted indie pop with basic instrumentation and simple song structures. The problem is, it's not as catchy as either aforementioned artist, and there's little else to keep one interested besides a strong vocal performance from Sheri Dupree (one of four siblings and their cousin who form Eisley). Her backing band might as well be studio musicians or even pre-programmed loops, considering their contribution to the album is completely forgettable.
So basically, the only truly interesting thing associated with this Room Noises is the memes. |
| Common Like Water for Chocolate | 3.5 |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor Slow Riot For New Zero Kanada | 4.0 |
| Boys Like Girls Boys Like Girls | 2.5 |
| Carcass Heartwork | 3.5 |
| Living Sacrifice The Infinite Order | 4.0 |
| Brand New Daisy | 3.0 |
| The Roots Things Fall Apart | 4.0 |
| Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago | 2.5 |
| Cute Is What We Aim For Rotation | 3.0 |
| Misery Signals Controller | 3.5 |
| Less Than Jake Hello Rockview | 4.0 |
| X Japan Art of Life | 3.5 |
| The Beatles Let It Be | 3.5 |
| Converge You Fail Me | 4.0 |
| A Fine Frenzy Bomb In A Birdcage | 4.0 |
| Bright Eyes I'm Wide Awake, It's Morning | 5.0 |
| Dropkick Murphys Blackout | 4.0 |
| Animal Collective Merriweather Post Pavilion | 2.5 |
| The Decemberists The Hazards of Love | 3.5 |
| Sights and Sounds Monolith | 4.0 |
| If the artwork or album title isn't a very good indicator, then "Sorrows" should make it clear: Monolith is a big album. Not really in length (although it is almost an hour long), but in scope. The huge, Vheissu-esque atmosphere helps this post-hardcore/progressive/rock hybrid retain an epic feel for most of its duration. Add in wall-of-sound production (it is produced by Devin Townsend), wonderful pop punk-esque melodies and consistent songwriting, and you have one of 2009's most interesting albums. With a debut this good, a sophomore slump still means a pretty good release, and it's not too often you can say that. |
| A Fine Frenzy Oh, Blue Christmas EP | 3.0 |
| The Empire Shall Fall Awaken | 3.5 |
| It's undoubtedly better than Killswitch Engage's new album, but Awaken isn't exactly something to get excited about. There's some pretty nice Meshuggah-influenced metalcore to found here, and with 8 songs spanning 40 minutes, the focus is on interesting songwriting instead of catchy choruses and predictably placed breakdowns. That doesn't mean there aren't breakdowns, in fact, one of the problems is that the not-so-common breakdowns are cliche and boring. The lyrics are also a bit too preachy (Leach trades his old spiritual/philosophical themes for political ones) and the shredding can be more flashy than it is interesting. Besides those points, Jesse's performance is great, and if it's true his band is made of jazz musicians then theirs is pretty commendable as well. Despite its faults, Awaken is a strong metalcore album, and one hopes The Empire Shall Fall improve from here (instead of going the other way like a, ahem, certain former band). |
| Polar Bear Club Chasing Hamburg | 4.5 |
| Coheed and Cambria No World for Tomorrow | 3.5 |
| Metric Fantasies | 4.0 |
| Thirty Seconds to Mars This Is War | 3.5 |
| maudlin of the Well Part the Second | 2.5 |
| Gay Witch Abortion Maverick | 3.5 |
| Paradise Lost Faith Divides Us - Death Unites Us | 4.0 |
| Thrice Beggars | 3.0 |
| After the Burial Rareform (Re-release) | 2.5 |
| Better production and a now tolerable vocalist are small improvements on what remains a boring breakdown fest full of wasted potential (i.e. technical ability). |
| The Mars Volta Amputechture | 2.5 |
| John Mayer Heavier Things | 3.0 |
| Dark Tranquillity Where Death Is Most Alive | 4.0 |
| John Mayer Battle Studies | 4.0 |
| Mos Def The Ecstatic | 4.0 |
| Aerosmith Just Push Play | 3.0 |
| The Roots Rising Down | 4.0 |
| Manchester Orchestra Mean Everything to Nothing | 4.5 |
| For me, Mean Everything to Nothing is a bit of an enigma. I both love Andy Hull's voice and find myself slightly annoyed by it. Manchester Orchestra's wonderful brand of alternative/indie rock isn't truly unique, but I can't think of anything that sounds really similar to this. It's amazing, but almost feels like it shouldn't be. Personal indecision aside, the chilling "I Can Feel a Hot One" is reason enough to listen to this album, and the rest of it will make you thankful you did. It's catchy, it's clever, it's accessible, it's fun, and the best part? One gets the feeling that they're capable of something even better. |
| Dark Tranquillity Skydancer/Of Chaos And Eternal Night | 3.0 |
| The Roots Game Theory | 5.0 |
| Taylor Swift Fearless | 2.5 |
| Between the Buried and Me The Great Misdirect | 3.0 |
| It's a Between the Buried and Me album, which means there's some cool parts, some laughably bad stuff, a ton of semi-coherent wank, and Tommy Rogers' still bad harsh vocals. This could be excellent if it was half the length, but as it is it's just acceptable. |
| Disillusion Back to Times of Splendor | 4.5 |
| Refused Songs To Fan The Flames Of Discontent | 3.5 |
| Kamelot Karma | 4.0 |
| The Mars Volta The Bedlam in Goliath | 3.0 |
| Moevot Abgzvoryathre | 1.0 |
| Regina Spektor Begin To Hope | 4.0 |
| Death Cab for Cutie The Photo Album | 4.0 |
| Living Sacrifice The Hammering Process | 4.0 |
| Antonio Vivaldi The Four Seasons | 4.0 |
| House Of Heroes The End Is Not the End | 3.0 |
| It's about as classic as every other pop rock/pop punk album of the past decade. What we have here is a supposed "rock opera" that could have been written by just about anyone else, and aside from the closing track, there's nothing that conjures up the grandeur such an album should have. Physical copies of The End is Not the End must release some very powerful hallucinogen, because the last time I checked, a lot of catchy hooks, and mediocre everything are not enough to earn a near perfect score. |
