Today is a great day for Spiritbox fans. They have unleashed their brand new album Tsunami Sea, their most bombastic and genre bending venture yet. This album is a combination of their crushing riffs, heart-wrenching vocals, and industrial sounds that combine Nu-Metal nostalgia and Modern Metal at its finest. Tsunami Sea is everything you love about Spiritbox, magnified by a thousand suns. They are a band that doesn’t miss because of their uncompromising concept of defying all expectations, Ironically, you simply can’t put them in a box. Eternal Blue is one of my to 40 albums ever made, so I had incredibly high expectations coming into Tsunami Sea. However, it is impossible and unfair to compare albums, as they’re entirely separate in every way. Tsunami Sea is a monument of brutality that stands entirely on its own. It is extreme. The spectrum and enormity of this album is staggering. I’ve only heard this level of extremity a few times in my life, and I love it. Spiritbox are experts at absolutely pummeling you with riffs, then soothing your soul to a meditative state with beautiful clear vocals and smooth rhythms. Tsunami Sea expands on this concept and does it expertly with wall-of-sound production. To say this is a special album is an understatement. It is dedicated entirely to the late and great Spiritbox bassist Bill Burr wo unexpectedly passed away last July. This tribute is gut-wrenching and so beautiful to all who knew Bill and how much he contributed to the Metal community.
Tsunami Sea is the rawest Spiritbox album yet. It is a lot to take in upon the first couple listens. This is going to be a slowburner for the rest of the month for me. This release feels like a long time coming after listening to Eternal Blue approximately 500 times since it came out. It is everything I expected, but so much more. I feel like adding Josh Gilbert to the lineup was a brilliant idea. The bass and backing vocals add so much to this record. He and Courtney have great harmonies and chemistry, which adds texture and depth that is vastly different from Eternal Blue. I think Zev Rose is a bit quieter on this record, but still adds some groove that breaks up the brutality of the seemingly endless layers of guitars. I prefer the guitar sounds on Eternal Blue, just because there were more layers of melodic harmony that added heart and atmosphere to the album. But, if this album is a personification of anger and pain, the instrumentation, lyrics, level of distortion, and truly inhuman growls amplify the theme perfectly. The highlight is really Courtney LaPlante’s vocals and storytelling on this album. It’s like she’s narrating the struggles they’ve been through in such a fluent way. It just hits so hard, it lingers for hours after you listen to it. She is a once-in-a-generation vocalist with unbridled power and shock factor that will last her entire career. Tsunami Sea is Courtney LaPlante at her apex.
Overall, this is a great Modern Metal record. This style of Music is not usually my thing nor area of expertise, but Spiritbox are the pinnacle of this new wave of Progressive Metalcore/Deathcore. They’ve brought brutality to the mainstream and crossed-genres of fans from every walk of life. Tsunami Sea shows the impact and the pure power of this band to absolutely captivate with their sonic presence. I love this band and I am so far really impressed with Tsunami Sea.
My favorite songs so far: Ride The Wave, Perfect Soul, Tsunami Sea, A Haven With Two Faces
Here’s a short list of new singles and videos to check out! It’s approaching spring which is always a big release time of the year. A lot has been coming out, it’s hard to keep track of it all. There are new releases from Lacuna Coil, Killswitch Engage, All That Remains, and many more that I’ve been delving into. I am considering sharing my thoughts in a Review sampler once in awhile. Right now, I am working on “Part 2” of my Favorite Heavy Metal Album list, but life stresses have made it difficult for me to focus. I plan to finish it next week. That’ll be one of the last lists for awhile
So, here’s a list of new music and my latest discoveries!
Awesome Orchestral Cover of Metallica
American Melodic Metal Releases New Collab single, Algorithm Recommendation To Me
Modern Progressive Metal Band Shocks with new Groove Oriented Track
American Progressive Metal Band Releases New Single. Killer song with great riffs and vocals
KSE is back and tackling the System. I want to like this new record, but the mix killed it. What do you think?
Papa Roach Drop New Compelling Single, Bringing back the 2000s Rock with good hooks
Italian Heavy Metal band Deathless Legacy Drops Gorgeous New Emotive Single
French Metalcore band LANDMVRKS and Mat Welsh from While She Sleeps
My Second Most Streamed song of February, New Prog Metalcore Discovery
The Ocean – Unconformities an instrumental Prog Track gets vocals
I began the impossible task of cataloging my favorite Metal albums of all time at the beginning of February. It’s so arduous because I could easily list 100 albums. It started with about 47 albums. For the readers’ sake, I narrowed it down to 20. I love Metal as if that isn’t obvious with this decade-old blog. I’ve been listening to Rock and Heavy Metal my entire life. I have loved many bands and albums over the last 18 years of exclusively listening to Heavy music. The goal of this was to critically think about why I love these albums so much. The other goal of writing this article was to create a more personal approach to lists and share my slightly unconventional taste in Metal records.
When I asked the internet about their favorite Metal albums, I found a lot of the usual suspects on there; Black Sabbath, Metallica, Slayer, Dream Theater, and Opeth. It made me wonder why none of these ended up on my list. The impact these bands and their releases had on the Metal genre is undeniable and I enjoy many of their songs. I can’t sit and listen to a whole album by any of those artists. None of the “conventional Metal” albums hold my interest for long. I went to Rate Your Music and scoured their Metal chart to see if I had forgotten any of my favorite Metal albums, and I found my taste to be once again drastically different from the majority. Going back through other’s lists and listening to these albums, I realize how weird my taste is. My tastes remain heavily in Progressive and Power Metal.
You won’t find a lot of “classics” on this list. I think it’s because I was raised with so many different kinds of music to where I seek out a lot more variation. Sticking to a theme isn’t always my thing. I like unconventional artists who push technicality and emotions to the ultimate limits. I seek out singers with multi-octave ranges and unique tones. I like heavy, fast drums, dueling guitars, and extremely punchy basslines. I like Metal which makes me think, tells a story, and evokes profound soul-deep emotion. I love albums that toe the line between Opera and Metal, and that don’t play by any genre rules. I like it Heavy as fuck, but well balanced with beautiful melodies. None of these albums on the list will be a surprise to those who know me and will be hopefully interesting to those who don’t.
As with all my posts, music is subjective. This list doesn’t aim to categorize “the best albums of Metal”, because such a feat is just not feasible to me. This is based on just my personal taste. They’re not even in order by most favorites, because what is considered my favorite is highly based on my mood. I just made a master list and narrowed it down to the 20 that are the most important to highlight my taste. It should give readers a better sense of what I listen to regularly and just personal taste. Let me know about your favorite Metal albums below in the comments, I would love to see if any of these albums resonated with anyone else the same way they did with me.
Devin Townsend
I decided to do Part One entirely of my favorite albums by Devin Townsend. Being my favorite artist of all time his music accounts for most of my listening habits. He is so influential to me and such an integral part of my life. I couldn’t choose only one album from his discography to list. Devin has created some of the most special music over the years. My entire music taste has been a long search for artists who wish to achieve the same heights of emotional and technical ability. Maybe it sounds elitist, but he’s my absolute favorite musician and writer. I said I wouldn’t let an artist become my entire personality. After hearing Z2 by Devin Townsend Project in 2014, his music took over my listening rotation. His music is mostly what I listened to for eight months straight or more. It was so transcendental and became so important to uplifting me and inspiring my music and dreams. That powerful connection with music is what I always strive to find, and I hope other people can find such a connection. Nothing compares to that connection. I don’t think I’ll ever find anything like it again. I find everything he releases to be personally impactful and spiritual. Spirituality and Music have been intertwined since the dawn of when man would sing and beat bones on skins for entertainment. This relationship between the two didn’t occur to me until I discovered Devin Townsend, and that’s the main reason why I am such a fan of his music. I’ve been wanting to write this article for years, but never thought it was a good idea until this year. I focused exclusively on Devin’s heaviest albums or what I think are his heaviest albums, and chose my absolute favorites. Honestly, I love all of his material. Everything he puts out is valuable to me, emotionally or just musically.
Going back through Devin’s catalog for this article was such an incredible journey this time. Experiencing his music again and thinking about why I love these albums and songs so much just fueled me to keep going with my creative projects. Every time I consider taking a step back from music or writing and think about going back to school, Devin reminds me of where my heart and talent truly lie. His music inspires me to take my dreams to the absolute pinnacle of where they can go. If he never gave up despite everyone telling him his ideas were crazy or he was clinically insane for thinking of them, then nobody should ever give up on anything they want to achieve in life. His musical career has survived the worst possible things someone can go through. If he can do it through pain and darkness, then so can I. I truly believe he is the most underrated artist of all time and should be listed among the absolute greats, not just in Metal, but in all music. Considering the power of his message, his virtuoso guitar playing, and his immense possibly four-octave vocal range, I have no idea why this guy isn’t as big as Eric Clapton and Paul McCartney. His music may be crazy and extreme at times, but it is always beautiful and profound. His contribution to music should never be forgotten and deserves a lot more credit. The albums below are essential to that thought.
I think of Devin and I like kindred spirits, because I relate to his music and his journey on such a deeply personal level.
City- Strapping Young Lad (1997)
City, listed as one of the greatest Metal albums of all time as coined by Kerrang and Revolver, is a bombastic assault on the senses and psyche. It is the most extreme album I have ever heard in my life. City is Los Angeles personified; An overwhelming chaotic darkness that you have no choice but to dive into. This album is beyond all reason, all genres, and everything we knew about Metal. Extreme music wasn’t new in 1997, but it had never gone to this cracked-out level as City did. This is an audible documentation of someone in complete turmoil in one of the hardest times of their life. Devin had moved to Los Angeles from Canada and was sleeping on friends’ couches whilst trying to figure out life after Steve Vai and a copious amount of drugs. It is the most raw level of dealing with one’s emotions audibly. It is pain from the depths of a soul coming out in the most angry and anxiety-fueled ways you can ever experience. It is an audible account of someone’s mental health breaking down due to their environment. It is a rawness artists aspire to, but will never reach. Nobody expresses the pain of human existence like Devin Townsend. While Strapping Young Lad started as a farce to make fun of the Heavy Metal scene, they ended up creating the most iconic Extreme Metal records.
I discovered this album for the first time in 2018. Finally, I decided to go through Devin’s entire catalog and do a deep dive. This was one of the best decisions I have ever made. Listening to Strapping Young Lad is a religious experience, in a sense. It is a spiritual cleanse, a purge of all the darkness and rage I think most people hold inside. First time I heard this record, my jaw dropped to the floor and tears flooded to my eyes. It was just so overwhelming. Devin has this ability to take the idea of catharsis and take it to the soul-crushing extremes. City, and most SYL albums, are painful to listen to. It’s chaotic, abrasive, cloying, and overwhelming beyond anxiety. It’s like El Paso traffic on a weekday with Metallica in town. It’s like the height of COVID where everything is telling us the world is ending, we’re all going to die, and humanity is a shit show. Despite all these negative descriptors, City makes me genuinely happy to be alive and able to experience this album. I still get happy tears listening to the utter brilliance of Gene Hoglan and Devin Townsend together. Gene’s drumming on this record makes all the hair stand up all over my entire body. His drumming with the riffs on this album is just genial to me. “All Hail The New Flesh” has to be one of the greatest Metal songs I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s just so damn relentlessly fast, and still so groove-oriented. City cements why Gene Hoglan is one of my favorite drummers of all time. He is the only drummer that could’ve drummed on these SYL albums. I wish I was half as good as he is at drums.
City, it’s insane how great this album still sounds today. It’s too short, but somehow just right as intense as it is for thirty-nine minutes. It is all so extreme, but ends one of the most philosophical mind-bending tracks. I think this is one of the highlights of Devin’s career as a Progressive Metal musician. There’s just something about the way the chaos ends with such a deep, dark, and interesting track. The transition is a stroke of brilliance. I just love Devin’s ability to mix so many different styles in one album. “Spirituality” is kind of the soul predecessor to the next album on this list, Ocean Machine: Biomech. Listening to it and Ocean Machine back to back is an eerie experience that can never be replicated. Experiencing all the sides of Devin is a revelation, but City will always be the apex of the journey for me. This is where music became limitless for me. I began to understand how extremism and Prog can work together. It was an eye-opening first experience that I will cherish forever. “City” is an album that will forever be on the timelines of Metal. I wish Devin’s other albums received as much press and acclaim as this one. Maybe he’d be as big as Opeth and Dream Theater, and rightfully so.
Favorite Songs; All Hail the New Flesh, Spirituality, Detox
2.Ocean Machine: Biomech- Devin Townsend (1997)
When I am asked what my favorite album of all time is, Ocean Machine is my immediate response. Choosing an absolute favorite is difficult and contrived in a way. There have been so many iconic, influential, and important Metal albums since the 1960s. Choosing one out of a million albums just seems elitist in a way. Though, I can’t help but let one album define my ultimate personal taste. Ocean Machine best highlights my favorite sounds in Metal and also highlights some of my personality traits. Ocean Machine was written at a critically important time in Devin’s life when he had to choose his Mental well-being over the success of Strapping Young Lad. He began to notice a cognitive discourse between the anger of SYL, and the solo music he was writing while at home. The two extremes lead to Devin being diagnosed with Bipolar disorder. Somehow his mental health issues became audibly documented, which is such an interesting experience to hear the separation of two personalities. It’s an incredible feat, even if it was entirely unintentional. Through Ocean Machine and his other solo works, Devin began to heal and move on from the most tumultuous years of his life. You can experience this journey with him through his music. Unintentionally, Devin became an outlet for so many people struggling and he built a unique cult following that found immense positivity through his music. This is one of the most profoundly beautiful things I’ve ever seen in music and is why Ocean Machine is so vital to me. It’s the ultimate catalyst to healing, and god knows, humanity has a lot to heal from.
