This week has been one of the busiest weeks in music releases in a long time. It’s been a whirlwind of some of the heaviest music and diverse songs. It is hard to keep up as usual. Below are some of my favorites of the week and some you might have missed.
What has everyone been listening to lately? I have been catching up on thirty years of Death Metal, studying up on my Women’s Music history, and listening to new albums from Messa, Kardashev, and Eluveitie. Let me know what I should check out next.
One of My Favorite Metalcore Bands Drops New Deatchore-like Single
Sigh. I wonder how much of Modern Metal is going to sound like Lorna Shore and Slaughter to Prevail. I love Parkway, and I like this song, but it’s a little too predictably Modern Metal. What happened to melody in Modern Music?
Swedish Gothic Death Metal band Returns with Absolutely Amazing New Single
I’ve never heard this band before, so I didn’t know what to expect. I expected classic Death Metal, but this is much more diverse and beautiful than I expected.
As with all my posts, this one 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 taste. They’re not even in order by my 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 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.
In part one of the series, the first six albums were all by Devin Townsend. Part two highlights a favorite album from my favorite Metal bands. It was incredible to go back and listen to these. I listen to them often, but not in this context. Active listening has always been my preferred writing method, but I’ve never done it so personally in depth. Listening to these albums whilst actively picking out why I love them cemented my admiration. The whole process was very cathartic and interesting. I don’t think I ever thought about these albums on such an introspective level. Each album and its songs have distinct meanings to me. They even have vivid memories attached to them. Writing this proved to me how integral music is in our lives.
7. Apex- Unleash the Archers (2017)
I refer to Unleash the Archers as my favorite band of all time. I’ve been listening to them since about 2015. Growing up with Iron Maiden, Metallica, Whitesnake, Dokken, and Judas Priest, I look for similar music. High octane, dueling guitars, speed Metal, and killer power vocals never fail to grab my attention. No surprise to me that I’ve become such a fan of Unleash the Archers. They have all the qualities of those Power Metal/Heavy Metal 80s bands and ooze with the magic of Iron Maiden. The guitarists Andrew Kingsley and Grant Truesdell are masters of dueling guitars, Thrash riffs, and Melodic Power licks. They are two of the best technical guitarists I have ever seen. The sheer speed and accuracy with which they play are miraculous to me. It’s like Adrian Smith and Dave Murray on a massive amount of Monster Energy drinks. It is insane to watch them play live and in the studio. The same goes for drummer Scott Buchanan, who I think is the most underrated drummer of all time. This guy seemingly effortlessly plays at 150 beats per minute and faster for an hour and a half. Buchanan looks as if he’s barely moving behind what looks to be a basic Rock drum kit. I do not understand why he is not recognized as a fantastic drummer. Nick Miller is also a fantastic bassist, showing his strong presence on the last two UTA albums. He chugs the hell out of the bass. As a bass player, his tone and speed captivate me. He is just so good without being too loud, too low, or too flashy.
And then, there’s Brittney Slayes: Where do I even start with the incomparable and iconic vocals of UTA? It’s hard to sum up her contribution to the band and the Power Metal genre in a paragraph. She is larger than life in vocal presence. Her range truly defies everything I knew about vocals. She can sing in many styles and voice types, but it fits perfectly with the music. The brilliance of her note choices, her ability to sing in the pocket, and her storytelling are the strongest aspects I love about Brittney. In some ways, I feel like she’s the closest vocalist to Ronnie James Dio in spirit, style, and range, but she also stands on her own. All of these virtuoso musicians make perfect chemistry in UTA, and are what make the band so special. There’s nothing out there like them that I’ve heard. They pull from a plethora of genres and influences to create meaningful, energetic, and technical Power Metal.
Apex is undoubtedly my favorite album from UTA. Apex is a once-in-a-lifetime concept album. It is incredibly emotionally compelling in different ways on each track. The story of Apex is heart-wrenching. It follows the story of “The Immortal” and his curse to serve whoever wakes him on Earth. Over 1000 years, The Immortal sleeps and wakes multiple times. This time, the evil tyrannical witch queen “Matriarch” wakes him for an evil task. Her evil knows no limit, and she has power over the entire planet. She orders the Immortal to bring her four sons back to her to sacrifice them for her own immortality. Through the story, The Immortal shows his immense power to summon an army of ten thousand to subdue and chase out the sons. He also shows morality and introspection, trying to decide if it’s all for nothing or if the ends justify the means, and he considers what the good in it all is. This concept is interesting because, to me, it reflects the acceptance of Good and Evil in the world and the balance it upholds in the right hands. Everything about Apex astounds me. The story, the instrumentation, the composition, the structure of each song, and how it flows together seamlessly. I love everything about this album, especially the guitars and vocals.