| Rx Bandits Mandala | 5.0 |
| Sublime covering De-Loused in the Comatorium. If that doesn't entice you, I don't see how anything else I can say will. |
| Converge Axe to Fall | 4.0 |
| Sarah Fimm Red Yellow Sun | 4.5 |
| Sarah Fimm could have gone on making the spacey, soothing trip-hop of her first three albums and her tiny but devoted fanbase probably wouldn't have cared - she was pretty damn good at it, after all. But in a period of about nine months, she made two brilliant choices: releasing a free EP that both reached new fans and hinted at a new direction, and completely ditching trip-hop for the new-age/folk/pop hybrid on Red Yellow Sun. While different, Red Yellow Sun sees Fimm exhibit the same strengths as before: the low-key instrumentation complements her voice perfectly, the songwriting never feels tired, and her amazing, soothing voice never falters. The only obvious flaw is a section in "Crumbs and Broken Shells" where guest Peter Murphy's operatic warble sounds grating against Fimm's smooth, controlled vocals. Ending with an awesome climax and one of the year's best closers, Red Yellow Sun is yet another excellent album that (if number of ratings are any indication) will hopefully get the recognition this woman's been deserving for awhile. |
| Paramore Brand New Eyes | 3.5 |
| Brand New Eyes sees Paramore mature even more within the confines of their alternative/pop punk sound, but it also begs the question: Is this the best they're capable of? When a band covers At the Drive-in live, listen to Thrice, "borrow" a lyric from Refused and write something very similar to (if not stolen from) a mewithoutYou song, surely great but still generic pop punk isn't all they can do. If there's any justice in the world, this will be Paramore's last album on the Fueled By Ramen label. In the meantime, Brand New Eyes is a helluva lot of fun, and Hayley's vocal prowess makes up for her band's somewhat mundane performance. |
| It Dies Today Lividity | 2.0 |
| Coheed and Cambria Neverender | 4.5 |
| Refused The Shape Of Punk To Come | 5.0 |
| Muse The Resistance | 3.0 |
| Bob Dylan Blood on the Tracks | 5.0 |
| DoomThrone Skeleton Veiled in Flesh | 1.0 |
| Attack Attack! Someday Came Suddenly | 1.5 |
Since none of the other soundoffs has been able to properly analyze or dissect Someday Came Suddenly and the crabcore phenomenon, I would like to (if allowed) point you towards the Guardian, which summarized things better than anyone else has:
www.guardian.co.uk/music/2009/jun/24/attack-attack-stick-stickly-video |
| Jay-Z The Blueprint 3 | 2.5 |
| Proof that the good material on American Gangster was a fluke and the few gems Jay's produced since coming out of retirement aren't worth all the crap one has to sift through. |
| Chevelle Sci-Fi Crimes | 3.0 |
| Oh, Sleeper Son of the Morning | 2.0 |
| Mutemath Armistice | 3.0 |
| The Beatles Rubber Soul | 4.0 |
| The Beatles Let It Be… Naked | 4.0 |
| Like a gorgeous woman, Let it Be is even better naked. |
| Eternal Tears of Sorrow Children of the Dark Waters | 3.0 |
| The Syncope Threshold Tale of The Complex Circuit | 2.5 |
| 50 Cent Get Rich or Die Tryin' | 2.5 |
| Iron Maiden Powerslave | 4.0 |
| Rufus Wainwright Want Two | 3.0 |
| At the Gates Slaughter of the Soul | 3.5 |
| U2 All That You Can't Leave Behind | 3.5 |
| Underoath Define the Great Line | 4.0 |
| Third Eye Blind Third Eye Blind | 4.0 |
| Max Tannone Jaydiohead: The Encore | 3.0 |
| Anna Nalick Wreck of the Day | 3.0 |
| Project 86 Picket Fence Cartel | 2.5 |
| Apparently this all we're gonna get from latter day Project 86, an inoffensive and sometimes interesting hard rock album that sounds like a band making music they don't completely care about. Almost everything on Picket Fence Cartel sounds as tired as Schwab's vocal performance, and serves as further proof ...And The Rest Will Follow was their last worthwhile album. |
| A Fine Frenzy One Cell in the Sea | 4.0 |
| August Burns Red Constellations | 3.5 |
| Suicide Silence The Cleansing | 1.5 |
| Boring, predictable, repetitive, lifeless, generic......throw whatever adjective you want at it, but the point is you've most likely a metalcore/deathbore album that sounds just like this. |
| Thrice Vheissu | 4.5 |
| Juggernautz Juggernautz | 3.0 |
| A Day To Remember Homesick | 2.5 |
| brokeNCYDE I'm Not a Fan, but the Kids Like It! | 1.0 |
| Lo-Fi Scorpio Lo-Fi Scorpio | 3.5 |
| Regina Spektor Far | 4.5 |
| Killswitch Engage Killswitch Engage (2009) | 2.5 |
| Lady Gaga The Fame | 3.0 |
| Synthetic, generic, homogenous, and completely unimpressive, but also catchy enough to be mildly entertaining. It's very much the same thing that's been played on top 40 radio for quite awhile now. And I'll stick with singers who don't get their melodies out of the same can as their beats ok thanks. |
| System of a Down Toxicity | 3.5 |
| The Mars Volta Octahedron | 3.5 |
| Auditory Aphasia The Peripatetics | 3.0 |
| The Mars Volta Frances the Mute | 4.0 |
| Rob Dougan Furious Angels | 4.5 |
| The Beatles With the Beatles | 3.0 |
| Austrian Death Machine Total Brutal | 3.0 |
| Train Train | 2.5 |
| FM Static Critically Ashamed | 1.5 |
| Protest the Hero Sequoia Throne: Remixed | 1.5 |
| Mastodon Crack the Skye | 3.0 |
| Coheed and Cambria In Keeping Secrets of Silent Earth: 3 | 5.0 |
| DragonForce Inhuman Rampage | 2.5 |
| The Beatles Magical Mystery Tour | 3.5 |
| The Beatles Help! | 4.0 |
| The Beatles A Hard Day's Night | 3.0 |
| Green Day 21st Century Breakdown | 2.0 |