Ocean Machine is where Devin’s “Power of Positivity” through music began. Songs like “Life” began this new voice for Devin and allowed a connection to form with new lifelong friends and fans. Everyone should experience this album at least once in their life. It is a Progressive and atmospheric triumph with exquisite guitar chord progression and fantastic vocals. It is a love child of 90’s Alternative, Pink Floyd, Rush, and Genesis… Yet, the album stands on its own entirely. I’ve never heard anything quite like it in my entire life. I feel like describing it is such an arduous task. Ocean Machine is complex; Still one of the most complex records I have ever heard. The atmosphere in it captures sitting by the ocean in the dark alone so vividly. It paints such a unique picture in my head with such profound feelings. It’s loss, it’s freedom, it’s rejoicing, and so many complex human emotions. Devin is the most proficient at capturing these sentiments I have ever heard. Thus, the most epic quad of songs I have ever heard is what makes Ocean Machine an everlasting one-in-a-million experience. I strive for this level of emotional depth and positivity every day of my life, but still have a lot of work to portray this message. Devin is on another level of self expression. That quality comes out on Ocean Machine so poetically. That’s why it’s my favorite album. It’s not held back by commercialism. It’s not refined. It’s not heavily edited. It’s raw and real tangible emotion. It is a musical of the Human Condition of sorts, and I just can’t get enough of it.
Most call it a trio, but I consider the last track to be an integral part of the journey. This quad begins with the heartbreaking “Funeral”, where Devin continues to hash out the death of a childhood friend. It continues with the painful, epic, and droning “Bastard”, one of the darkest songs I have ever heard in my life. The guitar on that song is absolutely sensational and so unique to anything I’ve ever heard. “The Death of Music” is a long epic; a dark Peter Gabriel-esque tribal track that perfectly sums up the theme of the album “It’s like a death becomes Musical”. Devin’s crooning on the bridge “Don’t die on me. Don’t go away. When I need you here. In my need” is one of the most spine-chilling things I have ever heard. This song is a milestone. It’s a once-in-a-lifetime underrated masterpiece, and I love it irrevocably. Ocean Machine closes with one of the most depression-inducing songs I’ve heard. While it’s a bonus track, it was added to the album later on. “Thing Beyond Things” is everything about unexplainable heartache sonified. It was originally a demo and featured in his collection “NoiseScapes” as one of the oldest recordings of Devin. It features an unbelievable 10-second fry vocal scream featuring harmonics that only Devin can seemingly reach. It is the most epic scream I have ever heard. Devin puts his body on the line for music again and again, and his ability to perform these songs even today is a superhuman feat. This album is what made Devin Townsend my favorite artist of all time and it will remain my favorite probably for life. I’m considering doing a bass playthrough of the entire album on Twitch or Youtube this year!
Favorite Songs; Voices In The Fan, Seventh Wave, Funeral, Regulator
3. The New Black- Strapping Young Lad (2006)
This is one of the first albums I put down while compiling this list. When I think of my favorite Metal albums, The New Black is one I never talk about but it lives in my mind and heart forever. This is Strapping Young Lad’s last record. I think it’s a perfect representation of SYL’s immensely unique sound. This album may not have received the acclaim of “City” and “Alien”. I still find it to be one of my favorite albums Devin has ever released. It is highly influential to the music I want to write. The guitar and drum sounds on it are unlike anything I’ve ever heard. “The New Black” is still as extreme and heavy as ever, but this is where Devin’s awakening in refinement and self-editing began. His extreme approach to music would continue with “Ziltoid; The Omniscient” and “Deconstruction” which are the “last breaths of SYL”, but this album marked the end of an era. This album would separate the fans forever. Many have not moved on from SYL and still refuse to accept Devin as a solo artist. That is how impactful SYL was on the Metal community. While it brought Extreme Metal and Prog together for me, it seemingly separated the SYL fanbase I understand why people have not moved on from SYL, but they’re missing out on the transformation of Devin and everything he’s created since.
“The New Black” is an eclectic mix of Prog Metal, Extreme Metal, and Industrial rhythms that keeps you guessing with every listen. I find this album to be the turning point of Devin’s vocals, where his refined operatic style began to come out. It appeared on other tracks before this album a bit, but not as forefront or epic as on The New Black This is probably one of the greatest transformations in Music. His grasp on clean vocals and fry vocals is unparalleled in music to me. Nobody does this transition quite like Devin, with such range, technicality, and pure unedited emotion. It is quite a sound to behold on any record of his from “The New Black” and on. This album is where my favorite music of all time began to take its shape. I also think this album has some of the best riffs in SYL history. The Title Track, “Far Beyond Metal”, and my absolute favorite song “Almost Again” are filled with groovy and pummeling riffs with the unique Devin Townsend tone. I hear these riffs ghosted on anything from Gojira to Periphery to Orbit Culture. SYL and “The New Black’ impacted Metal a lot more than I originally thought. I had no idea what a big deal SYL was to Metal. I don’t participate in forums or fan-groups, so it wasn’t until other artists started talking about SYL did I realize how influential they were.
Now, listening to this album back to back, I hear so many bands that borrowed from this album. But, I have yet to hear anyone recreate the magic and utter devastation of “Almost Again”. This song is my favorite SYL song, right above “Love?”, “Spirituality”, and “Skeksis”. This song has one of the fastest and most incredible drum parts I have ever heard. It feels like a million volts of electricity pummeling your heart and neurons. Gene Hoglan really defied the parameters of speed drumming on this song, to the point where few drummers can even play this song today and it has only been played live a couple times. The technicality blows me away on “Almost Again”, but SYL doesn’t have a slouched song. They’re pioneers of Extreme and Progressive Metal. Every song on this album is a triumph to me. “The New Black” forever altered my music taste, and I’ve sought out that balance of heavy and Prog ever since. Devin always achieves a unique blend of styles, but The New Black is definitely one of my favorites. I love that it doesn’t sound like anything else in that era of music. Yet, I find it nostalgic to that time where Industrial Metal was popular. This era of Metal had a unique atmosphere to me that hasn’t been recreated since. It’s a desolate feeling to listen to. It’s eerie, but in a good way. It has a dystopian futuristic feel that would fit in a Bladerunner or Dune film. It’s such a cool experience I’ve only had when listening to Industrial Metal. I think SYL is one of the best at capturing this vibe.
Favorite Songs; Almost Again, The New Black, Wrong Side
4. Accelerated Evolution- The Devin Townsend Band (2003)
The Devin Townsend band, while it shares members with the DTP, was only created to make two keystone albums for Devin Townsend. This album was a huge departure from his other works. It was more personal, less about being heavy or extreme. The band was put together in under a year with local musicians to create a whole fresh experience. It is the polar opposite of the self-titled SYL album that was recorded at the exact same time. The Devin Townsend Band began touring with SYL after the albums came out, and they were both really well critically received. When I discovered Devin in 2014, I had never heard of another musician being so prolific. Two bands at once and multiple albums in one year under different projects was inhuman to me. His explosive creativity always astounds me. I think this band was created as a buffer for the chaos that SYL brought. This was a group of people that Devin could just jam his ideas with and create whatever came out of his head without the need for a theme or time constraints. Music is not a job or a hobby for Devin, it is a necessity to express emotion and work through it all. This necessity birthed what I think is one of the greatest songs ever written: Deadhead.
Accelerated Evolution is full of quirky, Hard Rock, and Progressive Metal tracks that rise up quick and soar above anything I have ever heard before. There is an intangible vibe to this album that reminds me of Superunknown by Soundgarden, Ten by Pearl Jam, and Rush. It was the most concise, most hook-heavy, and most well-thought-out album Devin had put out in that era. It was less frantic, more groove-driven, and Industrial at the right point in Music. It was catchy without going too commercialistic. It had the potential to be as popular as Fear Factory at the time, but of course, it didn’t receive the promotion it deserved. I think Accelerated Evolution has some of Devin’s absolute best guitar work, especially the solo on “Suicide” and the complete guitar solo track “Away” which still mesmerizes me to this day. “Away” is such an underrated guitar track. I like every song on this album and think each one is very distinct from anything ever released as usual. I believe this is one of the strongest albums in his extensive catalog and will always be one of my favorites. Most of my current music material emulates this album to some degree because the guitar tone and drums are just of the utmost quality. I like big sounds and big “Rock” mixes, and this album is mixed so well for 2002. Devin uses so much reverb in his mixes and his guitar effects, it’s become an inside joke among him and the fans. I love it. I love how all encompassing his mixes are. Accelerated Evolution was the first album I noticed this “wall of sound” production, and I fell in love with it.
I just have to talk about “Deadhead’. This song is one of Devin’s most popular songs and has become unanimous with how people identify him. It’s an ambiguous song that has never been revealed to what it exactly means to Devin. But, he always describes it as a “song about love” and a song “written for his wife”, which fits the relationship theme of the album. It is one of the first songs Devin ever wrote on his very first electric guitar. He was very inspired by the industrial Metal band Godflesh at the time of writing most of the album. I think that influence helped create the unique and devastating atmosphere of “Deadhead”, but also a lot of SYL’s atmosphere. I had never heard a more emotionally painful song in my life. It’s the drone, the slow tension of the guitar, the backbeat of the drums, and the harmonic fry scream that emulates pain. I had heard a handful of singers’ harmonic screams before, but none to the frequency or sheer audible pain of Devin. This song healed things in me that I didn’t even know still pained me. That’s how powerful this song is. It can be interpreted as a difficult relationship, a first love, or a really dark break-up song. I think all of these interpretations of painful situations hit me like a freight train at once. So, I listened to the song until the pain went away. This course of time was about three months. While some people may think it’s unhealthy to listen to the same song on repeat for that long. I find whatever helps you heal to be absolutely necessary. I fear to think where I’d be in my mental health journey without this song, or any of Devin’s music. I truly think there’s a song in Devin’s discography that can heal anyone. I don’t know if that’s what he was shooting for with Accelerated Evolution. But, it impacted me as gigantic as the mix is and I think it’s impacting even more people over a decade later. It still hits me like it did when I first heard it, especially the live versions where he even exceeds the original power. His music is forever, and Deadhead is the flagship of that infinite contribution.
My favorite Songs; Deadhead. Traveller, Away
5. Transcendence- Devin Townsend Project (2016)
I featured the very last SYL album, so it’s no surprise I’d feature the last album ever released by DTP, the power group we all loved for a decade. At the point the DTP was working on Transcendence, I saw a big change in Devin. He started to relinquish some control of his musical projects and delegate to the other guys, Ryan, Mike, Dave, and Beav in the DTP. Transcendence was a true band collaboration, which is something we hadn’t seen with Devin’s solo work. It was a promising turning point to solidify the project as a band, and maybe grow it further for future releases and add more personality to it rather than just being one of Devin’s solos. And boy, did I love this idea emphatically. I had become very attached to Ryan Van Poederooyen, the drummer, who is still one of my favorite drummers of all time. That powerhouse of a drummer and a very inspirational self-sufficient guy inspired me to pick up the drums again, and I’ve had so much fun with the instrument and learning his interesting patterns. DTP had become kind of a buffer to Devin’s eccentric “madman” style of music. Ryan and co kept Devin grounded and definitely helped hone in his ideas for one of the best Prog Metal albums ever, Transcendence.
Transcendence is an anthemic Progressive Metal album that’s a full-circle journey with incredibly complex guitar riffs and one of the best drum performances since Dream Theater’s Images and Words. It is a huge-sounding record that makes the hair on my arms stand straight up every single time I listen to it. I think this is the “magnum opus” of the DTP. It’s perfectly constructed with each track just flowing together in perfect timing and harmony. The Wall-of-sound production from Devin and Periphery’s Nolly Getgood is utterly exquisite. I will never get over how good this record sounds. Is it mixed to sound good on every possible form of media? God, no. This is an album you have to listen to in FLAC with spatial audio either 2.1 with a sub or 5.1, and that’s perfectly acceptable. I don’t want to listen to Devin’s music on my “airbuds” while I’m cleaning. I want to sit down and listen to this album, and have a completely immersive audio experience. I listen to DTP’s music to be uplifted, emotionally conquered, and unironically “transcended” to a different state of mind. That’s exactly the intent of this album and it achieves it so loudly. It’s the loudest mix on a DTP album, so you can hear each member with perfect clarity. The result is actually mind-boggling. I have no idea how such a perfect mix was achieved. There are so many layers to this album.
The choirs, immense synths, many guitar tracks, and the biggest sounding drums ever recorded. Yet, it sounds so damn good. On songs like “Failure” and the instant classic “Stormbending” you can pick out each musician, and everyone gets a “solo” of sorts. The heaviness, and yet the airiness and spine-tingling sounds this album achieves are unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. My favorite song of the album tops it all off for me, though. “Stars” is a bombastic track with incredible vocals, syncopated guitar and bass, and epic imagery. I was lucky enough to watch this song come to life on stream in only a couple hours. It was a once-in-a-lifetime experience to watch Devin speed-craft such a beautiful song. His talent knows no limits and really came to shine on this song in particular.
It’s a mind-blowing emotional and thought-provoking album that makes you feel like you can rise above absolutely anything. Whether it be self-doubt, social anxiety, the negativity of social media, the depressing news media, or isolation, this album works through all those aspects in a very logical sense. The connection I made with this record is just so affable, one article where I’m keeping it as short as possible is not enough to go through each song. It’s just so monumental to me. How do you possibly articulate an album that encapsulates everything you stand for and believes in? I can say just go listen to arguably the most epic and perfect track on this album “Higher”. That song alone may make you understand just how significant this album is and get the message loud and clear, “Don’t let the bastards grind you down.” Transcendence and its message have never been more relevant than in 2025 with a world full of hatred and divisiveness. “Higher” is about rising above negativity and making your own life without the influence of others. It’s taken from the concept of Buddhism and Transcendental Meditation, which are teachings I have brought into my own life. I will always associate this song with Ryan, too, as it’s my favorite work from him on drums and part of his teachings.
In 2016, I was lucky enough to partially experience this album live in person. Seeing DTP on one of their last tours was phenomenal. I still can’t believe I got to see them headline at a one-off show in Denver. It was an experience I am forever grateful for. I thought the DTP would go on and last for their entire careers as musicians, but sadly, the project was disbanded in 2018 after the release of Ocean Machine Live at Plovdiv.
