| Sodom Tapping the Vein | 4.0 |
| Sodom's heaviest, best produced and overall just plain best album. The death metal element and the massiveness of the production really brought out the militaristic vicousness of their sound that no other album before or after has managed to be able to capture. To be honest they all sound rather tame in comparison. |
| Jefre Cantu-Ledesma Love is a Stream | 4.0 |
| James Murphy Convergence | 4.0 |
| Catharsis Passion | 4.5 |
| Morser 10,000 Bad Guys Dead | 4.5 |
| Opeth Still Life | 4.5 |
| The one Opeth album that lives up to the hype. Better than Blackwater Park and the rest of the discog by about twenty million miles. It demonstrates everything that is great about the band and sadly its greatness proves how much of a failure its sequel was. |
| Pain (SWE) Dancing with the Dead | 4.0 |
| Bane Give Blood | 4.5 |
| About as good as hardcore gets. Nice to hear a hardcore record that sounds massive while not relying on metal influences, actually has a great, in-your-face rhythm section and is extremely powerful, both lyrically and musically, to boot. Highly recommended. |
| port-royal Flares | 4.0 |
| Killswitch Engage Alive or Just Breathing | 4.5 |
| Sodom Persecution Mania | 4.0 |
| Secede Bye Bye Gridlock Traffic | 5.0 |
| Catharsis/Newborn Split | 4.5 |
| Interment Into the Crypts of Blasphemy | 4.0 |
| Purtenance Member of Immortal Damnation | 2.0 |
| Proof that OSDM can be derivative and boring on occasion. Avoid like the plague. |
| Strongarm The Advent of a Miracle | 4.0 |
| Devil Sold His Soul Blessed & Cursed | 2.5 |
| G.I.S.M. Detestation | 4.5 |
| Nightingale Nightfall Overture | 3.5 |
| In Cold Blood Suicide King | 4.0 |
Despite the inconsistencies, the raw or indeed non-existent production brings out an
emotional poigancy and power that was more or less non-existent on the band's debut album.
Some of the songs recorded on here are indeed some of the Melnick's and Blaze's heaviest
work but it is also some of their most powerful. |
| Codeseven The Rescue | 2.0 |
| Bark Psychosis Codename: Dustsucker | 4.5 |
| Brian McBride When The Detail Lost Its Freedom | 4.0 |
| Naiad Hardcore Emotion | 4.0 |
| Wolfbrigade Lycanthro Punk | 3.5 |
| I Hear Sirens Beyond the Sea, Beneath the Sky | 2.0 |
| Belong October Language | 4.5 |
| Gates of Ishtar The Dawn of Flames | 2.5 |
| Grey Skies Fallen Tomorrow's In Doubt | 1.0 |
| Maths Ascent | 4.0 |
| In Cold Blood Hell on Earth | 3.5 |
| Achilles (USA-NY) Hospice | 4.0 |
| Apocalyptica Worlds Collide | 2.5 |
| Fear Before Art Damage | 2.0 |
| Faith No More The Real Thing | 3.5 |
| Cynic Traced in Air | 4.5 |
| Cynic Focus | 4.5 |
| Garden of Shadows Oracle Moon | 3.0 |
| Garden of Shadows Heart of the Corona | 4.0 |
| In Vain (NO) Mantra | 2.5 |
| Nobuo Uematsu Final Fantasy X: Original Soundtrack | 4.0 |
| Off Minor The Heat Death of the Universe | 4.5 |
| Anyone can imagine three guys in a small wooden-walled room, under a strip light drinking bourbon and producing some of the finest, most emotional music of their lives. It's such a basic image but it is the embodiment of this album and it was gives it such a sense of class, one that is head and shoulders above any of its contemporaries. Forget Calculating Infinity, this is free jazz. This is aggression. This is music. |
| Trivium Ascendancy | 1.5 |
| Trivium Shogun | 2.5 |
| Tragedy Nerve Damage | 4.0 |
| Tragedy Tragedy | 3.0 |
| Martyrdod In Extremis | 3.0 |
| Pain (SWE) Cynic Paradise | 3.0 |
| Killswitch Engage As Daylight Dies | 3.0 |
| Killswitch Engage Killswitch Engage (2009) | 2.0 |
| Agalloch The Mantle | 4.5 |
| Crossfade Crossfade | 1.5 |
| Jamiroquai High Times (Singles 1992-2006) | 4.0 |
| The only record from my childhood that can still stand up today. Infectious, sarcastic, funky as hell and, in a few places, brooding, this compilation is a lot of dark fun that has great staying power. |
| Bold Looking Back | 4.0 |
| The Calm Blue Sea The Calm Blue Sea | 2.0 |
| A Dark Halo Catalyst | 1.5 |
| Project X Straight Edge Revenge(Reissue) | 4.0 |