I connect so personally with Apex. The aspect of The Immortal slumbering in a mountain with this curse and his acceptance of his curse struck me. I was born and raised in Colorado, and the end of Apex with the title track tells my story in a way. The curse I view as my disability, Cerebral Palsy, and my acceptance of this thing I cannot change. , being born and raised in Colorado, “The mountain, my home” reminds me that the mountains are my haven. Apex, the song, is truly one of the most beautiful things I’ve ever heard in my life. The whole album echoes this beauty to me. Apex is a masterpiece in both written and sonic form to me. It’s music that means something deeper. You can interpret the story to mean different things and take what you want from it. This is why I think Brittney is brilliant. It’s a well-composed story, but its meaning is ambiguous and mysterious in a way. This allows fans to attach to it personally on a possibly deep level, like so many of the best Fantasy novels. I don’t think Brittney gets enough credit for creating and crafting the stories and concepts of their three-album run. Apex deserves much more credit for its concept and musicianship. It is truly unmatched and will always remain an important album to me.
My favorite songs are Apex, False Walls, Earth, and Ashes
8. Ategnatos- Eluveitie (2019)
I’m going to be honest: I wasn’t entirely sold on this album initially. The heaviness was a drastic change from “Evocation II”, and I wasn’t ready for how hard this band came with Ategnatos. I’d been listening to Swiss Folk Death Metal band Eluveitie since 2012, so I knew they were pretty heavy in the past. Some albums take time to grow on me. After I sat down and was in the mood for something heavy, I listened to this album three times back to back. The experience was intense, spiritual, and tear-jerking. This album is an experience from start to finish and is larger than life. It combines old-Eluveitie with Death Thrash riffs and their signature blend of Folk Instruments and Celtic/Gaulish sounds. It’s Melodeath meets Ancient Pagan music, and I love it so very much. If a Metal album could ever sound Alpine, Ategnatos is the prime example. It’s like walking among your ancestors in the valleys of the Swiss Alps. It’s so unique and specific to Eluveitie. While many Metal bands are incorporating Folk inspiration into their heavy music, Eluveitie stands out from the rest to me. Maybe it’s because I experienced this in concert when I saw them in March of 2023, but they just feel so different from any other band to me. The first time I’d ever heard of a hurdy-gurdy was in Eluveitie. It’s such an unlikely instrument for Metal, and it’s almost a comic and unbelievable mix, but it works so well. They’ve crafted a truly unique sound that is all their own. With Chrigel’s signature harsh vocals, the Folk instruments, the speedy fiddle riffs, and epic guitar riffs and breakdowns, it’s undeniable that this band is one of a kind.
Ategnatos is a difficult album to stop listening to once you start. There’s an addictive “Beauty and the Beast” quality that I’ve been hooked on since 2008. The riffs are catchy on any instrument. Like on Blackwater Dawn, the pipes intro has been in my head off and on since it came out. Somehow, they packed in heavy chunky riffs, Speed Metal drums, Folky diddies, and Nightwish-like choruses sung by the incomparable Fabienne Erni. I will never get over her powerful voice and incredible range. She is yet another Metal singer who can sing anything. Her performance on Ategnatos is sensational with every note. She is one of my favorite vocalists of all time. Ambiramus is the Eluveitie song to date. It was a last-minute addition to the album, and yet it fits the anthemic nature so well. This song is unbelievably beautiful. Experiencing it live was a truly spiritually cleansing moment of my life. How she delivers such notes and Alpine calls with volume and clarity is mystifying. The whole album is a spiritual trip. Her voice is a pivotal aspect I love about the album. The riffs and the chanting on The Raven Hill are so epically catchy, along with the unique groove. It’s like listening to an ancient Celtic celebration with a death growler. It scratches my brain and satisfies the Scot-Irish in me like I’ve never expected. I grew up listening to Celtic music, but Ategnatos raised the bar. The darkness of The Slumber and Worship imprints on me. The acceptance of one’s fate comes into play, the Death Metal and depth of these songs are eerie, and it’s an interesting feeling. Breathe is another track where Fabienne’s range shines on, and it shows why she’s considered the heart of Eluveitie. She sings her heart out on every song, but especially on ” Breathe. This song reminds me of long road trips out of Colorado and being severely homesick for the safety of the mountains.