Favorite songs; Stars, Failure, Stormbending
6. Empath- Devin Townsend (2019)
While I’m grateful for the DTP and I still love the guys, I found out that I was so wrong about Devin needing people to reign him in and tame him. This idea is good for some albums, but when it comes to Devin’s unhinged visions, some of the best music has been created without constraints. Empath was a collection of ideas Devin had long before deciding to disband DTP, but he never had the time to sit down and expand on these ideas. Talking with Frank Zappa guitarist Mike Keneally over the phone, he would let these ideas flow out. The two compiled an album together in this manner and went into the studio to record what I think is one of the best Prog Metal albums ever created. This album is all of Devin’s ideas, personality, and deepest thoughts without limit. It is infinite in reverberation, full orchestra, full choir, and about thirty very different musicians. It’s a weird personification of Devin going on an island vacation with his family, but it’s also the journey of life in a chaotic and profound Metal Opera. There are so many layers and sounds on this record, that it returns him to that “musical madman” viewpoint. Empath was Devin’s huge launch into solo work 12 years after his last solo release, and I believe it is one of his best works but also one of the best works of music ever created.
Empath is a fantastical Prog Metal album with all of Devin’s past and present influences combined with infinite layers and the genial guitar work and mixing of Mike Keneally. It is “The most Devin album that Devin has ever recorded” as said by the Angry MetalGuy. This album is insane and watching him create it over two years was insane in the best way possible. Witnessing this album, as well as all of Devin’s albums, is one of the biggest reasons I am thankful to be alive, to be honest.
Empath is an explosive Prog Metal album with Opera, Symphonic, Extreme, and Ambient influences created by some of the best musicians I’ve heard in my entire life. It is Devin Townsend to the one-millionth power, and it took so many people to make the sounds of this man’s Synthesia-laden mind come to life. Mike Keneally took these colors, patterns, and shapes and helped Devin translate them to a team of musicians, essentially learning a new language and creating one of the best relationships in music. Somehow all of this chaos, passion, multitude of emotions, and influences came together in a Prog Metal epic. It took three drummers, eight vocalists, four guitarists, three producers, a choir, a pedal steel guitar player, a whistle player, and immense work from Mike, Devin, and Nolly Getgood to create this epic. It is Devin without limits or constraints, and my god, it is incredibly beautiful. While it is the least accessible and commercial album he has ever created, it is a piece of pure art that will be forever irreplicable. It may not be the best example of his vocals or guitar solos, but it is a purge of all the sounds that have ever existed in a brilliant musician’s head, and I think it’s incredible.
It’s a soundtrack to Devin Townsend by Devin Townsend, and predictably, I love it. The other musicians also really shine on this album, exposing me to the brilliance of Mike Keneally, Morgan Agren, and Nathan Navarro. Nathan’s bass lines on this album are absolutely sensational. It’s one of the things I love most on this album. You can hear him decimate the bass on “Evermore” and “Genesis” with his unique thumb-picking that just fits so well with Devin’s guitar playing and tone. These collaborations are just so perfect, it seems as though it was all meant to happen this way. It made the shock and pain of disbanding the DTP worth it to me because Devin finally had musicians who understood him and could meet the expectations of brilliant musicality.
I want to talk about some of the songs. I think “Why?” is one of the most special songs in Devin’s entire catalog and highlights his perfect operatic vocal ability so beautifully. Metal and opera are no strangers to each other, but rarely do I hear male vocals so well done in this mix. It’s so beautiful. It really speaks to the message of Empath and how relationships with Empaths work in a group setting. I really relate to this song, but also most of the songs on the album I also think “Borderlands” gets stuck in my head more than any Devin Townsend song. It’s just so catchy and rhythmically interesting. While it’s kind of ambiguous and seemingly simplistic, it’s such a deep Jungian concept. It attaches music to a “Muse” and describes upholding a balance to sate the “Muse” and a nuclear family, giving Devin a literal sign to make this album. The way his mind works is incredible and it comes out so profoundly on this album, but no more profoundly than on “Requiem” and the epic “Singularity”. “Requiem” is a closer to the era of DTP and a look ahead to the future of Devin’s music. A choir echoes the beautiful chorus to “Stormbending” which is probably the biggest song DTP ever released and gives you a feeling of closure. Devin’s full circle approach to his music where he reuses older lyrics is a personal touch that always captivates me. I love how he “rips his own material off”.
“Singularity” is the final to this epic transformation of Devin as a solo artist. I think it’s a goodbye to his previous works, but also an insight into the “Moth” project coming out in 2025 where he moves to Symphonic work. This is one of the most epic and gorgeous songs I’ve ever heard in my life. It’s split up into multiple movements that all encompass every style of music he’s ever done. It’s got industrial Meshuggah parts reminiscent of SYL, a little bit of Transcendence and Epicloud, Infinity, and Addicted. It is one of my favorite songs he’s ever written. I listen to the “Here Comes the Sun” section of repeat, because Anneke’s vocals are just so uniquely beautiful on “Through the Storm, may you become a Rainbow.:” This song mirrors the epics of Dream Theater, Porcupine Tree, and While Heaven Wept in such an ornately Devin Townsend way. I truly believe this is Devin’s magnum opus. I love this song so hugely, I think everyone NEEDS to hear it in full at least once in their life. It’s like listening to a film soundtrack. I envision a short film: A man goes through unbearably dark valleys of loneliness and despair to rise and transcend into the beautiful nebulas with love and light. It’s a sublime piece of music, one of my absolute favorite songs ever written. I will be listening to it and Empath for the rest of my life and honestly trying to recreate this brilliance in my own music, although I don’t think it’s possible for anyone to ever replicate it.
I await to see if “The Moth” is as visionary as “Singularity”.
Favorite Songs: Singularity, Genesis, Why?
To sum it all up, I love Devin’s music irrevocably. Anything he puts out is significant to me in multiple ways. His music always seems to find me when I need it the most. Whether it be a death in the family, a break up, an injury, or living in an isolated place, his music is always what lifts me up. That’s what his music means to me; It’s about rising about any obstacle and any darkness while accepting everything life has to offer. On “Genesis” Devin screams on the chorus “Let there be light let there be moon! Let there be stars and let there be you! Let there be monsters, let there be pain! Let us begin to live again From the top to the bottom genesis!” I repeat this message in my head every day. It’s become my mantra. It seems to get me through absolutely anything. Through Devin, I’ve learned to accept pain and find the strength to rise out of it. That’s what his music means to me. Throughout his music career, I find his message of “transcendence” to be loud and clear. Whatever happens in life, you can transcend it and come out of it stronger than you were before. Bad shit is always going to happen, and you can’t fight it. Pure acceptance of the journey has helped me more than any pharmaceutical I have ever tried. His music is literally better than drugs for me. His music is essential to every aspect of my life. I know a lot of people find his music this way. Some people even wonder if he’s a demigod walking and screaming about cheeseburgers among us. I think he’s just an incredible human being with a feast of knowledge and experience to share. Whatever goes on in life, I will always have his large discography to be my soundtrack. I remember who I was before his music. I know who I am after discovering his music. I know it forever changed me for the better, and I hope more people discover him this way.
I could go on and on about Devin’s music for more articles, and I will! Let me know what your favorite albums of Devin’s are. Maybe I will run a poll just for fun.
I have been delving into Rock the past year once again after a long sabbatical. I decided to make a detailed list of my absolute favorite Rock albums. While lists are the internet’s favorite way of getting a shit-ton of views and pissing people off in the process, I love sharing my favorite music with people. Hopefully, someone connects with my taste or opinion positively. I am focusing on the traditional idea of rock on this list, with a couple of heavy metal/hard rock albums here. I consider Rock to be entirely its own thing from Metal most of the time, usually containing more clean vocals, slow songs, and a strict time signature and song structure. I don’t know if that’s a fair or correct observation of genre differentiation, but it’s just how my brain processes the deciding factors on what is Rock and what is exclusively Metal. I changed this list so much over the past three weeks. I thought about the genre difference, what made me love the album, and why it’s one of my favorites.
THIS IS NOT A BEST OF LIST: These are just 20 of my favorite Rock albums. It’s not me telling people what I think is better than anything else out there. This is not a posturing of opinion and knowledge. I’m just a writer who is ultra-passionate about music. I like to get as personal and as real as possible with my writing, and this is such a good way to do so! Do not get riled up because one of your favorites isn’t on the list. It doesn’t mean I don’t love your favorite record. Maybe I haven’t even heard of it yet, so please let me know your favorites in the comments below! I would love to know what albums everyone holds most dear. Always remember music is incredibly subjective, and that the taste is unique to the individual for a whole host of personal reasons. I am a product of a Prog, Jazz, and Classical fan and a complete Metal Head. I like music that makes me feel something deeply and makes me think at the same time. I don’t go for fun, light-hearted, dance-worthy, catchy music. I go for music that means something, that is a contribution to the industry.
11. We Are Not Alone- Breaking Benjamin
When making a shortlist of my favorite Rock albums, this one had a question mark beside it. Then, I listened to it again, and immediately removed the question mark and knew it had to be on here. Pennsylvanian Hard Rock band, Breaking Benjamin is one of those bands; you either love them or hate them. I love this band and everything they’ve put out since 1998. They’re one of the most solid bands in Rock, and I prefer them to a lot of bigger Rock Bands of their generation. This band is just so tight, much like Disturbed, Mudvayne, and Red Hot Chili Peppers. But they sound nothing like those bands. They’re very unique with Ben Burnley’s raspy, clean vocals and epic pulse rocketing growls, and Mark James Klepaski’s thumping bass lines, they stand out far above most of the post-Grunge bands for me. Ben also has a unique almost Irish accent when he sings, which gives the band their own identity amongst the slew of American Alt-Rock scenes. It was hard to pick which album of theirs to put on this list, but I figured I should stick with my love for David Bendeth’s albums. I picked this album over Phobia because it’s the album I immediately think of when talking about Rock. Phobia had strong singles, but We Are Not Alone is a perfect album I can listen to back to back on repeat and not tire of.
Most people would never even consider We Are Not Alone as a great album, but I do, especially now more than ever. This album has so many qualities that I severely miss. The bass on this record is unbelievably good. The bassist on this record sounds so much like Ryan Martinie, it’s uncanny. Not many albums today have great bass or even audible bass because it just blends in with down-tuned seven and eight strings. When you do this, you lose a lot of groove, mid-range, and low dynamics, and it sounds muddy. Sure this wall of low sound is shockingly heavy, but it’s becoming old and stale. I want more bass. I want more crisp guitars. Breaking Benjamin provides that in the smoothest transitions. This album is clear and I can hear each instrumentalist. The vocals blend in so well, too. Nothing is out of place. It all just works together as an incredibly cohesive record with well-rehearsed chemistry. Ben is a very skilled vocalist, adding so much range atop a very groovy rhythmic sound they’ve achieved without becoming repetitive. It’s balanced between melodic and rhythmic, a very rare achievement in modern music. Another part is due to the fantastic drumming on this record by Jeremy Hummel, who is not an average Rock drummer. He has so many accents, flam, and cool breakdowns that stand a cut above in the genre to me. I don’t understand the hate for We Are Not Alone, as it is just pure Rock with a lot of heart and great vocals that anyone could relate to. This is a must-have album for any Rock fan. I think this album came out during the time I started playing bass, and that’s why it’s stuck with me so much. It was something to aspire to as a bassist in modern times where bass is no longer a cool instrument.
Favorite Tracks; Sooner or Later, Cold, Firefly
12. Hybrid Theory- Linkin Park (2000)
This album is on millions of peoples’ lists because it is such a genre-defining album that crosses every boundary in Rock. Linkin Park took what Run DMC and Aerosmith did in 1986, and extremified it to a level we’d never heard before. I was only seven when this album came out and it started to dominate the radio shortly after. There was this great Rock station in Phoenix, Arizona that my family and I listened to a lot, and they started playing Linkin Park probably before anyone else. When I first heard them, I don’t think my young brain knew what was going on, but I loved it anyway. Linkin Park is one of those bands that creates good music with meaningful songs that just about anyone can relate to. They balance catchy Rap and vocal lines with Hard Rock synthesizers and Rap beats. It’s a lot to wrap your head around, so it makes you think. It is so catchy and influential, that my dad can pretty much rap the whole album word for word even to this day. That’s how much we listened to this album when I was growing up. While being catchy, the music and delivery forces you to listen to the lyrics. I think that’s a rare feat in modern music, where lyrics tend to be repetitive or just for show or basic storytelling. Nothing about this band is basic or just for show. They are a full cerebral, emotional, and deeply interesting band. Linkin Park is a diamond in the rough of mainstream modern music and impacted me so greatly for twenty years.
Hybrid Theory is an obvious choice for so many Rock fans and it is mainstream going twelve times Platinum in the USA alone. It doesn’t sound like your typical mainstream Rock album, though. It has so much more depth and variation compared to other records at the time. Not just a mix of Rap and Rock, it stands on its own creating a whole fusion of so many sounds. It’s a little bit Grunge, it’s a little bit Emo, it’s a little bit Industrial, and Nu Metal underneath a lot of in-your-face energy. Hybrid Theory is incredibly aggressive, heart-wrenching, and sticks in your head forever. I like anything that challenges the mind or challenges the constructs that big Record companies make up. Linkin Park played by their own rules. The chorus of Crawling has never left my head, because of Chester’s long drawn-out notes with gravel. You can hear more pain in this man’s voice than Blues singers. His voice is still unlike anything I’ve ever heard and nobody can ever replace him. Mike Shinoda has a genial rhythmic way to his Rap lines, and the way he and Chester complement each other on this record is incomparable chemistry. They just flowed so incredibly well. They made Rap listenable to me, which is an extremely hard feat. Very few artists have made me appreciate that style of music. I love every album they’ve put out with Chester, but Hybrid Theory will always have a special place in my heart. Nothing will ever diminish the impact Chester had on modern music, and Linkin Park will never be the same without his heart and his voice.