| Sarah Fimm Nexus | 4.0 |
| The Devil Wears Prada With Roots Above and Branches Below | 2.5 |
| Eiffel 65 Europop | 2.0 |
| Iron Thrones Visions of Light | 3.0 |
| Opeth minus the acoustics fronted by Tommy Rogers minus the suck make a progressive (melodic) death metal album minus replay value and truly impressive qualities. There's not much else to say about this, other than it's free, generic and too repetitive for its own good - you more or less get what you pay for here. |
| Lo-Fi Scorpio Noir | 4.0 |
| In Flames The Jester Race | 4.0 |
| Fireflight Unbreakable | 3.0 |
| Britney Spears ...Baby One More Time | 2.0 |
| VersaEmerge VersaEmerge | 4.0 |
| VersaEmerge Perceptions | 3.5 |
| VersaEmerge Cities Built on Sand | 2.0 |
| Common Universal Mind Control | 2.0 |
| (hed) p.e. New World Orphans | 1.0 |
| Like an extremely misguided Linkin Park or Insane Clown Posse meets Rage Against the Machine cover band from hell, (hed)pe attempt to mix hip-hop, punk, rock and metal together. The sad thing is that for some rare, brief moments (usually when they stick to rock), the band sound like they know what they're doing, but then they launch into something like terrible rapping or a mish-mash of all three genres. Couple this with the fact that the lyrics are either political or sexual (both written with the understanding and ability of a 12-year-old), and you have one awful record/band. Someone please drive their tour bus off a cliff, pronto. |
| Lacuna Coil Shallow Life | 3.0 |
| Del Tha Funkee Homosapien Funk Man (The Stimulus Package) | 3.0 |
| Elvis Presley Elvis: 30 #1 Hits | 4.0 |
| Katy Perry One of the Boys | 3.0 |
| God Forbid IV: Constitution of Treason | 3.0 |
| Iron Maiden Dance of Death | 4.0 |
| The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus Don't You Fake It | 2.0 |
| Mutemath Spotlight | 3.0 |
| Chris Cornell Scream | 2.0 |
| Newsboys Shine: The Hits | 3.5 |
| Pearl Jam Ten | 4.0 |
| Frank Sinatra Nothing But the Best | 4.0 |
| Foo Fighters The Colour and the Shape | 3.5 |
| The only Foos album worth your time or money. As good as the singles from their other albums are, nothing else has managed to be as consistent or interesting as this. Yeah, just about everyone has probably heard "Monkey Wrench", "My Hero" and career highlight "Everlong", but to leave it at that is ignoring the wealth of good material here. "Hey, Johnny Park!", "Up in Arms", "Wind Up", "My Poor Brain", heck, pretty much the whole thing is great. everything else they've released up has failed to measure up to this, but for just one album, the Foo Fighters could do no wrong. If only they could replicate such success again. |
| Foo Fighters One by One | 2.5 |
| Muse Absolution | 4.5 |
| Feist The Reminder | 4.5 |
| Trapt Trapt | 2.5 |
| Radiohead OK Computer | 4.0 |
| Sara Bareilles Careful Confessions | 4.0 |
| Missy Higgins On a Clear Night | 3.0 |
| Muse Origin of Symmetry | 4.0 |
| Bring Me the Horizon Suicide Season | 2.5 |
| Rise Against Revolutions per Minute | 4.5 |
| Red (USA) Innocence and Instinct | 3.0 |
| Innocence and Instinct marks a definite improvement for Red, and anyone saying differently is a loon. The problem, however, is that the band has gone from derivative and boring to derivative and "okay"; riffs have improved, strings work better and songs don't drag as much, but it's still a trip through extremely familiar mainstream rock territory. It's nice to see a band moving towards potential when the opposite seems to happen so often, but Innocence and Instinct is just a growing boy cleaning up his mess, nothing more. |
| Oh, Sleeper When I Am God | 2.5 |
| The Devil Wears Prada Plagues | 2.0 |
| Dark Tranquillity The Mind's I | 3.5 |
| Metallica Load | 2.5 |
| Max Tannone Jaydiohead | 3.0 |
| Mick Boogie and Terry Urban Viva La Hova | 3.0 |
| Sarah Fimm White Birds | 4.0 |
| Number One Gun Celebrate Mistakes | 2.0 |
| Jay-Z Reasonable Doubt | 4.5 |
| One of the greatest rappers of our generation at the absolute top of his game, Reasonable Doubt is an essential near-classic that no hip-hop fan would be without. Here, the soon-to-be superstar unintentionally trumps every performance afterwards over old-school production, making everything after it sound just a little..."uninspired"?. The guest spots don't hurt either, especially when the late Notorious B.I.G. makes "Brooklyn's Finest" one of Reasonable Doubt's greatest moments. But as good as it is, it doesn't deserve full marks; a couple stronger tracks, better hooks or stronger production would elevate it to that level. Irregardless, we know he's never going to top this, and in some ways, it doesn't really matter - this album would hopefully have gotten Hova into the history books by itself. |
| Trivium Ascendancy | 2.0 |
| Jay-Z The Blueprint²: The Gift & the Curse | 2.5 |
| Jay-Z Vol. 3: Life and Times of S. Carter | 3.0 |
| The Beatles Please Please Me | 2.5 |
| Edge of Sanity Crimson | 4.0 |
In the 13 years since its release, Crimson has attained an almost legendary cult status among metalheads - and for the most part, it deserves it. Very few bands have attempted (or succeeded at) something like this; a single 40 minute song chronicling post-apocalyptic Earth, worldwide infertility, a false messiah, betrayal and revolution. But as good as the idea behind this progressive (melodic) death metal album is, its execution leaves a little to be desired. The band isn't able to keep Crimson interesting for all of its duration, and there are some stretches in the middle (about as long as a normal song) where little to nothing interesting happens. As amazing a musician as he is, Dan Swano's singing voice leaves something to be desired, but luckily he doesn't use it all that often.