I can’t talk about this album without fanning over Rebirth. Rebirth rounds out the journey of someone who converts to a tribe, becomes a powerful figure, and ascends. This is one of the best Metal tracks I have ever heard in my life. Alainn Ackerman is a favorite drummer of mine, and his speed, use of flam, and interesting fills are the backbone of this album. But my god, his blast beats on Rebirth paired with the shredding of Jonas Wolf and Rafael Salzmann is a stroke of brutal virtuosity. The first time I heard this song, I was genuinely blown away. I restarted the song over before it even ended because the intro is insane. I thought my YouTube playback speed was up by two clicks, but it wasn’t. I will never forget the first time I heard this song as long as I live.
This album is also personal to me because it spawned quite the saga of dreams. I began having these dreams in the Spring of 2020. They were the most interesting dreams I’d ever had. One dream in particular remains. The dream began with walking through a valley of the Alps, lush with green native grasses and herds of sheep below. It was in Switzerland, and it was, of course, beautiful. I was walking along with members Fabienne Erni and Jonas Wolf. Fabienne explained to me in detail about the tribes of people from a millennium ago that walked the same path that we walked. She told of riches, tragedy, triumph against armies, and how Celts and the Gauls were related. The two led me to a waterfall with a sizable pond below it. In the pond, they performed a ceremony of sorts, and I was baptized back into my Celtic roots. When they had me plunge into the pond that was barely deep enough to stand in, I saw seven “beings”. These seven beings were grey and green, with cloaks. They had no face or discerning features. They repeated the words of Ambiramus to me. I was then pulled out of the pond and was cleansed of bad energy. It was a “Rebirth” you could say. The dream was very cinematic and beautiful. I am known to have very detailed and epic dreams, but this has to be one of my best. I will always remember it and think of it when listening to this album.
My favorite songs are Ambiramus, Breathe, Rebirth
9. Delirium- Lacuna Coil (2016)
I have been a fan of Lacuna Coil since I was around thirteen or fourteen years old. My older brother discovered them on the College radio station after we moved to Colorado. While I remember seeing the Heaven’s A Lie video on a music channel, it was two or three years after I started listening to them. “Comalies” lived in our car CD player for a good three years after that. Experiencing the 20th anniversary of Comalies was the biggest wave of nostalgia. This album has impacted the Metal market in the US and influenced Metal more than people realize. Before this album, “Beauty and the Beast” style vocals weren’t exclusively done on an entire album, I don’t think. This concept was only done in passing on songs. Now, it’s one of the most interesting music concepts that shaped Symphonic Metal and more bands than I can count. Comalies is an album that will be immortal, much like the Evanescence album that brought female vocals in heavy music into the mainstream. I’ve loved everything Lacuna Coil has released since (Yes, even Shallow Life). The moment I became a mega fan of LC was upon the release of “Delirium”. This is when LC became one of my favorite Heavy Metal bands of all time and Maki became one of my favorite bassists.
“Delirium” is a deep delve into the human psyche with all its dark manifestations. It’s heavy, moody, cinematic, atmospheric, catchy, beautiful, and brutal all at the same time. It could easily be a soundtrack to a miniseries about a serial killer, and I mean that in a good way. The thematic elements swallow you up and take you into the eerie depths of catharsis. Delirium is incredibly deliberate and perfectly constructed. It flows from each song and doesn’t break the tension and dark elements. It’s an experience as much as it is an album. It takes you to the literal edge of sanity where you’re losing control of yourself, your relationships, and the perception of things around you. This album is brilliant in how spot-on it captures its theme. Rarely does an album concept hit as hard as Delirium does for me. It’s so literal, which is refreshing in Metal. I don’t find a lot of albums that speak about a subject so clearly, and I commend LC’s dive into the dark world of Mental Health issues. Delirium takes me back to toxic relationships, anxiety, and feeling as if my reality was going dark, but in a good way. It reminds you of how you can live through all the darkest parts in your life and rise above the darkness in your mind. I love that message.