Rest in Peace, Chester
Favorite Tracks; Paper Cut, Crawling,
13. Superunknown- Soundgarden (1994)
I don’t think there’s a lot of bigger influential records than Superunknown. Between Chris Cornell’s legendary screams, Blues Rock vibes, and supreme vocal spectrum and Kim Thayil’s groove-oriented high-octane guitar riffs, this was an album with a recipe for success. The bleakness and depression of the Grunge era was magnified by a thousand suns when Soundgarden came into the scene. They mix pain, beauty, anger, and indifference with Blues Soul to create a unique unreplicable atmosphere. This is the first time I’ve ever been able to sit down and listen to a Soundgarden record in full because their music is just so intense for me to listen to, I didn’t have the heart after Chris took his own life. I knew one of their records had the potential to end up on this list, so I put it on here just on principle alone. Now that I sit down and listen to it, I understand why this is an essential album for guitar players and why it ends up on so many lists, and find myself completely entranced by Soundgarden. There’s a reason why this is one of the biggest Rock records ever made, but I didn’t know of its popularity and prowess until recently. I had no idea how big this album was when it came out in March of 1994. It just doesn’t feel like a commercially successful album in all the right ways. It’s not contrived or watered down, it’s not a product of Nirvana. It’s something of its own identity and entirely like nothing I have ever heard in my life. Superunkown is the most real and raw album I have ever listened to in my entire life, and it becomes more complex the more I listen to it. Musically this album is genial in every track, but the message is even more mind-blowing than the music.
I am sitting listening to Superunknown as if I were the producer listening to Chris, Kim, Ben, and Matt’s demos, but in an emotionally vulnerable state. It’s my first listen of what will be many, trying to compartmentalize this record of immense influences, weird guitar tunings, and crazy time signatures that were all unintentional. This album is both a celebration of life and the observance of the utter pain of existence, and the deeper celebration of death. It’s quirky as are most Grunge records, and yet so immensely profound in the time of the Mental Health Crisis in America. The more I listen to this album, I find that this album does something very important that Popular Modern music isn’t doing. It’s tapping into catharsis and accepting that dark feelings and thoughts are a part of the human condition. This album doesn’t glorify darkness, but simply audibly magnifies it by a thousand times and eloquently explains how to accept it. In a time where the media glorifies suicide and tells us we should utterly hate ourselves and each other for destroying the planet, this album so bluntly says “fuck it, we’re going to let ourselves feel this, and be okay anyway.” Superunknown to me is about embracing the most difficult feelings, but also seeing the hope in the juxtaposition of life and death. It’s about trying to live fully, despite everything including our psyche telling us we should die. It’s bleak, but it’s ultimately hopeful. Those intangible feelings that you cannot articulate to friends and family for fear that you’ll scare them, this album is a haven for those feelings. And that’s why this album is so great, Chris Cornell articulated these feelings and gave us something invariably relatable and exponentially meaningful.
Superunknown is experimental, sonically complex, and conceptually deep beyond ninety-nine percent of commercially accepted albums today. It defies everything I thought I knew about popular music. Assuming Superunknown was too deep and ornate for commercial success, I did a disservice to the true taste and nature of people. It makes me realize that if this album can debut at number one on the charts in the 1990s, there’s something wrong with the music industry today and not the listeners. I think the charts, radio stations, and promotional commercial success are being controlled by the big record companies. I think when Bill Clinton initiated the Communications Act in 1996, just two years after Superunknown debuted at number one, it took all the money in the music industry and gave it to the 2%, the biggest record companies and radio stations. When that Act was passed, smaller up-and-coming Rock acts were shut out because these conglomerate companies who specialize in Top 40 style music that is created by the same twelve producers truly pay for popularity. Superunknown getting fair and well-deserved radio play is what led to its immense success, and Rock bands simply don’t get that airtime anymore. I think if bands like The Warning, Plush, Seven Kingdoms, Clutch, Sevendust, and more got the same airtime as Taylor Swift, they would overtake music entirely and Rock would become the biggest seller like it was in the 1980s. There’s nothing wrong with “Rock Music today”, except that Pop producers use their money to shut out independent artists. We need albums like Superunknown back on the radio. We need true artists selling music to the masses again and we need albums like Superunknown to inspire this conversation. We need music that is emotionally impactful back on the radio.
Rest in Peace, Chris Cornell
Favorite songs: The Day I Tried To Live, Mailman, Limo Wreck
14. Ten- Pearl Jam (1991)
There is something I just love about Pearl Jam that is inexplicable. Everything critical tells me I should hate this band. Nothing about this band fits together, the Classic Southern Rock guitars with grungy distortion, an unintelligible singer, and quite a progressive song structure make absolutely no comprehensible sense. Now they’ve gone New Age and New Wave and I still weirdly like some of the songs. Yet, when I think of great albums, this is one of the first ones that comes to mind. This album takes influence from everything American, adds the storytelling qualities of Dylan and Young and throws a Hard Rock edge with immense groove. It works, but it’s weird. None of the songs fit or flow together. It’s like a bunch of abstract demos kinda thrown on a record, but maybe that’s why I like it so much. It goes against every grain of mainstream music, and yet the singles ended up on the radio. It is one of the rawest records I have ever heard. Eddie Vedder sounds like he’s in physical pain while singing some of the songs, especially the opening song Once, which is one of the heaviest Grunge songs I’ve heard. Eddie Vedder may not be the best singer and lacks any diction, but he can put more feeling into a lyric than most people ever express in their entire life. I think that’s why the cult following for Pearl Jam grew. They write relatable music that doesn’t throw an agenda or a message in your face. Despite the recent hatred of this band and record in particular on the internet, it is still one of the best-selling Rock albums of all time going thirteen times Platinum. Love them or hate them, Ten is a corner piece of Rock.
Ten is a compilation of songs that kick ass and are a freight train of emotion. Not necessarily the most fluent of albums, it’s a chaotic formula of music that was created in a specific place and time of this band’s life. They all came from other bands that had not seen much success and suffered a lot of turmoil. You can hear the anger, the pain, the desperation, and the internal struggles of the band members so loudly on this record. It’s abrasive, it’s dark, it’s crushing, and it’s soul bare. A lot of Grunge-era albums went for such a sound, so it’s not surprising to hear on a 1991 release, but I don’t think people realized just how immensely deep and tragic this record is. When you learn the subject matter of the songs, it becomes hard to listen to. I mean, who wasn’t traumatized by Jeremy when the video came out? And, that’s not even the saddest song on the record for me: Black takes that prize tenfold, being one of the most painful songs I have ever heard. Eddie Vedder’s lyrics, vocal range, technique, style, and openness made Black an anthem of the Grunge era. I didn’t realize any of this until I started working on this article and listening to the words and emotions. Now, listening to this album critically for three playthroughs, I truly think this is one of the greatest albums ever written and it deserves all the credit it has received. It isn’t just a Grunge album, it’s a place in time. It’s a historical memoir of four very broken people, and it reminds you of all the times you’ve felt broken, too. Then, Oceans come on, and it’s a relief to that absolute crushing heaviness, and it’s complete catharsis. Ten reminds me of why I love music so deeply. Music speaks louder than words every single time. The more I listen to this record, it becomes my favorite album of the Grunge Era.
Favorite Tracks: Black, Even Flow, Jeremy, Oceans
15. Moving Pictures- Rush (1981)
The debate whether this album belongs on my upcoming list of “My Favorite Metal Albums” is something I’ve been to over a dozen times. The deciding factor for putting it on a Rock list was ultimately the vocals and guitar style. That’s just my take on this particular record. Rush toes the line between Prog Rock and Metal throughout the rest of their career after this record. I think of Rock and Metal as brothers with different family trees that get farther apart as time goes on from the early days with Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. Whatever genre people want to put Moving Pictures into, it’s a keystone of music and the use of Progressive themes in heavy music. People either hate Rush and Geddy Lee’s uniquely high vocals or are completely die-hard fans who foam over the band every chance they get. I don’t even have to explain or elaborate on the legacy of this band, because everybody knows them and Neil Peart’s sensational drumming. They changed music forever, whether you like them or not, they probably influenced one of your favorite bands to pick up music. Like so many people, I grew up listening to Rush, and especially this album in particular. I cannot count how many weekends I spent around my dad’s garage working on a car or speakers listening to this album over and over. I don’t even know how many times one of us has picked a song from this album for our weekly “Music Night”. They’re a band my whole family loves and honors regularly. One of my biggest regrets is my family and I never got the chance to see them live together.
Moving Pictures is one of my many favorite Rock albums of the 1980s. The 80s had some of the best musicianship of the century, and some huge misses as well. Being a Progressive music fan, the epic variety on this album is what gets me every single time. Rush threw out the rule book, the idea of genre, and commercialism under a giant bus with Moving Pictures. It’s weird, it’s chaotic, and it is so loud in the best way possible. It’s a larger-than-life record with only three members. A power trio allows each member to shine. There’s something about the way these bands are mixed and how a great bassist such as Geddy Lee gets to be heard without eighty-five layers of down-tuned guitars. The mastering of this band is legendary. The mix on this album is one of my top five favorite mixes of all time. I think a lot of bands try to replicate this clear, loud, and dynamic mix, but not very many have achieved it except the likes of Devin Townsend, Leprous, The Warning, and Sick Puppies. It took four people to mix and master this album, and the quality of engineering truly shows. They achieved an album that sounds good on any medium; From 8 Track to vinyl, to Walkman, to Radio, to Streaming, this is a mind-blowing sounding record. That is a rare feat for any album, let alone a Progressive one.
Everything about this album is perfect to my ears. I don’t understand how Alex Lifeson doesn’t end up on every “Best Guitarists” list, especially for his work on Moving Pictures and Clockwork Angels. He effortlessly switches from heavy riffs to licks, to melodic lines with the smoothness of Santana. I rarely see Lifeson credited, maybe because Geddy and Neil were just so loud and had more presence than most musicians combined, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t as good. Lifeson is one of my favorite guitarists of all time and drastically stood out against the egomaniacal “wanky” guitarists of the 1980s. Don’t get me wrong, I love crazy solos and shredding, but I also like a guitarist who just plays great riffs and licks that add to the music without taking it over. Rush is a band with three incredible members who play effortlessly together. They’re a true Prog jam band who can just pick a key and play together and improvise. Bands don’t play like this anymore. Moving Pictures is an essential Rock album that I will pass down to my niece and my hypothetical children to preserve this flawless band of rare talent. I could go on and on about Rush and Moving Pictures, and words will never be enough to explain how incredible this album is and how much it has impacted every aspect of my life.
16. Self Titled- Boston (1976)
An album I think will always be timeless is Boston’s first record. It sounds just as fresh now as it did in the 1970s. This was exponentially heavy for the mid-1970s and was one of the first albums to be recorded by a “bedroom musician”. Guitarist and Vocalist Tom Scholz went to MIT and graduated with a degree in Engineering, but always wanted to write music. So, he built his recording studio in his basement and tricked Epic Records into thinking he and Brad Delp were recording it in a professional studio. Most of the songs on the album are constructed from Tom’s demos. He was the original underground musician who dared to defy the constraints of labels and pioneered Hard Rock. It took about a year to complete the album with great producer John Boylan, but it was all really Scholz’s handiwork that made this record. I can’t believe this album came out in the 1970s and it was recorded at one guy’s home. It’s phenomenal for the time, and still a great sounding album today that I don’t think parents are passing down enough. The story behind the album is about self-perseverance, hard work, and tenacity to get what you want out of life. The theme is blatant throughout the record and comes off as truly inspiring and incredibly well thought out.
Boston is an album with flawless engineering, catchy hooks, progressive elements, and a lot of heart. It is an instant American classic that has dominated radio stations for forty years. You can still hear More Than A Feeling probably every time you turn the radio on. It’s a short album only clocking at thirty-seven minutes, and yet its replay-worth far surpasses its eight-track shortness. This album sounds like a nostalgic “American Pie” mixed with the complexity of the music of Yes and Genesis. It’s one thought throughout the album, so it flows from track to track with energy and fluency. What makes this album so great to me is the guitar work. Tom’s guitar tone stood out from others with the use of reverb, fuzz, and dual tracking that we’d only heard on a couple of Eagles and Lynyrd Skynyrd songs. It was inventive at the time it came out. There wasn’t anything quite like it and still isn’t to this day. The mix of acoustic and multi guitar layering is something we hear all the time now, but in 76 this was revolutionary “Wall of sound” type mastering. The vocals were engineered the same way, sometimes having up to five layers of harmonies and echoes. This level of craftsmanship set Boston apart from everyone else, and I think a lot of bands were seriously influenced by their sound. It’s a little big Prog, with some Arena Rock, and some Southern Rock that makes it just ingrained in my brain forever. To my ears, this is one of the best mastered records of all time still to this day and I still haven’t heard anything quite as crisp. This is an album I will always come back to for my entire life.
Favorite songs; More Than A Feeling, Foreplay/Long Time, Piece of Mind
17. Epicloud- Devin Townsend Project (2009)
Epicloud may be a little more on the Heavy Metal side, but it’s purposefully the most accessible Devin Townsend record to date. None of my favorite music lists are complete without Devin, so I had to include his answer to Radio Rock on this list. Devin Townsend is an artist I didn’t discover until later in life, but he’s become my most essential artist of all time. Devin Townsend Project was his sort of idea of a supergroup that began in 2008. The idea of having a frequent touring Metal band that could put out albums fairly quickly and generate hype, without sacrificing the quality of Progressive Metal was a great one in the beginning. Of course, none of Devin’s albums are created with the formulaic hive mind that controls our Radio stations, and his over-engineering “: mad man” qualities didn’t translate to as big of an audience as Century Media anticipated. The band never got the funding it deserved to be able to continue. This was due to terrible marketing by labels and possibly Devin over-explaining his projects to the point of it being quite overwhelming to listeners. I love Devin and I love hearing about the process, but sometimes leaving some things to mystery so people can just connect with it emotionally is good, too. Regardless, this project put out some of my favorite records to date and there’s a magic that will never diminish or be replicated.