| The closest thing to Powerviolence straight-edge hardcore can become. Vicious, brutal and angry with bass and low-tuned guitars intertwining with each other in tight constriction, this album will pummel you're ears into a bleeding mush. Highly recommended. |
| Solefald Norron Livskunst | 2.0 |
| This is sad really. There are some seriously good elements. The songs themselves are well-written and Lazare's rasps are brilliant, hell even the polka elements work at points but the damn clean vocals and the excessive electronica elements drown the songs in camp and cheese. Solefald are known for the humourous take on their own music at points but they also knew restraint in their excess. Here though it's like listening to the Gestapo perform YMCA. Seriously bad. |
| Coldworld Melancholie² | 4.0 |
| Brian Eno Ambient 1: Music For Airports | 4.5 |
| Puddle of Mudd Come Clean | 2.0 |
| Adema Insomniac's Dream | 1.5 |
| Seether Disclaimer II | 2.5 |
| Seether One Cold Night | 3.0 |
| Pillar Where Do We Go from Here | 2.5 |
| Pillar Fireproof | 2.0 |
| Maths Descent | 4.0 |
| Mnemic Passenger | 2.0 |
| Mnemic The Audio Injected Soul | 3.0 |
| Drowningman Rock And Roll Killing Machine | 4.5 |
| Taken Between Two Unseens | 4.0 |
| Integrity Closure | 2.0 |
| Integrity Integrity 2000 | 1.0 |
| God Is an Astronaut All Is Violent, All Is Bright | 4.0 |
| Playing Enemy Accessory | 2.0 |
| Lights Out Asia Eyes Like Brontide | 2.5 |
| Farside The Monroe Doctrine | 3.5 |
| Ridiculous and a lot of fun. Not a totally unified effort in terms of musicality but the album is worth buying alone for the grindcore parody. Great stuff. |
| Playing Enemy Cesarean | 3.5 |
| Kayo Dot Choirs of the Eye | 4.5 |
| The sound of all your dreams shattering into dust and the screaming echoes that follow. |
| The Pax Cecilia Blessed Are The Bonds | 3.5 |
| Skillet Awake | 1.5 |
| Repeating songs from your previous albums in higher notes does not constitute songwriting. Want to hear this album? Listen to Comatose. |
| Hopesfall No Wings To Speak Of | 4.5 |
| Meshuggah Destroy Erase Improve | 3.5 |
| Burzum Hvis Lyset Tar Oss | 3.0 |
| Neurosis A Sun That Never Sets | 4.5 |
| Neurosis The Eye of Every Storm | 3.5 |
| Amorphis Silent Waters | 2.0 |
| The best word to describe this album; lackluster. It is not so much that the band cannot play their instruments, it is more that their songwriting is trite and painfully dull. The hooks and rhythms are predictable, never rising up to catch the listener, only wallowing in their own melodrama. Tomi Jousten is perhaps the sole grace of Amorphis but even he can't save this album from its greatest flaw; it lacks a genuine, captivating atmosphere. The contrived nature of the instrumentation makes the album's melodrama feel forced, not sweeping and powerful. For an album of this genre, the power of the atmosphere is crucial so having none renders this album inert and thus a nearly complete failure. |
| Walknut Graveforests And Their Shadows | 4.5 |
| One of the few albums I can actually say scared the shit out of me (not even Hvis Lyset Tar Oss did that). I played this in a pitch black room and it truly became a monster of an album. |
| Eluvium Copia | 4.5 |
| From the moment you hear the opening right up until the last notes of Repose In Blue have faded away, this album envelopes you in waves of ambient bliss. Haunting pianos, horns and trumpets keeping the listener afloat in the waves of this vast sea of an album. A truly beautiful expression of feeling and natural beauty. |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor F♯ A♯ ∞ | 4.0 |
| Agalloch Ashes Against the Grain | 2.5 |
| I will admit when I went into listening to this album, I was expecting black metal brilliance but I exited feeling rather blown off. This album has all the necessary components for a black metal/post-rock album of sorts with the rising and fall song structure, detuned guitars and of course, the growls but it left me feeling completely inert. Yes, some of the songs are well put together with crystal clear production and yes, the members are bloody talented but it lacks that ability to make a true emotional connection on any level with an intangible atmosphere and that is crucial for any bm album. Unfortunately it comes across as nothing more than boring. Here's hoping that the rest of their discography is much better. |
