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

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

Black Holes and Revelation- Muse

Keep Me Fed- The Warning

Brand New Eyes- Paramore