The sounds on this album are unlike anything I have ever heard. I don’t like comparing artists too much, and this album is incomparable. Despite not having an official guitarist at the time, Maki, the bassist and a founding member of the band, constructed some of the hardest-hitting riffs on both bass and guitar. It’s a rhythmic onslaught of heaviness, but it also drops out to highlight the insanely beautiful tone of Cristina Scabbia. Cristina is one of the most unique singers in Metal. This dark and light balance is evident on “Live To Tell”, a solo track for Scabbia’s unique, soulful soaring vocals. The riffs offset so perfectly, and yet pummel your senses to a pulp on “Blood, Tears, Dust” and “The House of Shame”. Maki and guest guitarist Myles Kennedy of Alter Bridge created Nu-Metal nostalgia with a punchier bass sound, and I love it. The drums are also technically perfect. Every hit matches the riffs so exactly, it sounds like a machine. The musical chemistry on this album is spectacular. Everything just flows so well together, A sign of a band that’s been together for so long; they work in exquisite harmony. Andrea’s screams are a highlight of the album., To me, his transformation into a death growler is one of the best decisions ever made in music. He went from an “okay singer” to me to an absolute guttural god on this album. It’s the extreme of “Beauty and the Beast” vocals, and I love it so much.
Lacuna Coil keeps defying the constructs of Rock and Metal and extremifying their concept. They evolve, change, and grow while remaining unique to them, but I don’t think the perfection of Delirium will ever be topped for me.
Favorite songs: Ultima Ratio, You Love Me Cause I Hate You, and The House of Shame
10. Seventh Son of A Seventh Son- Iron Maiden (1988)
I’ve mentioned this album in previous posts but never delved into it quite like this. Iron Maiden is undoubtedly one of my favorite bands of all time. They are one of the most influential bands in Metal history. I have memories as far back as I can remember of this band. They’re a band my family loves and has loved since long before I was born. My late uncle was responsible for my love for Iron Maiden. He was a traditional Metalhead that brought these bands to my Mom and eventually my brother and me. Bands like Iron Maiden, Metallica, Rush, Pantera, Van Halen, and more came from my Mom and my Uncle. That sharing of music was crucial to me. That’s probably why I have a compulsive need to share music with everyone I know. Sharing music was the purest form of love I had from my uncle, who was otherwise a problematic person in our family’s lives. That sentiment is one I wish to pass on to other people. I’d like to be known by the bands I share and whether that discovery meaningfully impacted someone else’s life the way Iron Maiden impacted mine. Without my Mom and Uncle exposing me to this music, I probably wouldn’t be a Metalhead and a pretty different person. There are many weekend memories tied to this album: Packing up the house, going on a road trip, working on a car, or just sitting out on the back patio. I remember listening to this album. Music is a powerful thing when it is tied to happy memories. It can remind you of who you are when you’re at your best or happiest. This album always does that for me.
I haven’t always been a huge Metalhead. In my childhood, I was exposed to Rock and Metal and generally liked it. During my childhood, I chose Britney Spears, Whitney Houston, The Cranberries, Fleetwood Mac, and Celine Dion more than anything. As a teen, I rebelled for a while against what other people were listening to and chose more pop-punk like Paramore, Fall Out Boy, New Found Glory, Incubus, and more of that mid-2000s style. It’s normal to go through phases, but I think, deep down, I always truly loved Metal. Iron Maiden was one of the bands that cemented my dedication to Metal when I was 18. While I credit Iron Maiden, it was more specifically Sam Dunn’s Metal Evolution that made me realize I had an innate passion for Metal. Watching this anthology in full on VH1 made me realize how deep and scholarly Metal could be. The theme of the Metal anthology was The Trooper. I had heard the song many times before, but hearing it on this documentary truly reignited my love for Metal. All of Iron Maiden’s albums are impactful and nearly masterpieces, but I had to go back in time. The Trooper may be my favorite song of all time, but my favorite Maiden album is undoubtedly Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.
Some consider it a miss or just a mini album of 80s ideas, but it impacted me more than any album. I will never understand the discontentment for this album. This album was an experiment, and I love experimental music. While people perceived it as Maiden trying to go Mainstream, I think they were trying to do the opposite and rebel against the Sunset Strip of Hair Metal. Iron Maiden took what Fates Warning was doing and combined NWOBHM with Progressive Metal. This combo engrained itself into my brain forever. It is the most influential album to my music taste. I think many albums on this list have a taste of this record at heart in some way. Unleash the Archer’s albums remind me so much of this record, and that’s probably why I love them so much. Seventh Son is a mix of soaring atmospheric synths, melodic dueling guitars, and insanely Proggy drums from the incomparable Nicko Mcbrain. It sounds like a mix of King Crimson, Deep Purple, Manowar, and Vangelis while still keeping the Iron Maiden grit and epicness. The technicality of it is staggering. They keep their anthemic sing-along style but add time changes and syncopated rhythms and flashy ’80s sounds. In my book, it’s one of their best works and my absolute favorite album from them. Every song is just so memorable without relying on hooks. It’s creative, emotional, cinematic, and badass in its guitar work and aggressiveness on songs like the title track, Evil That Men Do, and The Clairvoyant. Oh man, and Steve Harris’s bass playing on this record is just sublime. The bass could’ve been much louder on this album, but it still impacted my playing, as all Maiden albums have.