When you put a bunch of highly skilled Prog musicians in a pressure cooker with Devin Townsend, Epicloud is what comes out of it. It’s genial in every sense of it. It’s catchy, heavy, riff-orientated, and sing-along-worthy. But, it’s not shallow or stale in any way. It’s light, airy, atmospheric, and incredibly well constructed. The first time I heard this album, it captured all of my senses and blew my mind to the point I didn’t listen to anything else but Devin’s music for a good eight months. There’s nothing like the overall experience of Devin’s music. It is all-encompassing. It is soul-crushing. It’s a wall of completely overwhelming sound, and it’s not for everyone, but it is everything to me. Epicloud is a perfect mix of everything Devin but toned down just a little. Epicloud is just enough to get the sense of this man’s brilliance, without completely overstimulating your brain. It’s interesting, highly layered, and sonically perfect for my taste. It’s just engaging and cerebral enough to where it’s not “phoned” in but still has catchy qualities to catch passersby’s ears. Is it as profound and well-engineered as his other works? No, but if you take it for what it is as a DTP release, it’s still going to blow your mind and end up an earworm for weeks. It’s Devin Townsend with some 80s Arena Rock, and featuring one of his absolute best works Kingdom which is a Progressive Heavy Metal Opera tune for the ages. I think it’s his most famous song, and rightfully so. This song is the pure embodiment of everything Devin is, and the version of it on Epicloud is one of his most pristine contributions. If you’re a Freddie Mercury fan, you have to hear this song. It’s Freddie Mercury Metalfied, and that is a huge testament to Devin’s “god-like” vocal ability. There are so many special and legendary qualities to Epicloud, but I truly think Devin’s voice is what propels this album to greatness. His voice mixed with Anneke Van Giersbegen’s angelic belting on this album as well as the previous Addicted! Is simply one of the greatest duos I have ever heard. He is my favorite male vocalist of all time, and songs like Kingdom,Grace, and Hold On are fantastic examples. If you haven’t heard Devin Townsend, you are missing out on one of the greatest minds the world has truly ever seen. Is it music for the masses? Not by today’s standards, but everyone should open their mind and discover this uplifting delight of an album.
Favorite Songs: True North, Kingdom, More, Grace
18. Superstition- The Birthday Massacre (2014)
My love for New Wave has always been underlying, creeping up on me when I least expect it when Tears for Fears or Simple Minds comes on. I never purposely put this type of music on until one band came on my Pandora mix, and educated me about the relationship between Rock and New Wave and forever changed my life. The Birthday Massacre is an exemplary sleeper band that mixes Rock, Pop, New Wave, Dark Wave, Metal, and Goth in a very all-consuming way. This band took over years of my listening rotation and is still one of my most special favorites. They bring nostalgic vibes and sounds from the 80s and 90s and mix a whole new electronic resonance that is unlike anything I’ve ever heard before. Their use of real instruments in an Electro-Pop New Wave track is nothing short of brilliant, and then they bring heavy guitars and rhythmic nu-metal drums with songs like “Red Stars” and “Blue”. They have so many different sounds and different vibes, you never know what this band is going to do next. They’re one of the best and most surprising live bands I have ever seen in my life.
Picking one of their albums was difficult because I love nearly their whole discography. They put out consistently good music that sticks in your head for probably an eternity, they are just that good and catchy. I had to pick what I think is my most favorite album of theirs, and Superstitious was the obvious choice for me. It’s a perfect mix of Dark Wave and Rock as if it could’ve been released in the early 90s and probably would’ve dominated the charts. The Birthday Massacre created a huge atmospheric horror album with crisp and clear vocals by the seemingly effortless singer Chibi, and mixed it with great guitar riffs and pulsating deep synths. It’s such a cool record that is perfect for nighttime city cruising or late night art projects. “Destroyer” is perfect for an Indie Horror flick, to the point where the fans created a music video that is a mini horror and it’s absolutely iconic. Superstition is a mind bending album, sort of in the way Trip Hop is almost disorienting, and that’s why I love it so much. Anything that bends the mind and makes me think in a totally new way is my obsession. There’s immense darkness on this album, but as always Birthday Massacre throws a couple 80s Dance Pop tracks in there with “Oceania” which is an immensely fun syncopated song. Their throwback songs are some of my absolute favorites, despite liking the heavier side of music. I think this album is a perfect mix of their sound and a great place to start for anyone looking for something new, fresh, and unique to listen to. Superstition flows well, so you can just immerse yourself in it and not be jarred out of the atmosphere. Not many bands today are that immersive and interesting. I don’t think a lot of bands are as successful at immersive and themed albums as The Birthday Massacre. They just put out solid music that is truly easy to listen to, but is not repetitive or just fluff. It has a lot of good substance and self empowerment messages that are aimed at escapism from a sometimes all to harsh reality. I love this album and this band, and can’t recommend them enough for everyone looking for something outside of the box.
Favorite tracks; Destroyer, Superstition, The Other Side
Version 1.0.0
19. Vena Sera- Chevelle (2007)
I know, I know it should be Wonder What’s Next?. I picked Vena Sera because it’s one of Chevelle’s heaviest albums, so naturally, it’s one of my favorites. Another Power Trio album, Vena Sera, perfectly reflects the desolation and Progressiveness of Tool, whilst keeping in the era of Alt-Rock without too many crazy time signatures. It’s an eloquent, no-filler Hard Rock album that I think has been slept on for a long time. This band never gets the recognition they deserve, like many Power Trios in Rock, they seem to fall under the radar. Luckily their cult following has made them a mainstay in the Hard Rock scene since 1996, making the band almost as old as I am. I had the pleasure of seeing this band in 2012 with Evanescence and Halestorm on the Carnival of Madness tour. They are still one of the best bands I have ever seen live, and I need to see them again. If you haven’t heard Chevelle before, I highly recommend starting with Vena Sera. Wonder What’s Next is great, too. Vena Sera just seems to stick in my head much more than any of their other records. However, you can’t go wrong with this band. Their entire discography is worth playing from front to back; It’s like a time capsule of Post-Grunge Rock and you can hear how much they influenced other bands like Taproot, Trapt, Cold, Evans Blue, and Adema. I don’t know if those bands particularly list Chevelle as an influence, but I can hear the influential style loud and clear.
What I love about this album is the lack of pretentiousness. The album is pure, raw, and simply just Hard Rock without any instrumental interludes or unnecessary breakdowns. It drives Chevelle’s unique style home and sets them apart from Tool. The longer you listen to Chevelle, the more you realize they don’t sound like anybody else. They’re Progressive, soul-crushingly dark, attack-driven, and smooth. The chemistry of the members and their ability to follow a bass line is what makes the album so hard-hitting. They took the bleak atmosphere of Tool and Depeche Mode and put Helmet-level riffs and drums over incredibly well-played bass lines. A lot of critics found this album to be monotonous or too blended, but I find it to be a complete work that just drives hard with great riffs, clear unique vocals, and impossibly good drums. I think Chevelle can create a unique atmosphere that encompasses a whole album, which is something you don’t hear in Rock often. It’s an album that becomes more complex and impactful the more you listen to it. I think that’s why critics were so hard on it; They took it as being a Radio Rock album, but it was never intended for such a hollow marketing target. When I think of great Rock records, Chevelle is always one of my first picks, and this album will always be sonically special to me and a big influence on the music I wish to create.
Favorite Tracks; Antisaint, Saferwaters, Well Enough Alone
20. Make Yourself- Incubus (1999)
Incubus is one of my most influential bands, being one of the many reasons I picked up the bass guitar, which would become my best instrument. This is one of the most unique Rock albums I have ever heard to this day. Incubus created an unreplicatable sound and atmosphere with every album they’ve ever put out. They mix California surfer/skater vibes with Hip Hop, Rock guitars, Funk and jazz-inspired bass, and immense groove. It’s not my usual style of music by any means, and it seems like they go out of their way to be odd. Yet, I love their music and it is such a central part of my life. Make Yourself is my favorite record because it’s all of Incubus extremified. It sounds like they broke down all barriers and genres with this record and made a quirky Alt-Rock record with live recorded vocals. Anything that dares to be different and immersive is my shtick, even if it isn’t my style of dark and moody heavy music. This record has a catalyst for good music and great bass lines. That’s why I was so drawn to their music in the first place. Original bassist “Dirk Lance” absolutely nailed the basslines and created a unique experience in Rock Music on Make Yourself. If you want to hone your bass chops, there are not many better bass records than this one. I am interested to see how touring bassist Nicole Row plays these iconic parts live and if she can channel the original deep tone with the perfect amount of fuzz and aggression. She is a great bassist and will no doubt nail the cadence. “Clean” of this album is one of my favorite basslines of all time, and I’d love to see it played live again.
Make Yourself is one of those records I put on when I want to feel happy to be alive. Incubus exudes happiness, love, and positivity without being preachy. They’ve balanced these “good vibes” with Nu-Metal guitar riffs from one of the most underrated guitarists ever, Mike Einzinger. I have no idea why this guy isn’t on lists for Nu-Metal and Rock because his riffs on this album are so iconic a whole generation can recognize the songs from one chord. “Drive” is just acoustic guitar, but it gets a crowd of eighty thousand singing along at Rock Am Ring. That’s such a powerful guitar voice that spans multiple generations. This band is so iconic, and yet still underrated. Singer Brandon Boyd is one of my favorite vocalists of all time and has immense chops and range, being able to switch from belt, to scream, to scat, to spoken word in one song. He is insanely talented and is well-versed in storytelling. “Stellar” is such a good example of the storytelling quality and emotion Boyd can provoke. That heart is something I don’t hear in nu-metal, and it’s what sets them apart from other bands at the time. The vulnerability and whimsicality of this band are more common to me In Progressive music, and maybe that’s why I like them so much. The drummer Jose Pasillas is also incredibly underrated for his groove and unrelenting hits. There’s a little bit of the Red Hot Chili Peppers, a little bit of The Who, a little bit of Sugarhill Gang, and just such an eclectic mix of music. Then, you hear “Pardon Me”, and it’s just mindblowing that this came out in 1999 and not ten years later. Make Yourself was truly ahead of its time and still holds up today as one of the most unique Rock records ever made. Listening to it again reminds me of how much I want to return to playing this kind of music and calm down on the Heavy Metal at breakneck speeds.
Honorable Mentions-
Light Grenades- Incubus
Mer De Noms- A Perfect Circle
Machine Head- Deep Purple
Songs For The Deaf- Queens Of The Stone Age
Mellon Collie and The Infinite Sadness – Smashing Pumpkins
I have been delving into Rock the past year once again after a long sabbatical. I decided to make a detailed list of my absolute favorite Rock albums of all time. While lists are the internet’s favorite way of getting a shit-ton of views and pissing people off in the process, I love sharing my favorite music with people. Hopefully, someone connects with my taste or opinion positively. I am focusing on the traditional idea of Rock on this list, with a couple of Heavy Metal/Hard Rock albums on here. I consider Rock to be entirely its own thing from Metal most of the time, usually containing more clean vocals, slow songs, and a strict time signature and song structure. I don’t know if that’s a fair or correct observation of genre differentiation, but it’s just how my brain processes the deciding factors on what is Rock and what is exclusively Metal.
THIS IS NOT A BEST OF LIST: These are just 20 of my favorite Rock albums. It’s not me telling people what I think is better than anything else out there. This is not a posturing of opinion and knowledge. I’m just a writer who is ultra-passionate about music. I like to get as personal and as real as possible with my writing, and this is such a good way to do so! Do not get riled up because one of your favorites isn’t on the list. It doesn’t mean I don’t love your favorite record. Maybe I haven’t even heard of it yet, so please let me know your favorites in the comments below! I would love to know what albums everyone holds most dear. Always remember music is incredibly subjective, and that the taste is unique to the individual for a whole host of personal reasons.
There are two parts, this is part one. Only 10 per post will appear.
Error- The Warning (2022)
I was sitting in my living room and having ice cream with my mom while we were checking out new music videos in 2023. The Warning popped up on my Youtube feed with the live version of their cover of “Enter Sandman” by Metallica at CDMX. I played the video, quite skeptical of what I was about to hear. Little did I know, this video and the subsequent two videos we watched would forever change my life. This Mexican Rock Trio of the Villarreal sisters is the reason I started listening to Rock again. After so long of exclusively listening to Heavy Metal, Rock just seemed derivative. This band brought back my sweet spot for Rock with soaring vocals, heavy riffs, and innate technical ability with explosive chemistry. They’ve got that magic quality that the early Heavy Metal bands had but with modern twists and exceptionally profound lyrics and irresistibly catchy choruses. They’ve got the “it factor” packed into a power trio, much like Rush, Muse, Chevelle, and Winery Dogs that came long before them. It’s hard to articulate the specialness of this band. They’re just something you truly have to experience for yourself.
The Warning’s Error is one of the best Rock albums I have ever heard. The songwriting, the mastering, the composition, and the supernova of complex emotions and deep cerebral lyrics make Error a cornerstone album in Rock to me. It’s heavy, raw, real, and yet so perfectly refined with the help of legendary producer David Bendeth. “The hits just keep coming” is a phrase that comes to mind often when I listen to this record. Every song is unique, bombastic, catchy, and so well-written. There are no gaps. There’s no dragging on. There’s no filler, just all killer riffs and insanely emotive vocals. Dany Villarreal is one of the greatest vocalists and frontwomen of all time. The song Choke represents that sentiment so epically. Error has elements that if it were released ten to twenty years ago, it would’ve been an instant classic. A lot of that credit also goes to bassist Alejandra for holding this album together with insane grooves, riffs, and pitch-perfect rhythm. The overall tone set by the bass on this record is spectacular, and it reminds me of the old Heavy Metal records from AC/DC, Black Sabbath, and Led Zeppelin. This level of talent from a bassist is just unheard of these days, sadly. This album deserves Grammy and RCA recognition. Being released in these times of Rock and individuality discrimination, it may never be truly recognized for its greatness. The maturity and depth of this album are surprising from three girls, two of them not even out of their teens. If you haven’t heard this album, you’re going to be blown away on the first listen, I promise. I will never not be blown away by this record, and all of The Warning’s material. Error will be in my play rotation as long as I live.
Favorite Tracks: Evolve, Animosity, Choke
Self Titled- Halestorm (2009)
Halestorm, the self-titled album of the American Hard Rock band, is one of the most dynamic bombastic albums I have ever heard in my life. This album came out in 2009, but I didn’t discover it until a year later. When I first heard this album, I was only sixteen or seventeen, it was nostalgic to my childhood harkening back to the 1980s when Heavy Music was king. It’s like the album Heart tried to make, but producers consistently discouraged women from writing heavy music. Halestorm is a combination of melodic guitar lines underneath absolutely pristine soaring vocals by the one and only Lzzy Hale, and perfectly accurate arena rock drums from the “Animal” Arejay Hale. It’s full of angst, anger, raw, and heartfelt with some down and dirty thrown in there. It’s not over-produced, but it’s so clear and well-delivered. Every riff, vocal line, and drum full makes sense and is perfectly crafted together. It’s driven and hard-hitting, especially in the vocal department. Lzzy’s vocals are the centerfold of Halestorm, and it shows on this record. I feel like the self-titled says that this band doesn’t follow any tropes, genres, stereotypes, or eras of music. It’s truly a standalone standout album. There’s nothing like it, because of Lzzy’s voice, the unique deviation in the songs, and the mix of melodic and heavy riffs. It just punches you in the chest soul deep in a very in-your-face loudspeaker way.