| Drudkh Autumn Aurora | 4.5 |
| Antimatter Planetary Confinement | 4.0 |
| Unreal City (USA) Ephemeral Subsistence | 2.5 |
| Cable Variable Speed Drive | 3.5 |
| Cave In Until Your Heart Stops | 4.5 |
| Probably one of the best technical metalcore albums of them all. The main frustration with this album though lies in its inability at certain points to be able to carry forward some of its ideas such as that fantastic space rock riff upon "Juggernaut" with Brodesky's singing soaring along with it. That is my only gripe with a brilliant album. |
| Integrity Humanity is the Devil | 3.0 |
| Integrity Systems Overload | 3.0 |
| Converge Jane Doe | 4.0 |
| I have to admit that my perception of Converge will always be tarnished by the almost religious bigotry that defends this album. I remember approaching this album with quite a reserved and cold attitude due to the amount of absurd hype around it. After six listens I can say that this is an excellent piece of emotional metalcore, despite the grindcore elements sometimes smothering the emotions and Bannon's screams being on the side of whiney and weak on occasion.However it is the three last tracks that make this album. Some of the most fucked up yet beautifully twisted metalcore songs ever. They manage to emulate the realism of a rape in every horrific detail and every turgid emotion. In my opinion, this is a fantastic metalcore record despite its flaws. |
| Mar De Grises Draining The Waterheart | 3.5 |
| Mar De Grises Streams Inwards | 3.5 |
| Misery Signals Mirrors | 3.0 |
| Dark Tranquillity We Are the Void | 3.5 |
| Dark Tranquillity Haven | 4.0 |
| Dark Tranquillity Fiction | 4.0 |
| Dark Tranquillity Character | 2.0 |
| Dark Tranquillity Damage Done | 4.5 |
| Reflux The Illusion Of Democracy | 4.0 |
| Neurosis Times of Grace | 4.0 |
| Insomnium Since the Day It All Came Down | 2.5 |
| Insomnium Above the Weeping World | 4.5 |
| There's always a line in the sand between the Davids and Goliaths of the world. It's a fact that has been set in stone for many millenia to come unfortunately but on a rare occasion a Goliath can become a David. Such is the case with Insomnium, their songwriting, as proved by their sophomore effort, was lackluster and boring at best. However Above The Weeping World took not just one brave step forward but about hundred. The songwriting on this album is nothing short of superb. There are rarely moments when the album gets dull, it just simply flows from one beautiful moment to the next. While it may not be accessible as Across The Dark, this time the effort is worth taking as the melodies encased within the shell are near perfect in some places (see Mortal Share and The Killjoy). Insomnium were once called "a poor man's Opeth." Heh, yeah right. |
| Red (USA) End of Silence | 3.0 |
| Red (USA) Innocence and Instinct | 4.0 |
| Skillet Collide | 2.5 |
| Skillet Comatose Comes Alive | 3.5 |
| Skillet Comatose | 3.5 |
| Cold Cold | 1.5 |
| Cold A Different Kind of Pain | 2.0 |
| Practically devoid of emotion even when the band tries to angst the most. |
| In Flames Come Clarity | 1.5 |
| The Hope Conspiracy Death Knows Your Name | 4.0 |
| Hacride Lazarus | 3.5 |
| Hacride's sound is... titanic. Imagine a giant's foot stomping on the world and you have a pretty good idea of Lazarus' music . The rush of the music is near instantaneous and it continues in a melodic yet mathmatical manner throughout, alternating between electric and acoustic progression. The crowning jewel though is the vocalist Samuel Bourreau who sounds like a more powerful Tomi Joutsen. Excellent work |
| Kiss It Goodbye She Loves Me, She Loves Me Not | 4.5 |
| Helmet Meantime | 4.5 |
| Helmet's Meantime. Noise rock and hardcore fused into what can only be described as distorted barrage of hard, un-melodic riffs, raw shouts and monotone singing and a rhythm section that is tighter than a duck's arsehole. Of particular note are the bass-lines that are as complex as they are earth shattering, as well as Paige Hamilton's incredible vocal performance. This album is the sound of every pent up frustration, every moment of repressed rage being released in a cathartic bloodbath. It truly is one of the best "stomp-and-go" albums ever. |