So for the record: Is Crimson unique? Definitely. Impressive? No question. Amazing enough to call classic? Not really. |
| Five Finger Death Punch The Way Of The Fist | 2.0 |
| Coldplay Prospekt's March | 4.0 |
| Eluveitie Slania | 4.0 |
| The Beach Boys 20 Good Vibrations: The Greatest Hits | 4.0 |
| Jay-Z Fade to Black (DVD) | 3.5 |
| Foo Fighters Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace | 3.0 |
| The Nightwatchman The Fabled City | 2.5 |
| It's better than One Man Revolution, but of course, that's not saying much. The Fabled City sounds fairly similar to the album before it, except that several of the songs sound more like "rock" than just "folk". Morello once again has an okay singing voice, but his almost nonexistent range and monotone delivery get pretty boring fairly quickly. And of course, the lyrics range from 'okay' to 'bad' or 'terrible'. |
| The Mars Volta De-Loused in the Comatorium | 5.0 |
| Kanye West 808s and Heartbreak | 3.0 |
| tobyMac Momentum | 3.0 |
| tobyMac Welcome to Diverse City | 2.0 |
| Coheed and Cambria The Second Stage Turbine Blade | 3.5 |
| Frank Sinatra My Way: The Best of Frank Sinatra | 4.0 |
| Metallica Reload | 2.0 |
| As Cities Burn Son, I Loved You at Your Darkest | 2.5 |
| Senses Fail Still Searching | 3.0 |
| DragonForce Sonic Firestorm | 3.0 |
| Sara Bareilles Little Voice | 3.5 |
| Death Cab for Cutie Transatlanticism | 5.0 |
| Converge Jane Doe | 5.0 |
| Demon Hunter Storm the Gates of Hell | 2.5 |
| Rise Against Appeal to Reason | 3.5 |
Appeal to Reason has been taking quite the bashing since its release, and most everyone has the same complaints:
"The music isn't 'passionate' enough."
"Those lyrics on 'Hero of War' suck."
"The polka-esque part in 'Entertainment' doesn't work at all."
I disagree, but even if that was all true, that doesn't stop a large majority of the album from being good or great. "Re-Education Through Labor", "Kotov Syndrome", "Savior", "Whereabouts Unknown"....Appeal to Reason delivers the goods. Changing their sound a bit doesn't mean they've lost any "passion", it just means Tim doesn't wanna shout all the time - or something like that. Whatever. Album is great, but why listen to me? I'm just a fanboy. |
| Iron Maiden No Prayer for the Dying | 2.5 |
| Cross Movement Holy Culture | 3.0 |
| Lil Wayne Tha Carter III | 2.0 |
| Anberlin New Surrender | 3.5 |
| Kanye West Graduation | 2.5 |
| Trivium Shogun | 3.0 |
| Mercenary Architect of Lies | 3.0 |
| DragonForce Ultra Beatdown | 2.5 |
| Dark Tranquillity The Gallery | 5.0 |
| Alongside albums like Slaughter of the Soul and The Jester Race, The Gallery is one of melodic death metal's most praised and influential efforts. It takes the harsh, growled vocals and brutality of traditional death metal and adds more than enough melodic sensibility to make the music not just heavy, but elegant and tasteful as well. Despite lacking the distinctive keyboards in their later albums, it's the most consistent and all-around amazing album they have released. Highlights include the head-banger and air guitarist's delight "Punish My Heaven", guest female vocals on the title track, slowly-bookended "Lethe", and acoustic instrumental "Mine is the Grandeur...", which flows perfectly into the all encompassing finale "...Of Melancholy Burning". But make no mistake, The Gallery is amazing from start to finish, and the rest of Dark Tranquillity's catalog has proved it's anything but a fluke. |
| Amon Amarth Twilight of the Thunder God | 3.0 |
I must have missed whatever everybody else caught, because I have yet to understand what so many people love about Twilight of the Thunder God. If you've read any one of the reviews, you'll know the album does absolutely nothing new in the melodic death metal subgenre or with it's Viking/Norse mythological lyrics. And that's the problem.
The guitar riffs, the drums, the various growls/screams, the lyrics....it's all been done before, and in various cases much better. "But it'll make your balls bigger!" Yeah, so will various other albums, ones that are much more memorable and ultimately better than this. I'm not saying that Twilight of the Thunder God is bad - it actually leans over on the good side - but there's so little (if any) material that's interesting, unique or impressive enough to make it worthwhile. |
| Killswitch Engage The End of Heartache | 2.5 |
| Sanctus Real Fight The Tide | 3.0 |
| Metallica Death Magnetic | 3.5 |
| All That Remains Overcome | 2.5 |
| The Flashbulb Soundtrack to a Vacant Life | 5.0 |
| Lifehouse No Name Face | 2.5 |
| Frank Sinatra Sinatra Reprise: The Very Good Years | 4.0 |
| John Mayer Continuum | 5.0 |
| Fort Minor We Major (Mixtape) | 3.0 |
| DragonForce Valley Of The Damned (Demo) | 3.0 |
| Edict August | 3.0 |
| After the Burial Rareform | 2.0 |
| Trapt Only Through the Pain | 2.0 |
| Dropkick Murphys The Warrior's Code | 4.5 |
| Amplive Rainydayz Remixes | 3.5 |
| Kanye West The College Dropout | 4.0 |
| Norma Jean The Anti Mother | 1.5 |
| Hawthorne Heights Fragile Future | 2.5 |
| Hawk Nelson Smile, It's the End of the World | 2.0 |
| Living Sacrifice Conceived In Fire | 4.5 |
| Michael Jackson Off the Wall | 4.0 |
| Project 86 Truthless Heroes | 2.5 |