Halestorm brought back a lot of heart to Rock as well. I feel like Rock started moving in a more aggressive edgy direction at the time, losing a lot of character and warmth and just inserting random Rap lines and dubstep sounds. The self-titled Halestorm is a perfect mix of aggressiveness, heart, and tasty riffs. It’s catchy as hell without being derivative. There are stories you can relate to. Every song tells a story or a different emotion, going over the complexity of relationships and accepting how other people affect you. The rhythm section is powerful without taking over the music and foreshadowing the melodic qualities. To my ears, this album is nearly perfect, because it has its own identity and a ton of soul. This band put everything they had musically and soulfully into every single song, and it comes across emphatically. I’ve never heard anything quite like it. Halestorm was and will always be incomparable. I think this album is truly an essential Rock album that everyone should listen to.
Favorite Tracks; Familiar Taste of Poison, Nothing To Do With Love, What Were You Expecting
Self-titled- Evanescence (2011)
Evanescence was already a household name in 2009 following two classic Rock records with Fallen and The Open Door. I grew up listening to these records, even basing my room decor on the aesthetics of The Open Door era. Evanescence is a once-in-a-lifetime trailblazing band. They pioneered the Goth Rock scene in North America and added Symphonic elements that lead to the popularity of bands like Nightwish and Within Temptation in the US. Amy Lee has to be on the best singers in Rock list with her soaring multi-octave vocals and heart-wrenching soulful croons. Nobody sounds quite like Amy still to this day, and she’s influenced thousands of young girls to go into the world of heavy music. I always wonder how my music taste would’ve evolved without Evanescence. They opened the door for me into darker music, and that has been a huge outlet for me for the past eighteen years. Amy Lee’s music is so personal and special to me. Choosing one record of theirs for this list was nearly impossible, but I had to go with the Self-titled record. Each records a point in time where music was changed forever, but the Self-Titled turned out to be a dark horse.
Self Titled Evanescence was one of the most anticipated records ever. It had been five years since The Open Door was released and news of the band had been quiet besides a couple of member changes. It didn’t chart as well as previous records, so I find it underrated. I had no idea what to expect with this record because you never know what direction Amy will take. She’s a true experimental pioneer of a unique blend of Rock and atmospheric sounds that are unheard of. Evanescence, the record, is everything the band has to offer. It’s odd, funky, heavy, and a roller coaster of emotions. It’s beautiful from the soaring melodies to the pristine piano lines, but there is a grunge feel to it. The guitars and drums are very grungy and raw, which is such a juxtaposition to the vocals, piano, and the level of reverb on this record. It’s a solid Rock record with catchy riffs, but the opposite of mainstream or anything derivative. The addition of Will Hunt on drums is what stands out to me. His playing is so driven and so perfectly accurate for the feel on every track. It’s so vastly different from the previous records, but still so profoundly Evanescence. This album is perfect, I love every single song on this record and find each one to be uniquely perfect while having this ethereal feel. It has its own Evanescence aesthetic, one you can sink and disappear in. This record echoes Mozart, Bjork, Soundgarden, and Nightwish all together somehow, but is still so vastly different from anything ever made before.
My favorite tracks; are Made of Stone, Sick, and The Change.
5150- Van Halen (1986)
The stress of picking a single Van Halen record for my favorite album was a mountain to climb. Man, they just simply don’t have a bad album. In my opinion, all their albums are instant classics and essential to the world of Hard Rock. They’re one of the greatest and most influential bands of all time. I was probably listening to Van Halen as soon as I was born. They’re a huge part of my family and my musical influences. They’ve impacted millions of people like this, so my family is not unique in this influence, but not a lot of families listen to heavy music all together like mine, I don’t think. We had listening parties before anyone knew what they were, and a lot of those were centered around Van Halen and Iron Maiden. 5150 is one of my mom’s favorites, so I’ve probably heard this record in full more than their other albums. But, it wasn’t until I got older that I was able to appreciate the technicality and level of depth of this album. It was between this and For Unlawful Carnal Knowledge, and nostalgia won over heaviness in this battle. 5150 is larger than life, much like EVH himself.
I love every Van Halen album differently, but 5150 is my bread and butter. This album is one I grew up listening to a lot, so there’s immense nostalgia when listening to it. The technicality of this album atop epic Arena Rock sound and tangible emotion is why it has to be my favorite of theirs. It’s so crisp and so light and airy, leaving so much room for each brilliant musician to come to the forefront. Sammy Hagar’s vocals on this record still give me chills every single time. He is always right dead center on every note while keeping emotion, grit, and tension that fits so undeniably well with Eddie’s guitar lines. They can solo off between vocals and guitars, making Hagar the voice that can go toe to toe with Eddie’s guitars, and I don’t think he gets the credit he deserves for this feat. Hagar’s vocals on Why Can’t This Be Love? are stunning. His vocal scat solo on this blows my mind every single time I listen to it. I also think Michael Anthony is a highly overlooked bassist and I love this bass tone on every Van Halen album. The whole band just really came together on this record and it flows so smoothly. Other VH albums have bursting-at-the-seams chaos to them because Eddie’s genius is just so explosive. 5150 came together, and despite feeling a little short and unfinished, I think it’s one of their best. If I’m in the mood for Rock of Van Halen, this is one of my favorite go-to albums.
Rest in peace, Eddie.
Favorite Tracks; Why Can’t This Be Love?, Dreams, 5150
AB III- Alter Bridge (2010)
One of my most listened-to records of all time, I had to include the incomparable Alter Bridge III. This album got me into Alter Bridge in a huge way. I wore this CD out in every player my family and I had. My dad was a huge Creed fan when I was a kid, so Mark Tremonti’s insanely heavy and precise guitar playing wasn’t lost on me. AB III is an album that brought this band together in a chemistry sense. It sounds like they found their groove on this record with less dead air and less slow instrumentals that seemed to be out of place. This album has a massive sound to it and hits hard immediately. It’s an in-your-face Hard Rock album with incredible melodic vocals and unbelievably good guitars. Every track kind of flows together, almost like a movie playing out in your head. It’s expertly arranged and incredibly emotionally charged. It’s an album that you have to sit down and dig into. Listening to it in passing is not going to translate so well, because of its immense depth and layers. It’s not Radio Rock, it’s not mainstream fluff or over-produced filler. AB III is complex. It’s both dark and bright. It’s heavy but gentle. It echoes the intensity of Guns N Roses, but it is so much more refined and pleasant to well-tuned ears. This is one of my favorite albums for guitar work on this entire list and influenced me as a guitarist more than nearly every album I have ever listened to.
Alter Bridge III is an album that I don’t see on a lot of lists, which is surprising to me because of its loud intensity and well-composed choruses. This album is a classic to me in the realm of Hard Rock and put Myles Kennedy on a pedestal for vocals. He is a one-of-a-kind singer with one of the largest ranges I’ve ever heard. His guitar playing also kicks ass and he even plays some solos, going toe-to-toe with the beast that is Mark Tremonti. I don’t understand the hate that Myles receives, specifically from the Prog world. He is a fantastic vocalist who should be listed among the greatest of all time. Yet, he is consistently ragged on for being too mainstream or mid-tier. I simply think that not enough people have heard this record. If they listened to AB III, they would find it impossible to hate such a well-composed Hard Rock album and epic humble vocalist such as Myles.
Favorite Tracks: Make It Right, All Hope Is Gone, Zero, Life Must Go On
Appeal To Reason- Rise Against (2008)
As a pre-teen in the 2000s, I was very stereotypically a huge fan of Punk Rock. I liked everything from Blink 182, Misfits, Ramones, Yellowcard, Good Charlotte, Fall Out Boy, and of course Paramore who is also on this list. Pop Punk and Punk Rock were at the pinnacle of their popularity in the 2000s, with Warped Tour becoming one of the best-selling festivals in the world. I was exposed to this scene through Fuse and MTV, and I fell in love with the fast-paced-light-heartedness of these bands. I was a goofy teen with a huge sense of humor, a lot of energy, and a huge liking for girls. These bands catered to those things in a big way, but the Metal Head in me eventually reared its head, and I wanted something darker. Rise Against came along with their video for “The Good Left Undone” which was way darker, heavier, and had an edge to it that nothing else had at the time. I was obsessed with this song but never purchased the whole album. It wasn’t until I heard Reeducation Through Labor that I truly became a Rise Against fan and picked up Appeal To Reason when it came out. It was a massive album in Colorado because it was recorded and produced in Fort Collins, CO.
This album is a whole different animal to any Punk album I have ever heard. Even to this day, I haven’t heard anything close to it. It’s essentially about the collapse of America and the entire world and humanity losing its way because of war, social conflict, and out-of-control nihilism. It’s a very complex socially charged album that I can still very much relate to today. Rise Against tackles the hardest issues humanity has to deal with, and I commend them for aggressively tackling these. I hate politics in music. I find politics to be too much of a distraction from the actual issues of humanity. But, this album is an exception and hits me right at my core every single time I listen to it. The idea that America “has fallen from grace” isn’t lost on me and is still relevant today. But, the politics and differing ideals aside, this album is sonically perfect to me. Every riff, every snare and hi-hat and crash, every scream, every group vocal is attacking, in your face, and so perfectly placed. The energy doesn’t stop. It doesn’t let you off the rolling train of disappointment, anger, inspiration, desperation, and hope with excellent driving guitars and clarity. Listening to it again, I am reminded that this is one of my favorite albums ever made. Savior is such a beautiful track and is part of why I fell in love with this band. Tim Mcllrath wears his entire soul on his sleeve for everyone to see and projects it with a perfectly raspy voice. He’s an underrated vocalist in Rock, and this album will be a testament to why that is so true.
Favorite Tracks: From Heads Unworthy, Long Forgotten Sons, Savior, Whereabouts Unknown
Human Clay- Creed (1999)
As I mentioned in the paragraph about Alter Bridge, I am a fan of Mark Tremonti’s 18-wheeler truck-sized riffs. He plays the hell out of his guitars, and you can hear that unfiltered on Human Clay. This album helped Rock and Metal get away from Grunge and Hair Metal and started an entirely new more melodic and cleaner sound. This album is so well refined, but not overproduced to just be pushed on the radio. It is a workhorse of riffs, catchy chesty vocals, and insane bass lines. It’s not formulaic or simplistic. It’s blue-collar Rock and Metal that makes me feel as if I can do anything; like sledgehammer a wall, punch an elitist, or deadlift my goal weight like a beast. This album gets a lot of hate from being overplayed possibly because of its ties to Christianity or Scott Stapp’s public battle with alcoholism, but I think it’s one of the best albums ever recorded to this day. The internet is a hot box vacuum of negativity and undesired hate. I tend to ignore what they say and form my own opinions based on musicality and emotion. If everyone approached music this way, the better musicians would be popular and not work day jobs just to tour and release albums. Maybe more people would exude the positivity that Mark Tremonti’s music tries to impart. Even just posting my love for this album may hurt my viewership on this site, but it’s worth it to talk about one of my favorite albums that changed my music taste.
Human Clay. It’s a breath of fresh air after the depressing Grunge Era, Human Clay is powerful positivity, and self-worth. It exudes such a large hopefulness that I long to hear in other albums. I like dark music, but I also love positivity through heavy music, something liberating to the mind, body, and soul. Creed opened up this door and so many post-nineties bands followed. They brought back the untouchable invigoration that Van Halen, Whitesnake, and Scorpions helped create, but didn’t compromise on absolute unbridled instrumentalism. The talent in Creed is still unbelievable to me. Every time I hear one of their songs, I have no idea why they aren’t all on the “Greatest of All Time” lists. Scott Stapp is such a solid, gritty, powerful vocalist with a burst of emotion and charisma. He is an idealistic frontman and a storyteller. He can belt a seemingly impossible length of time, he can soft speak, he can growl out with a load of raspy character, and sing perfectly in the pocket. I have always loved his voice and long to have that amount of power in my voice. Brian Marshall, the bassist who you never hear about, is a monster bassist. This guy’s lines are so clean, perfectly tight with both the melody and rhythm and boomy in the right places. He is one of my absolute favorite bassists, and yet nobody ever talks about him. What a fantastic rhythm section record with Scott Phillips holding it down on drums as well. Again, Phillips is never mentioned, but has some of the best rhythmic accents in Rock. His use of open hi-hat, ride, and crash accents is so eloquently done and fits so well with the energy of the band. Human Clay is a record created by four brilliant musicians, and it should be highly regarded as such, despite what the internet may say. This album is a 10/10 album for me and is timeless.
Favorite Tracks: With Arms Wide Open, Inside Us All, Higher, Are You Ready
Echoes, Silence, Patience, & Grace by Foo Fighters (2007)
I have been a fan of the Foo Fighters as long as I can remember, and a fan of Dave Grohl in general. It seems like everything Dave has a hand in is golden; Nirvana, Queens of the Stone Age, Them Crooked Vultures, and so many more. Picking a single Foo Fighters album was no simple feat, either, since every album is much different from its predecessor. The variety in the Foo seems endless, covering multiple genres, decades of music, emotion, and differing musicians. The first Foo album was all Dave pretty much, and it was great at that. But, one album stands out above the rest for me, and that is the epic Echoes, Silence, Patience, & Grace when Foo Fighters became a band and not just a solo project. The whole band came together with multiple facets and influences to make one of the most iconic American Hard Rock albums of all time, featuring a song that would explode beyond their expectations and spawn countless covers that would go viral much later on. This is one of those albums that I can’t imagine music without.