| Meshuggah obZen | 4.5 |
| Edge of Sanity When All Is Said | 4.5 |
| Edge of Sanity Purgatory Afterglow | 4.0 |
| Sights and Sounds Monolith | 4.0 |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven | 5.0 |
| Rorschach Autopsy | 4.0 |
| Sacrilege GBG The Fifth Season | 3.5 |
| Poison Idea Feel the Darkness | 4.0 |
| The Armed These Are Lights | 3.5 |
| Coalesce Functioning on Impatience | 4.0 |
| Trenches The Tide Will Swallow Us Whole | 4.0 |
| Gospel The Moon Is a Dead World | 4.0 |
| One of the uncommon times I agree with the Sputnik consensus, this is an album worthy of the praise and even better it is a screamo album I actually enjoy. |
| Opeth Blackwater Park | 2.5 |
| Integrity Those Who Fear Tomorrow | 5.0 |
| Ah Integrity's Those Who Fear Tommorrow. What's there to say that hasn't been said before? To put it simply though, this is possibly the first and, unarguably, one of the greatest examples of metalcore ever. Dwid's vocals display the most incredible range and power of his entire career, sounding like he actually believes what he preaches. The Melnick brothers' guitar work is equally impressive as is the drumming and the basslines. While it may be too long, the album is the closest thing there will ever be to a hardcore version of Slayer's Reign In Blood. While this maybe a controversial fact, this isn't; this is an album that encompasses all forms of metalcore from brooding to blood-boiling, melodic to dissonant and it lays a template of how all forms of metalcore should be played; with passion, heaviness, originality, sincerity but most of all, sheer power. |
| At the Gates Slaughter of the Soul | 3.5 |
| Edge of Sanity Crimson | 4.0 |
| Edge of Sanity Crimson II | 3.0 |
| Misery Signals Of Malice and the Magnum Heart | 4.0 |
| Solution .45 For Aeons Past | 3.0 |
| Blood Has Been Shed Spirals | 3.0 |
| Burnt By the Sun Soundtrack to the Personal Revolution | 2.5 |
| Burnt By the Sun Heart of Darkness | 2.0 |
| Integrity To Die For | 3.5 |
| Burst Prey on Life | 3.5 |
| Integrity Seasons in the Size of Days | 4.0 |
| Unearth The March | 2.5 |
| Modern Life Is War Witness | 4.0 |
| Starkweather This Sheltering Night | 4.5 |
| Rise and Fall Our Circle Is Vicious | 4.0 |
| Hypocrisy Hypocrisy | 3.5 |
| Starkweather Croatoan | 4.0 |
| More Than Life Brave Enough To Fail | 3.0 |
| Swallow the Sun Hope | 2.0 |
| Blood Has Been Shed Novella Of Uriel | 2.5 |
| Playing Enemy I Was Your City | 4.0 |
| Fear Factory Archetype | 3.5 |
| Novembre The Blue | 4.0 |
| Burn Burn | 4.0 |
| Defeater Travels | 4.5 |
| Helmet Betty | 4.0 |
| Hieronymus Bosch Equivoke | 3.0 |
| His Hero Is Gone Monuments To Thieves | 4.5 |
| Fen The Malediction Fields | 2.0 |
| Integrity Walpürgisnacht | 3.5 |
| Verse Aggression | 4.5 |
| Misery Signals Controller | 3.5 |
| I have always had reservations about Misery Signals so when I picked this up I had big reservations. Boy was I surprised though. Many of the previous hang ups that distanced me from this band have dissapated. The vocals have finally been sorted with the growls finally reaching the deep end of the spectrum though the clean vocals still feel a little bit too misplaced in places. Similarly every song flows seemlessly and beautifully, something that is a major step up from the first two albums. Because of this, it is the first album I willingly sat through to the end. A job very well done indeed. |
| Meshuggah Nothing (Re-Release) | 4.0 |
| Engineer The Dregs | 4.0 |
| The Great Deceiver Life Is Wasted On The Living | 3.0 |
| Opeth Watershed | 3.0 |
| Puddle of Mudd Life On Display | 1.0 |
| Disfear Live the Storm | 4.0 |
| Nothing Stays Gold Nothing Stays Gold | 2.0 |
| Meshuggah None | 3.5 |
| Cursed I | 4.0 |
| In Flames The Jester Race | 2.5 |
This album may have been a genre defining moment but it means nothing in the face of its banality. It displays promise in songs such as Artifacts of the Black Rain with dual guitar riffs that rival their inspiration, Iron Maiden in terms of both speed and intensity.