| Take the serious potential for another amazing post-hardcore album that the band who recorded Drawing Black Lines had going for them and then throw it all away because the record label wanted them to record a run-of-the-mill hard rock album. Then, make the vocalist sing constantly instead of doing whatever he wants, which would usually include shouts, screams and rapid-fire lyric delivery. Oh yeah, and his lyrics need to be stripped of any shred of brilliance they had before, save a few great lines. This hellish recording situation for the band results in an album that's too uninspired and [back then] uncharacteristically simplistic to be anything more than "good", which is why fans with their heads straight will not choose it as their best album. |
| Insane Clown Posse The Amazing Jeckel Brothers | 1.0 |
| Rammstein Völkerball | 4.0 |
| Panic! at the Disco Pretty. Odd. | 1.5 |
| Muse HAARP | 3.5 |
| AC/DC Live | 2.0 |
| The Beatles Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band | 4.0 |
| James Newton Howard Signs | 4.0 |
| John Williams Jurassic Park | 4.0 |
| Avenged Sevenfold City of Evil | 2.5 |
| Cryptopsy None So Vile | 4.0 |
| Steve Miller Band Greatest Hits 1974-1978 | 4.0 |
| Pig Destroyer Terrifyer | 4.0 |
| Between the Buried and Me The Anatomy Of | 2.0 |
| Smash Mouth Smash Mouth | 2.0 |
| Eleventyseven And The Land of Fake Believe | 1.0 |
| Queen Greatest Hits I & II | 3.5 |
| Various Artists The Matrix: Music From The Motion Picture | 3.5 |
| Insane Clown Posse The Great Milenko | 1.0 |
| Red (USA) End of Silence | 2.5 |
| Atreyu Suicide Notes and Butterfly Kisses | 1.0 |
| Chiodos Bone Palace Ballet | 2.5 |
| Plus One The Promise | 1.5 |
| Scar Symmetry Holographic Universe | 3.5 |
| John Williams The Patriot | 3.5 |
| Muse Black Holes & Revelations | 3.5 |
| Children of Bodom Blooddrunk | 2.5 |
| Angels and Airwaves We Don't Need to Whisper | 2.5 |
| Breaking Benjamin Phobia | 2.5 |
| Opeth Watershed | 3.5 |
| Coldplay Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends | 4.0 |
| Winds of Plague Decimate the Weak | 2.0 |
| Thrice The Alchemy Index Vols. III & IV | 4.0 |
| Pharoahe Monch Desire | 4.0 |
| Inhale Exhale I Swear... | 3.0 |
| Drop Dead, Gorgeous In Vogue | 2.0 |
| Opeth Blackwater Park | 4.0 |
| MyChildren MyBride Unbreakable | 1.5 |
| Heaven Shall Burn Iconoclast (Part 1: The Final Resistance) | 2.5 |
On the outside, Iconoclast seems like a great album: the vocals are semi-unique, lead single "Endzeit" is metalcore at its best, and it's based around several sociopolitical lyrical themes. Coming from Germany, I hoped these guys would stand out from all the other metalcore being produced on our side of the Atlantic.
Listening to the album is another story, because the hopes instilled by "Endzeit" quickly turn out to be empty promises. Nearly all the riffs are quite forgettable, the vocals become tiresome halfway through, and the lyrics aren't that great either. After giving this more than a fair chance, the only tracks that stand out are (you guessed it) "Endzeit", "Black Tears" (a well done Edge of Sanity cover), and the two instrumentals, "Awoken" and "Equinox". Here's hoping these guys put more of their apparent ideological passion into their music, because for now, they're not doing anything truly interesting. |
| Blake Lewis Audio Daydream | 2.0 |
| Bullet for My Valentine Scream Aim Fire | 2.0 |
| In Flames A Sense of Purpose | 2.0 |
| Hawk Nelson Hawk Nelson Is My Friend | 2.0 |
| Yet another bad album from Hawk Nelson. Despite small improvements in the lyrics and singing, the music on Hawk Nelson is Your Friend still boils down to average guitar parts, inaudible bass and lackluster drumming. Not only does is it constantly fail to impress, but it's often painful to listen to. Perhaps the worst thing about Hawk Nelson is My Friend is the fact that the band has yet to truly musically mature or improve after three albums. You might be okay having Hawk Nelson be your friend, but I certainly am not. |
| Jay-Z The Blueprint | 4.0 |
| Nine Inch Nails The Slip | 3.5 |
| Danger Mouse The Grey Album | 4.0 |
| Kanye West Late Registration | 4.0 |
| Kamelot Epica | 4.5 |
| The Beatles Revolver | 4.5 |
| Soundtrack (Film) Across the Universe | 3.5 |
| AC/DC Back In Black | 2.5 |
| The Beatles The Beatles | 4.0 |
| Lostprophets Liberation Transmission | 3.0 |
| Coheed and Cambria From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness | 4.5 |
| Avenged Sevenfold Avenged Sevenfold | 1.5 |
| Destroy the Runner I, Lucifer | 3.0 |
| Avenged Sevenfold Waking the Fallen | 2.0 |
| Chiodos All's Well That Ends Well | 1.5 |
| Pillar For the Love of the Game | 2.0 |
| The Beatles Abbey Road | 5.0 |
| Trivium The Crusade | 1.5 |
| Frank Sinatra Songs for Young Lovers | 3.5 |
| I Killed the Prom Queen Music for the Recently Deceased | 2.0 |
| Blindside About A Burning Fire | 3.5 |
| Metallica Ride the Lightning | 4.0 |
| Jay-Z American Gangster | 3.5 |
| Weird Al Yankovic Off the Deep End | 3.5 |
| Jay-Z Kingdom Come | 3.0 |
| Frank Sinatra In The Wee Small Hours | 4.5 |
| MxPx Ten Years and Running | 3.5 |
| Good Charlotte Good Morning Revival | 2.0 |
| The Beach Boys Pet Sounds | 5.0 |
| Protest the Hero Fortress | 4.0 |
| Pax217 Twoseventeen | 2.5 |
| Various Artists The Matrix Reloaded OST | 3.5 |
| Waking The Cadaver Demo | 1.0 |
| Mutemath Reset | 3.5 |
| Project 86 Drawing Black Lines | 4.0 |
| Waking The Cadaver Perverse Recollections Of A Necromangler | 1.0 |
| Michael Jackson Thriller | 4.5 |
| Yellowcard Ocean Avenue | 3.0 |
| The Nightwatchman One Man Revolution | 2.0 |
| Killswitch Engage Alive or Just Breathing | 4.0 |
| Protest the Hero A Calculated Use of Sound | 2.5 |