Echoes Silence Patience & Grace combines 1970s singer-songwriter acoustics and storytelling with a hard post-Grunge explosivity. The Bomb album cover is so very fitting for an album that keeps building, and building, and then explodes when you least expect it. This album is when the Foo Fighters became a great band for me, and not just a good Rock band. This album is deep, dark, light-hearted, soft, and a stick of dynamite all in one interesting package. It’s a sonic journey of the Early 2000s in America and when Dave Grohl became “comfortable” with his style of songwriting, throwing out the old constructs of heavy music and just writing something meaningful. His heart is out and wide open on this record, and it becomes a really beautiful journey through his life. It’s almost like a memoir of the past and a bridge to the Foo Fighters’ legacy at the same time. This album is meaningful with every riff, every vocal break and lyric, and the incredibly hard-hitting drums from Taylor Hawkins. Chris Shiflett’s solos and licks are vastly underrated, breathing life into the music and bringing a /Tom Scholz and Allen Collins Country Rock vibe back to American music. The word masterpiece is so overused and deflated, but this album is truly Foo Fighters’ masterwork. It’s an album I think should be taught in Band at schools around the world, because it is so meaningful, so central, and so exquisitely played on every instrument. I love this album and it impacted me so importantly as a kid, it still feels the same every time I listen to it.
Rest in peace, Taylor
Favorite Tracks: The Pretender, Come Alive, But, Honestly
Whitesnake (Self-Titled 1987)
Yet another band that gets a lot of undeserved hate, Whitesnake is one of my all-time favorite bands. Whitesnake combined the raw screams and guitars of Led Zeppelin with high-octane hooks. Their self-titled album is timeless to me, still spin it a couple of times a month, it’s one of those albums I just love and can’t decide why I love it so. Whitesnake has a magical quality as an album that surpassed most albums in the 1980s for me. It wasn’t a try-hard overly aggressive Hair Metal record. It’s an album that mixes Blues Rock, Soulful Vocals, and British Invasion vibes with 80s high-flying riffs from the one and only John Sykes. A lot of people saw this record as an “Americanization” or Glam Rock foolery of Whitesnake, but I don’t see it that way and that definitely wasn’t the band’s intention. I think the soulfulness of David Coverdale’s vocals, the orchestral instrumentals, and the complex chord progression proves this release was not aimed at the radio. This album is deliberate in emotion, energy, and sublime composition. It combined the depth of writing of Lez Zeppelin, Rainbow, and Deep Purple with the flashy catchiness of Van Halen in a seemingly impossible way. Then, you have Neoclassical guitar solos thrown in there, giving Malmsteen a run for his money. None of those things fit together, but Whitesnake achieved it and more with this self-titled record.
This is an album I can put on repeat for an entire day and not get listener fatigue. Each track stands out from the next to me and stands out far away from the music of that era. It’s got a depth to it that was lacking with the over-produced Rock of that era. Bad Boys is a song that I find to be so underappreciated, as it conjures the melodic harmonies of Iron Maiden and the hard-hitting drums of Metallica even featuring pristine and fast double bass. This is one of my absolute favorite songs ever written, and I don’t see anyone talking about it today. It’s a song that doesn’t cater to the typical Radio Rock at all, and that’s maybe why it got swept under the rug compared to the monstrous Still Of The Night, Here I Go Again and Is This Love. I fell in love with Coverdale’s voice on Is This Love, as it reminds me of fantastic vocalists Michael Mcdonald, Roger Daltrey, and Robert Plant but with more control than most Rock singers of his generation. His voice and John Sykes playing still give me chills to this day, even though I’ve heard this album hundreds of times. I understand if you’ve heard the singles too much on the radio, but seriously, sit down and listen to this whole record. It is impressively good and somehow so ahead of its time in Hard Rock, but incomparable when it comes to matters of the heart and soul.
Rest in peace, John Sykes.
Favorite Tracks: Is This Love? Bad Boys, Still of the Night, Children of the Night
Riot!- Paramore (2007)
One of my most listened-to albums of all time, though it might be surprising to see it on a “favorite Rock album” list for someone who has been cranking Tech Death and Power Metal. I was 14 about to turn 14 when this album came out, and it blew my mind. A girl that angry and yet singing that well? I hadn’t seen anything like it before. Paramore’s Riot! Is an album that forever split the music industry. People either loved this album or hated it. It often got labeled as “Emo” or “Alt Rock” which were two highly controversial genres at the time. Now, looking back on it, I think the labels and hate this album got were fueled by industry envy, because this album became so much bigger than other records in the same vein. And it wasn’t bought and paid for hype, this was a real album and single sales. Paramore created one of the most energetic, catchy, and hard-hitting albums in the 2000s. This album was created in turmoil, and it sounds chaotic as their emotions were at the time, and somehow it sounds so damn good. It became a timeless anthem for young adults and teens just trying to keep their heads above water whilst navigating an onslaught of changing relationships. Riot!, to me, is an album that will never be replicated or matched. It is a sign of the times classic album that everyone should listen to at least once. It is not “bubblegum Rock”. It is not just an “Emo Rock album with a young Shirley Manson”. It’s a fantastic American Rock album with a ton of influence and amazing composition and energy. Even though I’ve worn this album out, it’s still subjectively such a well-thought-out album. With perfect mastering, sound engineering, and an immensely unique tone.
The vocals on this record are fantastic, nobody can deny that Hayley Williams is one of the best front women in modern times. I could go on and on about how pristine the vocal delivery is, but I’m not going to. I want to talk about the drums and guitars on this album. Nobody talks about how incredible the drums are on every single song on this album. Zac Farro is one of the hardest-hitting most accurate drummers I have ever seen, and Riot! is still his best work. The drums on this are perfectly crafted around a pretty complex song structure for an album considered to be “Radio Rock”. It reminds me of Van Halen I drums because they’re just so hard, heavy, and flashy without a lot of effects like reverb or compression. This is one of my favorite drum records of all time, especially on For a Pessimist. I’m Pretty Optimistic, which sets the entire angry, loud, crashing energy of this album. On top of the drums, you have brother Josh Farro on guitar. As controversial as he is as a person, he was the brilliant musician who wrote three fantastic Paramore albums and added some of my favorite guitar tones ever recorded. His riffs are underappreciated, especially his work on “We Are Broken”, which reminds me of a Fleetwood Mac-level epic ballad. I also have to mention Let the Flames Begin; This song is so underrated and is still their heaviest song to date. The guitars, the passion, the perfect almost operatic scream vocals, and the breakdown is just breathtaking. You HAVE to listen to the live version of this song. Even if you’re not a fan, this song is incredible. It was incredible to go back and just listen to this album again and appreciate all the tasty nuances that have influenced countless bands, including The Warning, who is my favorite band right now. Hayley Willams and company are responsible for returning Good Rock to the radio once again.
Favorite Tracks: For A Pessimist, I’m Pretty Optimistic, That’s What You Get When It Rains, Let the Flames Begin
Happy Tuesday Metalheads. There is quite a bit of new music out this week, so I thought I’d compile a list so everyone can keep track of the onslaught of Metal this year. Winter is a lot slower than summer, but we’re approaching Spring which is a huge music release period of the year. I’ve been listening to a lot of Halestorm, The Warning, Mammoth WVH, Lutharo, and Lauren Babic, but there’s some new tracks I have been marinating on! This is not everything out right now, just some of my favorites from the past seven days.
New single from legendary Folk Death Eluveitie
New Live Video From Pirate Symphonic Band Visions of Atlantis
New Pop Rock Nostalgic Coheed and Cambria
New from Power Metal Legends Avantasia
Gravedigger from their new Album “Bone Collector”
Lauren Babic Solo
Old School Deathcore Whitechapel with a new single. Not my favorite, but it’s huge right now
Alien Weaponry Goes NuMetal. I surprisingly like this song.
Italian Symphonic Death Band Septicflesh Releases Gorgeous Animated video
Canadian Death Metallers Release Historical Brutalism
As always, I highly recommend doing your own research and building your own music catalog on Youtube or Tidal!
Black Absinthe, the acclaimed heavy metal band known for their raw energy and immersive storytelling, announces the release of their gripping new single, “Jean Lanfray”. This latest offering comes ahead of their highly anticipated album, “On Earth Or In Hell”, set to be released on March 27th. I am looking forward to this album immensely. It sounds fresh, but has an excellent throwback sound that I am digging lately.
“Jean Lanfray” delves into the dark and turbulent history of Absinthe, the infamous spirit. The band was inspired by the chilling story of Jean Lanfray, a man who, in 1905, committed a heinous crime under the influence of alcohol, including Absinthe. This event sparked a moral panic that contributed significantly to the temperance movement and the eventual banning of Absinthe in many European countries.
Black Absinthe uses this narrative to explore themes of denial and the devastating effects of alcohol addiction. “When exploring concepts and stories relating to Absinthe, we came across the story of Jean Lanfray; who, after a day of excessive drinking, murdered his wife and children. Despite consuming a variety of liquors, it was his consumption of Absinthe that scandalized the public. The murders and subsequent trial kicked off a temperance movement that would see the sale and production of Absinthe banned in most European countries,” the band reflects. “The band uses the story to depict the denial ever present in an alcoholic mind. ‘Jean Lanfray’ works to depict a narrator pathetically denying the reality he has caused and showing the depraved actions a man can take when gripped with alcohol addiction.”
About BLACK ABSINTHE: Formed in the underground dungeons and dives of Toronto’s metal scene, BLACK ABSINTHE is a Canadian contemporary heavy metal band. Since 2011, BLACK ABSINTHE has performed, recorded, and reached new fans all over Canada. Presenting a mix of thrashing mosh pits and riff heavy anthems, their growing presence in the diverse heavy music scene, unifies classic metal grandeur, speed-demon rhythm sections, soaring solos, with modern technicality. Over the course of three EP’s and one LP, Early Signs of Denial (2016), BLACK ABSINTHE has continued to grow and experiment on its NWOBHM influences while maintaining the intensity of the contemporary heavy metal genre. The band draw influences from the likes of GOJIRA, MASTODON, SLAYER, and MOTÖRHEAD, to name a few.
In 2019, founders Jack Cerre and Kyle Scarlett proudly welcomed Fernando Villalobos (Ex-SLUDGEHAMMER) into the fold. BLACK ABSINTHE continues to carve their own path with performances across Canada and have brought new material to fans in Montreal, Newfoundland, and Toronto. Most recently opening for TOWER, FIREBREATHER, and WITCHROT.
In 2020, the band began laying the groundwork for their latest album On Earth or In Hell. In 2021 the band began pre-production demos with JC Sandoval (THE CROOKED, WE THE CROOKED). As producer, he oversaw the entire project, also engineering vocals and bass. In February 2022, the band engaged Juno-nominated producer Tyler Williams of Monolithic Productions (LINDSAY SCHOOLCRAFT, LUTHARO, SLUDGEHAMMER) to co-produce, engineer drums and guitar, and mix the album. The album is slated for release on March 27th, 2024.
BLACK ABSINTHE is: Jack Cerre (Vocals/Guitar) Kyle Scarlett (Bass) Fernando Villalobos (Drums)
Single Credits: Performed/Written by: BLACK ABSINTHE Lyrics by: Austin Henderson Produced by: J.C. Sandoval Co-Produced by: Tyler Williams Mixed by: Tyler Williams (Monolithic Productions) Mastered by: Lasse Lammert (LSD Studios) Photography: Michael Jari Davidson Album Art by: Darrin Crosgrove
Track List: 1. Dead Queen 2. Nobody Knows 3. Jean Lanfray 4. Call of the Void 5. On Earth or In Hell 6. The Hard Way 7. Essentially Fucked 8. Twisted Past
Chicago Melodic Death Metal two man band, Cariosus, are a new edition to the modern Metal scene. They bring a deep cerebral take on the world of Melodeath with as complex lyrics as the music can get. They shine a mirror on the soul and the modern human psyche and rip it open with beautiful brutality. I am no stranger to Melodeath, having seen a dozen shows of pure Gothenburg Metal and reviewing the scene for a decade, so I was interested to see a new one coming from America.
Some words on the album provided by the band: “Will, Until Beauty is a thesis on mankind facing its shadow. It is the confrontation of one’s darkness that is necessary to find inner light. In this work, CARIOSUS navigates the modern psychic landscape that humanity finds itself in- rife with spiritual deprivation, manufactured morality, and performative righteousness that the weakest among us use to hide from our own inner abyss. For both the individual and society as a whole, it is a call to reconcile one’s soul in both light and darkness- to create a consolidated and objective view of Being that is the foundation of true virtue.”
Will, Until Beauty is as deep and as heavy as it sounds. It’s methodically written and mature for a debut album. It’s rich in Deathcore, Blackened Death, and Neoclassical influence, deviating from your typical Melodeath sound bloomed in the dark North. Opener “Narrow Path” is a gripping rhythmic track with old school Death Metal guitars, thrash drums, and dynamic screams and growls from Alex Pfister. Alex is impressively ranged, stacking up to any Deathcore vocalist. Kevin Kryszak (Guitar) is fret board fluent, using every octave on that neck on the opening track alone. “Saturn Returns” is more modern and has some Carnifex sounding aspects to it, which vastly impressed me. There’s so much sound coming from two people, it’s hard to believe that this is their debut album. Apollo’s Lament is a slower more melodic track at first, then it hits you like an oncoming out of control train. This track is insane, changing from one measure to the next, switching sounds and influences faster than you can count. It’s complex, even for Melodeath. This song would be a great single from the album as it screams Enslaved and even chorus-effect Type O Negative melodic lines. The solo is also very Classical and intense. All Too Human breaks up the blistering heaviness showing that melodic side with acoustic percussion and Tool-esque bass lines. I absolutely love this track from beginning to end; the way it builds and moves is just so incredible and well-done.
The album continues to flow together very nicely without becoming repetitive or contrived at any point and keeps that depth going through each track. I wish I had access to the lyrics to get a real feel for the message, because it is so deep in meaning and Alex is a highly distorted vocalist so it’s hard to pick out the words. This vocalist highly impressed me, however. His range for a debut is utterly staggering. This album has a depth I rarely see in Death Metal. Cariosus is adding their own spin and I think Metal fans from every area are going to dig this album.