However it is these guitar riffs that are the downfall of this album, they unbalance everything, their speed causing them to metaphorically run away from Anders Friden's vocals as he breathlessly tries to keep up. When he does manage to finally catch up to the guitars in their game of soloing one-upmanship, they overpower his vocals with riffs that are near stretched to death across four to five songs. If one could hear the vocals that while competant, they grate due to their higher pitch. In the end it would take another album before In Flames reached the pinnacle of their old sound, the brilliant Colony. |
| The Gathering Souvenirs | 4.5 |
| Souvenirs is the Gathering's most complete work. It is not as sonically confrontational as If_then_else but it is more potent in its emotional output. The ambience used along with the inherent minimalism of the songwriting and instrumentation allows for Anneke's voice to flow free in the open air. The free flowing nature, through the restraint of instruments and instruments, allows for the listener to be isolated in that open space. It creates a greater emotional impact upon the listener than any epic melodrama can. It's sombre, Cliff Martinez-esque soundscapes completely encapsulate everything that the Gathering's sound stands for; the haunting, dark beauty as the world just passes you by. A stunning piece of art. |
| 7 Angels 7 Plagues Jhazmyne's Lullaby | 4.5 |
| This album very much forms the bridge between hardcore and metalcore however do not let that phase you as this is possibly one of the most emotive albums you may ever listen to. It melds shredding riffs and hard, pounding drumming with beautiful acoustic pieces and the piano solo of Jhazmyne's Lullaby to create an experience that will batter and sooth you but always leave you with hope. This album should not be simply remembered as a groundbreaking moment in genre definition but as a powerful example of skill and passion that many lacklustre attempts (including Misery Signals) fail to live up to today. |
| Insomnium Across the Dark | 4.5 |
| The pinnacle of Insomnium's career so far. While Above The Weeping World created songs of beauty and power, each one lacked that level of memorability. This finally remedies that problem with nearly every song being a powerhouse. Do not be mistaken, this album is not perfect, it suffers from repetitiveness in songs such as Weighed Down With Sorrow and Sevanen's vocals, despite their intensity, still suffer from being illegable at certain points. Regardless this is an album that should not be overlooked as it is a truly stunning effort. |
| In Mourning Shrouded Divine | 3.5 |
| Be'lakor The Frail Tide | 3.5 |
| Be'lakor Stone's Reach | 4.5 |
| Cursed II | 3.0 |
| Cursed, the band that reverberate upon bitterness and brooding. This album is a marked improvement over its predecessor. The songs are not as inherently catchy as the songwriting of one but here it is more manageable, more nuanced. A slight breather between songs is allowed. That is not to say that it has become anymore accesible though. The guitars, bass and drums are still as dense as granite and about as penetrable too. It mocks any ideas of accesibility with the cynical twang of a low notes in Void before sticking a single, dissonant middle finger up at the listener. Accesibility to Cursed is only step closer to the mainstream and in the end they don't want that. They cast it out of their dark, rusted world, prefering to live simply as the Cursed. |
| In Flames Colony | 4.0 |
| The pinnacle of the old In Flames sound. Everything here is precise, balanced and crafted brilliantly. The riffs and solos alter between fast and slows tempos but, bar the bass, they never dominate the other instruments instead opting to rise ahead only when needed. It boosts the aggression of the drumming and particularly Anders Friden's volcanic roars who sounds like he is spitting lava with every syllable. Everything combines to create a beast of aggression that crushes with grandiose strides as much as it tears and rips with its speed. This is the last great In Flames album of the old sound. It was only followed by Clayman, an album that wallowed in it's own gluttony before the change to a completely different sound. It may have been the banal The Jester Race that was credited with the founding of the Melodic Death Metal genre but it was this album and possibly Whoracle that are the true examples of In Flames' sound and the ones that should be remembered. |
| Avenged Sevenfold Avenged Sevenfold | 1.5 |
| The Empire Shall Fall Awaken | 3.0 |
| Soilwork Natural Born Chaos | 2.5 |
| Soilwork A Predator's Portrait | 3.5 |
| Cold Year Of The Spider | 3.5 |
| Fear Factory Obsolete | 4.0 |
| Fear Factory Mechanize | 4.0 |