| As awesome as they are now, just two years before Kezia Protest the Hero wasn't all that great. Sounding more like a hardcore punk outfit before their transition to metal, A Calculated Use of Sound quite rarely impresses and all too often bores the listener. Why? There's nothing here that really could blow anyone away. The instrumental performances are pretty standard, with young Tim and Luke playing punk-ish riffs for the duration of the album. Worst of all, every person who gets annoyed by Rody's vocals now will want to kill themselves listening to this. By no means does music need to be technical to be interesting, but even then there aren't any real positives to be found here. A Calculated Use of Sound may provide an interesting look at the band's origins, but otherwise it's pretty forgettable. |
| Rise Against Siren Song of the Counter Culture | 4.0 |
| Weird Al Yankovic Alapalooza | 3.0 |
| Soulja Boy Souljaboytellem.com | 1.0 |
| Upon Beauty Rests For the Days We Fear the Air We Breathe | 3.5 |
| KJ-52 Collaborations | 1.5 |
| Rammstein Mutter | 3.5 |
| Disciple (USA-TN) By God | 2.5 |
| This Beautiful Republic Even Heroes Need A Parachute | 2.0 |
| Apologetix New And Used Hits:The Best of Apologetix | 3.0 |
| Weird Al Yankovic Bad Hair Day | 3.5 |
| Queen Greatest Hits | 4.0 |
| Steve Jablonsky Transformers - The Score | 3.0 |
| Living Sacrifice In Memoriam | 3.0 |
| Protest the Hero Kezia | 5.0 |
| One has to wonder if anyone expected something like this to come from the same band who made A Calculated Use of Sound, a debut that didn't even hint at what they would become. But after a year spent learning to play what they'd already written, Protest the Hero made Kezia, one of the most all around brilliant metal albums I've yet to encounter. Musically, it's flat out jaw-dropping; a nonstop assault of punk-ish metal, technicality and divinely orchestrated chaos. Lyrically? One of the best concept albums of all time, a three-act discourse with amazingly written socio-political and religious lyrics. Even my main initial problem - Rody Walker's voice - is quite unique and simply takes time to get used to (and/or come to love). One could try to pinpoint highlights, but the album's so full of memorable moments that doing so is an almost completely futile exercise - just like trying to find similar albums as good as this. Classic and essential in just about every way. |
| Fall Out Boy Infinity on High | 2.0 |
| Bowling for Soup A Hangover You Don't Deserve | 2.0 |
| Justifide The Beauty of the Unknown | 3.0 |
| Hawthorne Heights If Only You Were Lonely | 2.0 |
| As Blood Runs Black Allegiance | 2.0 |
| "Hey, we're As Blood Runs Black, an awesome new death metal band. We play our instruments pretty darn well, but unfortunately it doesn't cover up the fact that we have close to no songwriting abilities at all. Do you like to mosh and headbang to breakdowns? Then this album is for you, because there's at least 20 on here! In fact, some of the songs basically revolve around them. We could play some more actual riffs, but we just love our breakdowns so much. So do all the fans, cause this new subgenre called 'deathcore' is really picking up steam. Well, gotta go, we've been charged with breakdown abuse and the music police are after us. Remember kids: CHUG CHUG!!!" |
| Three Days Grace One-X | 2.0 |
| A copy of their painful mainstream hard-rock debut album, only a little better and not as painful. |
| Story of the Year Page Avenue | 2.5 |
| Frank Sinatra Classic Sinatra: His Greatest Performances 1953-60 | 4.5 |
| U2 U218 Singles | 4.0 |
| Good Charlotte The Chronicles of Life and Death | 2.5 |
| Atreyu Lead Sails Paper Anchor | 2.5 |
| Jay-Z The Black Album | 4.5 |
| The Black Album isn't Jay-Z's last album, but if he'd stayed in retirement, it would have been, and Hova would have thus bookended his career with his strongest release since the essential Reasonable Doubt. Lyrically, it's only bettered by his aforementioned debut, and the production is impeccable, unmatched by everything else he's ever done. The album only falls below its remarkably high self-established standard twice, and even then "Threat" and "My 1st Song" would likely be highlights on any album from a lesser MC. Sure, the albums before and after this were duds, but if Jay had retired for good, The Black Album would have assured the hip-hop community would be missing him. The rest of us are just hoping he can make something this good again. |
| Hoobastank Hoobastank | 2.5 |
| Inhale Exhale The Lost, the Sick, the Sacred | 2.5 |
| Fair The Best Worst-Case Scenario | 3.5 |
| Kamelot The Black Halo | 5.0 |
A rare find in not only power metal but music as a whole, The Black Halo is an album that more than defies expectations. To call this power metal doesn't do it justice - Kamelot take the straightforward metal formula and add their impressive control of dynamics within brilliantly tight but uncomplicated songwriting and musicianship. Top this all off with perfectly complementary keyboards and a singer whose voice reflects his classical training in every positive way, and you have The Black Halo in a nutshell. On a near perfect album, it's intimidating to pick highlights, but the vocal tour-de-force "Abandoned" and orgasmic 9 minute monster "Memento Mori" end up being the defining moments here. There are flaws, yes, but they're so incredibly minute that it hardly even matters. Finally, this is part two of a double concept album, and even that is executed extremely well.