Seventh Son of A Seventh Son is one of the most unique Metal records I’ve ever heard. I will always cherish its technicality and the memories that go along with it.
My favorite songs; Moonchild, Infinite Dreams, and Seventh Son of A Seventh Son
11. Moonbathers- Delain (2016)
While Symphonic Metal is more of a part of my past, Moonbathers is an album that will forever remain special to me. It’s not the biggest, technically perfect, or cinematic Symphonic album ever made. It’s not the best mix or engineering on a Symphonic Metal album. It defies all the things I normally look for in a great album, and yet here it is on my favorite album list of all time.. Moonbathers is an anthemic, moody, dark, masochistic record with more soul than 99% of any Symphonic album ever made. This album is a whole experience of emotions, thematic sounds, and epic guitar hooks. It’s an eclectic mix of traditional elements of the genre and sounds that are so unique to powerhouse vocalist Charlotte Wessels. It’s like The Cranberries, Within Temptation, Kate Bush, Nick Cave, and The Birthday Massacre combined into one really neat package. It’s the rawest Symphonic Metal album I have ever heard. It’s unapologetically loud, jarring, and campy all at the same time. Moonbathers is a vocal astonishment and put Charlotte Wessels on the map forever, along with her incomparable performance on Burning Bridges, Masters of Destiny, and her solo work The Obsession. Moonbathers feels like Charlotte’s Delain, and it is my favorite version of the band that ever was and that ever will be.
Moonbathers is the moodiest album I’ve ever heard. It’s an explosion of emotions: anger, pain, love, sadness, and elation to be alive to experience it all. It’s a concept album in that it holds the same dramatic theme throughout. It’s more of a vibe than a story for a theme, which is unique in and of itself. It’s a love letter to those suffering in life in such an epic way. It’s a little bit Pirate and Hans Zimmer with Hands of Gold, a little bit of 90s Alt-rock, a little bit of soul Vocals, a little bit Queen, and Poppy hooks like on Fire with Fire, Turn the Lights Out, and Suckerpunch.Pendulum is a Machine Head/Trivium one-two punch with Epica thrown in there. It’s a crazy record. The mix of inspirations is unlike anything I have ever heard. It just hits you right in the chest, like a suckerpunch that stays with you forever. It’s catchy while remaining musically interesting and progressive. I’ve never heard anything like it. Despite all the comparisons I’ve made attempting to describe how this sounds to me, it’s a Mason’s Mark all on its own. Glory and the Scum is one of my favorite tracks of all time. It’s a “Beauty and the Beast” vibe, with Charlotte and bassist Otto combining for the compelling bone-chilling growls. Her voice on this song is one of the most mesmerizing sounds to me. She embodies the idea of a Siren and succeeds in captivating every single time, but especially on this song and power ballad, The Hurricane. These two songs still astound me today and are some of my favorite performances on any album to date.
Moonbathers is special to me for more reasons than I can even say. This record inspired me to write books about my two alter egos. It’s inspired poems, countless riffs, whole songs, short stories, and more dreams than I can even count. This album spoke to me on a philosophical level in ways words cannot articulate. It’s a unique nostalgia, a throwback to one of the only bands I have ever loved with my entire being. It reminds me of all the hard work I put in on myself with meditation, running, soccer practices, and self-actualizing. This album signifies self-acceptance for me. It also is the first album I’ve ever bonded with someone outside of my family. My best friend and I experienced this album for the first time together. I will never forget writing tens of paragraphs foaming over this album. It was a very special time in my life, and it cemented our bond forever, I believe. It’s an album that will always remind me of her and also everything we’ve been through together. She’s the reason I have continued writing, besides the absolute necessity to express words on paper in which she understands and celebrates more than anyone I’ve ever met. Moonbathers helped us solidify this connection, and that is irreplaceable.