2023 was in my opinion, one of the greatest years for Metal and music in general. The innovations in the genre were overflowing this year. All the true quality releases make it one of the most difficult years to rank and categorize the best of the best. I have revised this article and list so many times, I’ve lost count. It seems I am discovering a new band, song, and album that defies all my musical expectations everyday and it truly astounds me. So, I picked my favorites. It’s not a popularity contest or based on the songs that live rent free in my head, it’s just my favorite albums based upon my perception of quality and innovation. I based my decisions upon personal preference, but also just sheer quality of composition and aspects that made the record stand out from your typical Metal albums. This list could really be in multiple orders, but I just put my favorites in the succession I feel reflected my listening habits the most. Let’s face it, it is impossible to put all of the best albums of 2023 in order by quality or ingenuity. There’s simply too many excellent albums.
What albums did you love this year? Which ones did I leave out or miss entirely? Comment below and let me know.
My Top Albums 2023
Hermitage: Daruma’s Eyes Part 2- Temperance
This should come as no surprise that this album is ranked number one for me, as I predicted in my review. Temperance came back with an ingenious concept album and one of the most musically talented lineups I have heard since Epica. It’s a Symphonic Power Metal Opera for the ages. It overshadowed anything Ayreon or Star One have done for almost a decade, in my opinion. Marco Pastorino and crew made a once in a lifetime bombastic and moving record with impossibly good vocals. It is innovative as it uses so much Classical elements with huge wall-of-sound production and an eclectic mix of vocalists that come together to absolutely blow your mind. It sounds futuristic, but mirrors the production quality of Hard Rock and Prog albums from the 1980’s. It is a stunning record that I don’t think will be topped anytime soon.
2. Fearless In Love- Voyager
Voyager are one of my top 20 bands of all time, and this record is indicative of why they always deserve a top spot. This album does something for me that few albums do; it occupies the same space in my brain as Devin Townsend. Fearless In Love is an emotional journey through modern times and is a riff-heavy progressive romp if I’ve ever heard one. It’s as if Devin Townsend and Tears For Fears collaborated on a star ship. This album doesn’t sound like any other album, yet it mirrors Townsend’s genius riffing on Accelerated Evolution so eloquently. This is undoubtedly my favorite guitar record of the year, but also contains juicy bass lines and sing along emotive choruses. Fearless In Love is truly the most uplifting album of 2023 and one of the best guitar performances of all time.
3. Blue Blood- Phantom Elite
Blue Blood was a complete surprise to me. I knew of Phantom and the excellent Marina La Torraca, but their releases never impacted me until this absolutely aggressive record. It is everything I love about Spiritbox and Jinjer, but with a softer side. It’s a Djent/Prog Industrial album with Symphony Metal overtones and beautiful vocals. It’s an album with massive range and variety, no two songs sound the same. It’s fresh and modern without being contrived. The riffs are punchy and enigmatic, always changing and layering on top of loud bombastic drums and crunchy bass lines. Blue Blood is catchy, chaotic, emotive, and groove oriented. It deserves so much more recognition for utter quality. I never expected this band to hit my top ten, but this record is undeniably fantastic.
4. Beyond the Black- Self Titled
When I thought about my favorite records of the year, this is the first one that actually came to my mind. It’s an album I continue to go back to, despite it being a little more radio friendly than what I usually love. There’s just an exquisite mix of genres and influences on this album. It’s Arena Rock with immense emotion and chuggy heavy riffs. Jennifer Haben is one of the most underrated vocalists who fits into any genre or rhythmic pocket. She has an innate tone that is rarely heard in modern music. Kai Hansen is also one of my favorite drummers of late. His performance on this record ties everything together and holds it all in a heavy package. It’s high production quality without being bubblegum or robotic. Beyond the Black created something reflective of Covid times without being too dark or too in your face and it is truly cathartic to listen to. It has profound meaning underneath catchy hooks and huge arena sounds, something modern Rock typically lacks nowadays. This is a truly special record that will surprise you in depth of content and diamond quality.
5. The Wonders Still Awaiting- Xandria
The Wonders Still Awaiting was originally second on this list, but the year squeaked out even more gems and made it difficult for me to order this list any other way. I am an avid Symphonic Metal listener, admittedly less and less as of the last Epica release. Xandria came back in 2023 with a new lineup that dominated my year in music. The addition of Ambre Vourvahis has reignited this band to the glorious torch it once carried. She is the only vocalist on this list to give me actual chills and goosebumps. Marco Heubaum continues to write moving and enchanting music atop heavy riffs and new growling vocals that set him apart from other Symphonic Metal bands. This album is extremely moving throughput and wonderfully thought-provoking. It greatly foreshadows other releases in the genre of the past five years. I will always hold a higher standard to Xandria than Nightwish, and this gorgeous album proves the reasons why.
6. Anno 1696- Insomnium
I am not the biggest Insomnium fan, but subjectively this is a flawless Melodeath record. This Finnish Melodeath band is known for creating utterly devastatingly heavy albums, emotionally and instrumentally. Anno 1696 is no deviation from their usual greatness, but it definitely hearkens to an 90’s Death Metal sound that creates a unique blend on top of a great story. It is poetry in brutality. The addition of Jani Liimatainen has reignited the band and added a new voice. It’s as though lead vocalist and bassist Niilo Sevanen is the narrator, and Jani is another inner voice of the characters. I’ve never heard another album like it, yet you know it’s Insomnium right away. There is a unique blend of Folk music and Melodeath on this album as well that was new and very interesting. Insomnium refuse to be formulaic and continue to push the envelope of genres. 2023 was all about genre breaking and blending, which is why this album was so successful.
7. Heimdal- Enslaved
Another unexpected gem of 2023 for me. I had never truly given Enslaved a listen, and I realized the err of my ways very quickly when Heimdal came out. This album is a pinnacle of 2023’s genre blending. It mixes 70’s Prog and modern Death Metal in a Viking setting. It’s far from the cheesy formulaic Viking Metal people have grown tired of. Heimdal is an existential journey through the Great Norse worlds and audibly envelopes you in a strange ethereal aura. The synths and organ give it a primordial feel and is not something I ever expected to hear in Death Metal, but is Enslaved’s special brand that really sets them apart for me. The production quality is pure without being too clean for extreme music. It’s perfectly balanced and flows smoothly like a linear story line. It is such a welcome change from overproduced music with no edge or nostalgia.
8. Nemesis AD- Serenity
Serenity is unfortunately an underdog of Symphonic Metal despite continuously putting out quality records. Nemesis AD is a testament to the ultimate strength of this band in bombastic thematic riffs and smooth powerful vocals from Georg Neuhauser and of course the incomparable Marco Pastorino. This album is profoundly beautiful, riff heavy, and catchy with great hooks. It sits somewhere between Sonata Arctica and Therion. To me, it feels more Power Metal than Symphonic without being contrived or another band just influenced by Nightwish. This is a history lesson of inspiration and self empowerment without being cheesy. Serenity set themselves apart from the rest with this record and made something truly special that I will continue to listen to for years to come.
9. Shades of Sorrow- Crypta
Thrash Metal and Death Thrash are not my cup of tea or area of expertise at all. It’s not that I dislike the darker heavier side of Metal. I listen to brutal bands like Archspire, Lorna Shore, Emperor, Triptykon, Draconian, and Cattle Decapitation. Thrash Metal has never spoken to me, however, and lacks a certain refined technicality I need in my music. So, I came to this new Crypta expecting it to be boring to me. Boy was I wrong… Shades of Sorrow is technical perfection in brutality and darkness. This album crushes your senses and spirit in all the best ways. Crypta is a powerhouse of four women with the essence of Thrash and Death and Melodeath in one technically sound package. They are one of the best bands I have heard in a long time. Their chemistry is tangible, led by drummer Luana Damatto holding down the heavy rhythmic section with Gene Hoglan-like groove and precision. If I had to give individual music awards out, Luana would undoubtedly be my drummer of the year winner. Shades of Sorrow is better than I expected and is truly one of the best Thrash records I have ever heard in my life. The fact that its four women delivering one of the heaviest albums of the year just makes me unbelievably proud and happy to be alive. They are terribly underrated and this album deserves to be on every top ten list.
10. This Heathen Land- Green Lung
Where in the heck did Green Lung come from? They went from being a band I’d never heard of to one of the bands dominating every top ten list of 2023. It’s shocking how well received this album is by the heaviest listeners in the Metal Community. The riffs on This Heathen Land are too perfect to resist, however. This album mixes Folk Rock, Black Sabbath, and Ghost like catchiness to create solid Stoner Metal rooted in Pagan epics. This sounds like it could be put out in the 1970s with the heavy organ sound and creepy high pitched vocals. It’s heavy, ethereal, and anthemic all in a smoothly delivered package (That’s what she said). This Heathen Land by Green Lung is far from an album I expected to be on my top ten, but it is just so damn solid I can’t think of any album that deserves this spot more. All of you elitists that hate on Ghost are absolute hypocrites if you’re jamming this album since in came out, and I hope that realization hits you like a truck. This is one of the most listenable albums on this list and is quite addictive. Once you start listening to Green Lung, you won’t be able to stop.
Honorable Mentions:
Terrasite- Cattle Decapitation
Time Will Take Us All- Entheos
Bleed Out- Within Temptation
Riverside- ID Entity
Fauna- Haken
Avenged Sevenfold- Life Is But A Dream…
Tales From The North- Bloodbound
Dark Waters- Delain
My Top Singles of the Year
Darkness is Just a Drawing- Temperance
Broken Orbit- In Mourning
Reflections of AD- Serenity
Inner Beast- Phantom Elite
Free Me- Beyond The Black
Ultraviolet- Voyager
Never Dawn- Lacuna Coil
Lilian- Insomnium
Jaded- Spiritbox
Native Colossus Live at Mad With Power- Shield of Wings
Honorable Mention Singles
As the Flower Withers- Elysion
One More Flag in the Ground- Kamelot
Two Worlds- Xandria
Basterd Von Asgard ft Fabienne Erni- Feuerschwanz
More- The Warning
Hey Brother- Dartagnan
Maxine- Green Lung
Beneath- Delain
This playlist features 20 of my favorite songs of 2023
Click play or watch on Youtube to see the full list on the sidebar
Releases November 17th via Music Theories / Mascot Label Group
Experimental Progressive Metal thinkers, Earthside defied every boundary you could imagine within music with breakout release “A Dream In Static” in 2015 and highly acclaimed singles like “All We Ever Knew and Loved”. It is a record that fused philosophy, metaphysics, Prog, Ambient, and instrumentals into a long sonic journey and was highly well received by the Metal community. Anything new and profound, whether it be emotionally or mentally significant seems to hit the Metal community’s ears just right. “Let the Truth Speak” is another genre breaking mind bending record that I know will be another critically acclaimed hit. Was this record worth nearly breaking up the original base lineup? Earthside answered that question upon completing this hugely ambitious undertaking and finding themselves as inspired as 16 year olds finding their path for the first time.
Anytime an album is rooted in deep thinking, self reflection, or claims to be a mirror to the existential self, I am eager to delve into it. This is an album I didn’t expect to like, as I really didn’t know many of the guest musicians and I expected something quite self-important and pretentious. I thought it might be overtly composed and too chaotic, and it proved me wrong immediately. This album is a lot to take in, yes. It is as complex as you may expect, but not overwhelming. It is supremely balanced with ambience and detailed with melodic guitar parts and passionate rhythms and weird time signatures. It gives you breaks and room to sit in the feelings their trying to convey, before it mesmerizes you with technicality. You can tell it took a ton of mind power to craft this album, because there are so many bits and pieces that almost don’t fit together, but it works. “Who We Lament (featuring Keturah)” reminds me of Devin Townsend’s album Ki that featured Chee Aimee Dorval in the best way possible. It starts atmospheric and then absolutely explodes and the vocals reflect this inner heaviness of self loathing with a bit of a surprise fry vocal. “Tyranny (featuring Pritam Adhikary of Aarlon)” is a huge standout for me and is one of the heavier songs on the album with pounding technical rhythms and chesty voicing reminding me of the band Klone. “Pattern of Rebirth (featuring AJ Channer of Fire From the Gods)” is a great single track that brings a familiar more Metalcore sound, with some nicely melodic spoken word and long sung choruses.
This album seems darker and moodier than previous releases. There’s melancholy and even anger in instrumentals “Watching the Earth Sink” and “Vespers (feat. Gennady Tkachenko-Papizh & VikKe)”. This emotional arc seems to be fitting and reminds me of the heaviness of Russian Circles at times. The drums stand out instrumentally to me and really carry this album to be something special, besides all the unique guest vocalists. Ben Shabrom is a brilliant drummer, but there are parts on this album that exceed even his usual flair and heavy hitting. The addition of Baard Kolstad on “All We Ever Knew and Loved” is a smart decision as he is incomparable and the hardest hitting Prog drummer I have ever seen. Kolstad was possibly an influence throughout the album, because many parts mirror his bombastic crazy rhythms and airy cymbals. Overall, the diverse instrumentation is great and interesting throughout, but I find myself complaining what everyone complains about in Modern Music: It needs more bass. For the most part, Ryan Griffin is inaudible and under utilized. Without bass, the tone of the music is completely lost and always lacks dynamic range. The only song he shines on is the Jazzy-Djent breakdown “The Lesser Evil (feat. Larry Braggs & Sam Gendel)”, and while it is a brilliant Seal and Skinny Puppy crossover, it’s sad that’s the only time we get chunky and crazy bass lines.
This album is a lot and is certainly not accessible to the average listener, but Prog nearly never aims for accessibility, but emotional diction in technicality. Earthside have created something very complex, once again rising to their self proclaimed crazy ambitions. I like this album and a lot of tracks on it. It flows extremely well without getting repetitive or stale. It’s unlike anything I have ever heard, but definitely has familiar aspects the more diverse listener can appreciate it. I don’t know if I’ll ever listen to the album in full again, however. It seems to be one to appreciate a couple times, but doesn’t have anything that sticks with me. It’s a great album technically and has profound meaning, but it lacks a recurring theme or something to keep me engaged.
Lyrically, I found it boring and without distinctive messages to pull from so it stays in your head. It just leaves you once you’re done listening. Maybe, that’s the point. Maybe it’s about enjoying the moments while you have them and then moving on from the past. Either way, it is worth a listen and maybe true Earthside fans will consider it a classic. I don’t necessarily love it, but I understand and appreciate what they were trying to do with “Let the Truth Speak”. I like it, but I expect way more content with the next release and an arcing theme that resonates longer than a play through.
Metal Valkyrie 