If there are power metal albums better than this, they're about as rare as the Fountain of Youth. |
| All That Remains This Darkened Heart | 3.0 |
| My Chemical Romance The Black Parade | 3.5 |
| Project 86 The Kane Mutiny | 3.0 |
| Dark Tranquillity Projector | 3.0 |
| Relient K Let It Snow, Baby... Let It Reindeer | 3.0 |
| Smash Mouth Get the Picture | 2.0 |
| In Flames Reroute to Remain | 3.0 |
| Nirvana Nevermind | 3.0 |
| Haste the Day When Everything Falls | 2.5 |
| Newsboys Not Ashamed | 2.5 |
| Death Cab for Cutie Plans | 3.5 |
| Haste the Day Pressure the Hinges | 3.0 |
| Bon Jovi Bounce | 2.0 |
| Bullet for My Valentine The Poison | 2.5 |
| A surprisingly decent album. No, the band does absolutely nothing new in the almost completely stale metalcore genre, but the execution is done well enough that it's not a real chore or pain to listen to. The instrumental performances are pretty solid, and with all the screaming you might not notice the lyrics might as well be written by Hawthorne Heights. Yes, there are much better bands that play quite similar music; yes, they'll be forgotten in several years along with 80% of the metalcore 'scene'; and no, The Poison isn't a terrible album. Actually, it's better than several other bands at the bottom of the spectrum. |
| Pax217 Engage | 3.0 |
| Howard Shore The Fellowship of the Ring | 5.0 |
| Cross Movement Higher Definition | 2.5 |
| The Agony Scene The Agony Scene | 2.5 |
| Rascal Flatts Me And My Gang | 1.0 |
| The Beatles 1 | 4.0 |
| Like many 'greatest hits' or 'best of' collections, the problem with 1 isn't what it contains but what it leaves out. Revolver, Magical Mystery Tour and Abbey Road are represented by a maximum of three songs each, while Rubber Soul, The White Album and Sgt. Peppers... get absolutely none. Of course, it was during their early years when the Beatles had more hit singles, so an album of "number one hits" won't be as comprehensive as it should be. Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is this: while a collection of many great songs, anyone who listens to just this is really missing out. |
| Hans Zimmer Gladiator: Music from the Motion Picture | 3.0 |
| Newsboys Love Liberty Disco | 2.0 |
| Newsboys Step up to the Microphone | 3.0 |
| Sum 41 Underclass Hero | 3.0 |
| Kutless Sea of Faces | 2.5 |
| In Flames Colony | 4.5 |
| In one sentence, it's the perfect balance between "true" melodeath and the catchier, more commercial elements that would start to compromise their sound on Clayman. That, and it's bookended by "Embody the Invisible"/"Ordinary Story" and "Man Made God", which should be all I have to say to anyone who's heard them. |
| In Flames Clayman | 3.5 |
| In Flames Soundtrack to Your Escape | 3.0 |
| Newsboys Devotion | 2.0 |
| Newsboys Take Me To Your Leader | 3.5 |
| Newsboys Go | 2.0 |
| P.O.D. Satellite | 2.5 |
| Tyler Bates 300 | 4.0 |
| Various Artists Halo 2 Original Soundtrack-Volume 1 | 3.5 |
| Hoobastank The Reason | 2.0 |
| Iron Maiden The Number of the Beast | 5.0 |
| Iron Maiden Edward the Great | 4.0 |
| John Williams Minority Report | 4.5 |
| Anberlin Cities | 4.5 |
| Rascal Flatts Feels Like Today | 1.0 |
| Scott Stapp The Great Divide | 2.0 |
| Creed Human Clay | 2.0 |
| Audio Adrenaline Underdog | 3.0 |
| As I Lay Dying An Ocean Between Us | 3.0 |
| Relient K Relient K | 2.5 |
| Switchfoot The Beautiful Letdown | 3.0 |
| Enrique Iglesias Escape | 2.5 |
| Thirty Seconds to Mars 30 Seconds To Mars | 3.5 |
| Sanctus Real Say it Loud | 3.0 |
| Vertical Horizon Everything You Want | 3.0 |
| Falling Up Captiva | 2.0 |
| Project 86 Rival Factions | 3.0 |
| Smash Mouth Astro Lounge | 3.0 |
| Good Charlotte The Young And The Hopeless | 3.0 |
| Simple Plan No Pads, No Helmets... Just Balls | 1.5 |
| Linkin Park Reanimation | 2.5 |
| Linkin Park Meteora | 3.0 |
| Linkin Park Hybrid Theory | 3.0 |
| Pillar Broken Down: The EP | 3.0 |
| Paramore Riot! | 4.0 |
| Audioslave Audioslave | 3.0 |
| Arch Enemy Rise of the Tyrant | 3.0 |
| Hawk Nelson Letters To The President | 1.5 |
| Coldplay X&Y | 3.0 |
| Coldplay A Rush of Blood to the Head | 3.5 |
| The Fray How to Save a Life | 3.0 |
| Sum 41 All Killer No Filler | 3.5 |
| Weird Al Yankovic Running With Scissors | 4.0 |
| Dark Tranquillity Haven | 3.5 |
| Alter Bridge One Day Remains | 3.0 |
| Playing a somewhat refined but still generic form of radio-ready hard rock, Alter Bridge's debut is a rather average album. Guitarist Mark Tremonti displays much more talent than he did in Creed, and full-out shredding solos have shown up in several songs (thanks to vocalist Myles Kennedy playing rhythm). Kennedy also displays much more range than Scott Stapp, and thankfully significantly less swagger as well. Still, the album has several faults: the typical song structures, boring and sometimes awful lyrics, as well as little that distinguishes the songs from each other (or other bands on the radio, for that matter). It's occasionally quite enjoyable, but ultimately just another mainstream rock record. |
| Relient K Apathetic | 3.0 |
| Panic! at the Disco A Fever You Can't Sweat Out | 2.0 |
| U2 The Joshua Tree | 5.0 |
| Unearth The Oncoming Storm | 4.0 |
| Unearth III: In the Eyes of Fire | 3.5 |
| Kutless Kutless | 2.5 |
| Skillet Collide | 2.5 |
| Norma Jean O' God, the Aftermath | 2.0 |
| The Turning Learning To Lose | 1.5 |
| Falling Up Dawn Escapes | 3.0 |
| Demon Hunter The Triptych | 3.5 |
| Project 86 Songs to Burn Your Bridges By | 3.5 |
| FM Static What Are You Waiting For? | 1.5 |
| Thousand Foot Krutch The Art of Breaking | 2.0 |