Delain with Charlotte will always be one of my favorite eras in music, and Moonbathers is the keystone album for that time to me.
Favorite songs; Glory and the Scum, The Hurricane, Fire With Fire
12. Omega- Epica (2021)
One of the newest albums on this list. I felt odd picking the most recent Epica album. I have listened to Epica since 2011. Hearing this band for the first time was a religious experience. It was as if I was hearing a choir from heaven and an orchestra only fit for cherubs. As cheesy as that sentiment sounds, it’s the best depiction of my connection with Epica. There’s a supreme feeling to their music. It’s all-encompassing and incredibly emotionally moving but also deeply philosophical. There’s no instrument, topic, theme, or height of technical excellence that this band isn’t afraid to tackle. This band creates gargantuan albums.. Tackling them in a critical sense is way above any music reviewer’s pay grade. Talking about the impact this band has had on music and myself is more in the realm of tangible. Epica is what my brother and I like to say, “a band of all time.” They just are what they are, and that is massively, unfathomably talented. People often complain that the days of Classical Composition and the greats such as Bach, Beethoven, Mozart, and Handel are dead. To me, those days of completely perfect and epic music are far from dead. Classical Music isn’t dead or gone; it just evolved into Symphonic Metal. And Epica is the pinnacle of that sentiment. Epica creating an album called “Omega” is possibly the aptest title any band has ever used.
Omega is an expansive record. The album contains all of Epica’s typical sounds and ideas compressed into a well-produced package. It is the omega-ist album they could’ve done, whilst still showing mature restraint. While Quantum Engima was chaotic, unrestrained, and unfiltered, with a wall-of-sound production with a hundred layers of choirs and orchestras, I loved it. Omega is massive, but it’s carefully constructed with more beauty and dynamics than past albums. To me, Epica is at its best when you can hear Simone without constant layers of loud choirs. Simone is too incredible of a singer to overshadow. I think Epica got this message loud and clear on this record. The balance of Metal, choirs, orchestras, keyboards, and vocals is sublime on Omega. It is my absolute favorite album because of this perfect balance. It’s fresh and new for Epica, but echoes back to the days of “Sahara Dust” with Middle Eastern instrumentation and Thrashy-Speed guitars. The melodic inclinations remind me of Design Your Universe and the b-sides of The Quantum Enigma. The drums are straight from the more Fear Factory-influenced The Holographic Principle. Not only do Simone’s perfect Operatic belts and trills shine on this album, but every member is quintessentially audible.
I can finally hear everyone and their styles and influences equally. Each member creates the capacious illusion that Epica has a hundred members, and it’s so great to hear all six of them as individual musicians. The members on their own are genial musicians, and together, it’s a cataclysm of the best Metal this generation has to offer. You need not look further to understand the power of this band than Kingdom of Heaven Prt 3. This song is among the greatest pieces of Music I’ve ever heard. Out of all the composers over the last eight hundred years, I think Coen Jansen is the most underrated. This song is angelic and pristine. You go from crying to feeling as though you’ve faced your judgment. It’s genial in every movement, all 17 times and key changes, and all the moments it switches between Classical and Melodeath to a 70’s Prog keyboard solo. “You get a solo, you get a solo, everybody gets a solo!”.
Epica is the sole reason I began this blog nearly twelve years ago, so it’s a given that this band is sentimental to me. My brother took me to a headlining Epica show in 2012. This show was a turning point in my life. The fact that bands like Epica weren’t huge in America was a travesty to me. I created “Metal Valkyrie” to be a promoter for European bands like Epica. My goal was to greatly increase their fanbase here, but the journey expanded into a review site. It has been a grind, but it has improved my writing, created friendships, and maybe exposed some to these amazing bands. Epica took the minspration that Iron Maiden and Sam Dunn’s Metal Evolution started, and ignited it to the stratosphere for me. I’ve quit reviewing and switched entirely to promotion. While it hasn’t been as successful as I’d hoped in viewership and interaction, it’s a pinnacle journey for me and has benefited my life in ways I’ve not delved into yet. Epica’s music is immensely inspiring. The epic atmospheres they create can truly get me through anything. Their music is forever inspiring.
Because of Epica’s everlasting contribution to music, I will continue this journey with Metal Valkyrie and forever share this band’s incredible music.
My Favorite Songs: The Skeleton Key, Kingdom of Heaven Part 3, Code of Life
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
Metal Valkyrie 