| Thousand Foot Krutch Set It Off (Remastered) | 2.5 |
| Rise Against The Sufferer and the Witness | 5.0 |
| The most consistent, cohesive, catchy and impressive album Rise Against has released, featuring Tim's best vocal performance and a large share of their best songs. Striking a perfect balance between the raw fury of their past and giant hooks of the present, The Sufferer and the Witness is not only Rise Against's best album but one of the best albums of the decade. If I'm wrong, show me a ballad by a similar band that's as amazing as "Roadside", but until then, I'll be enjoying the fact the replay value here is as strong as the music. |
| Pillar Where Do We Go from Here | 3.0 |
| Pillar Fireproof | 3.0 |
| Pillar The Reckoning | 2.5 |
| Newsboys Thrive | 3.0 |
| Jay-Z and Linkin Park Collision Course | 2.5 |
| Dark Tranquillity Character | 4.0 |
| Trust Company The Lonely Position of Neutral | 2.0 |
| Spoken Last Chance to Breathe | 3.5 |
| Bon Jovi This Left Feels Right | 2.0 |
| Paramore All We Know Is Falling | 3.0 |
| Thirty Seconds to Mars A Beautiful Lie | 3.0 |
| Skillet Alien Youth | 3.0 |
| Rammstein Reise, Reise | 4.0 |
| Rammstein had been slowly but steadily improving since their debut, and the majority of Mutter said they were ready to make something truly great. A bit ironic, then, that the band had to (in some ways) abandon their traditional sound to make their most varied, ambitious and consistent album to date. Here, these six Germans bring their signature industrial ("Mein Teil" and the title track), bluesy acoustic rock ("Los"), epic power ballads ("Ohne Dich", "Amour"), and even poppy industrial ("Moskau") - and best of all, they succeed at just about all of it. The major change of this album coupled with the disappointing follow-up suggest that they'll never make an album this good again - but to their credit, none of the other German industrial bands have either. |
| Rammstein Rosenrot | 3.0 |
| The Agony Scene The Darkest Red | 2.5 |
| Blindside Silence | 4.0 |
| Chevelle Wonder What's Next | 4.0 |
| Chevelle This Type Of Thinking (Could Do Us In) | 3.5 |
| Chevelle Vena Sera | 3.5 |
| Three Days Grace Three Days Grace | 1.5 |
| Dark Tranquillity Fiction | 4.5 |
| It doesn't seem very often that a band almost touches a classic so long after releasing it, but that's exactly what Dark Tranquillity has done here. Twelve years after the essential melodic death metal album The Gallery, Fiction sees the band pouring every one of their strengths into 10 ridiculously good songs. Almost like an unintentional greatest hits, the ten songs here musically encapsulate everything that has and still makes DT such an amazing band. When it's all over (ending with their best closer since, well, The Gallery), this album serves as hope that Dark Tranquillity won't be burning out anytime soon. (although honestly, have they ever made us worry about that?) |
| Rage Against the Machine The Battle of Los Angeles | 3.5 |
| August Burns Red Thrill Seeker | 2.5 |
| Relient K Mmhmm | 3.5 |
| Relient K Five Score and Seven Years Ago | 3.5 |
| Relient K The Anatomy of Tongue In Cheek | 2.5 |
| Underoath They're Only Chasing Safety | 2.5 |
| Atreyu The Curse | 1.5 |
| Weird Al Yankovic Poodle Hat | 3.5 |
| Weird Al Yankovic Straight Outta Lynwood | 3.5 |
| Metallica Master of Puppets | 4.0 |
| Metallica Metallica | 3.5 |
| Lostprophets Start Something | 3.5 |
| Great Northern Trading Twilight for Daylight | 2.0 |
| Anberlin Blueprints for the Black Market | 3.5 |
| Dark Tranquillity Damage Done | 4.5 |
| Mutemath Mutemath | 4.0 |
| Bon Jovi Have a Nice Day | 2.0 |
| Disciple (USA-TN) Scars Remain | 3.0 |
| Skillet Comatose | 2.5 |
| Disciple (USA-TN) Back Again | 3.0 |
| Linkin Park Minutes to Midnight | 1.5 |
| Atreyu A Death-Grip on Yesterday | 2.0 |
| As I Lay Dying Shadows Are Security | 2.5 |
| Throwdown Vendetta | 2.5 |
| Demon Hunter Summer of Darkness | 2.5 |
| Sanctus Real The Face of Love | 2.5 |
| Disciple (USA-TN) Disciple | 2.5 |
| Daughtry Daughtry | 2.5 |
| Smash Mouth Summer Girl | 2.5 |
| It is/was their best album since Astro Lounge, but Summer Girl is just Smash Mouth being Smash Mouth. |
| Evanescence Fallen | 3.0 |
| Demon Hunter Demon Hunter | 3.0 |
| Thousand Foot Krutch Phenomenon | 3.0 |
| Falling Up Crashings | 3.0 |
| Sum 41 Chuck | 3.5 |
| Fort Minor The Rising Tied | 3.5 |
| Most of us probably figured that Shinoda would release a side project, but I doubt many thought it would be this good. A bit like Kanye West, he lacks more than a little in the rapping department, but his skills as a producer easily overshadow this (with the obvious difference that Shinoda plays most of the instruments). There are definitely some duds ("In Stereo", "Slip Out the Back") but The Rising Tied succeeds due to its multiple guests, strong production and excellent singles. Now if he can quit Linkin Park... |
| All That Remains The Fall of Ideals | 3.5 |
| Killswitch Engage As Daylight Dies | 3.5 |
| August Burns Red Messengers | 3.5 |
| Come on people, it's not that good. In fact, this should be one giant borefest: it's not original at all, and like most any metalcore album it's pretty repetitive. There is, however, some x-factor that makes Messengers just...work. Hopefully their rate of improvement continues through to the next album, but for now August Burns Red have yet to make anything near a classic album. |
| In Flames Come Clarity | 4.0 |
| Anberlin Never Take Friendship Personal | 4.0 |
| Project 86 ...And the Rest Will Follow | 4.0 |
