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dancarter:
Updated...

This idea, I like very much.  Here's my add(have to represent Canada).


Album: VIVIsectVI
-Artist: Skinny Puppy
-Genre: Industrial
-Year: 1988
-Mood: Angry or downright scary
-Other Bands this sounds like: Inspired by Cabaret Voltaire, Kraftwerk and Throbbing Gristle.
-Summary/Review/Trivia/Whatever You Want: This is what many consider the best of the Skinny Puppy catalogue.  Very outspoken about animal rights, addictions, and the enviornment; this is the album where they finally include such topics in their music.  The songs themselves are an assault of noise, samples and Ogre's schizophrenic vocal technique, which can either scary the crap out of you or make you wonder how he makes these sounds come out of him.  Stand outs include State Aid, a creeping track about the spread of HIV, Harsh Stone White (cocaine abuse), and Fritter(a truly scary instrumental piece complete with crying babies.
Of note, Testure, a song that contends that animal vivisection is motivated by business greedy scientists, cracked the Billboard Hot Dance Music/Club charts.
Another thing, just to give you an impression of the sound. The liner notes: "Play this music loud or not at all -- As always to the green guy -- To hell with any bullshit".


Album: Solutions for a Small Planet
Artist: Haujobb
Genre: Industrial Dance/EBM/Cold Techno
Year: 1996
Mood: Danceable cynicism about the future.
Summary: If you are to start collecting Haujobb, this is the essential disc. Daniel Myer and Dejan Samardzic create a diverse mix of driven industrial tinged tracks about futurism and progress, interlaced with dancey beats and more IDM and ambient influenced atmospheres.  The disc is widely acclaimed for the genre blending and while Haujobb have gone off and done everything from cold, almost chip style music with Ninetynine, or further developed their more familiar sound with Polarity and Vertical Theory, this album boasts more risk taking and progressive mixing of styles than has been seen in their later releases.


Album: The Dividing (enhanced version)
Artist: Android Lust
Genre: Industrial
Year: 2003
Mood: "Electronic and dark"
Summary: This release by Android Lust's Shikhee has to stand out as one of the most powerful, emotional and unconventional albums released in the often tired, cliched Industrial scene.  It covers all ground and does it well.  The opening track, "Division", has an almost choral, church like feeling with throating, gasping vocals that is quickly cut, clipped and destroyed by the next track, the harsh, abbrasive and downright scary "Kingdom of One".  And this is Shikhee's greatest strength, her ability to ping-pong and combine different styles to create a newer, more interesting brand of Industrial.  At times, she incorporates noise elements, as in the track "Sex and Mutiliation", and at others, such as Another Void or the seriously depressing final track "Burn", there's an almost Bjork sensibility to her voice, amidst a mix of cold textures and beats or just a lone delicate piano.

Other musician of interest: Christopher Jon of I, Parasite provides drums, keys and backing vocals amongst other things(he's a great choice too, and is apparently working on some "synths and sound textures"  for the new Cradle of Filth album).  Pick up his "On This Cold Floor", it is most excellent.

greenMonkey:


Album:Ágætis Byrjun
Artist:Sigur Rós
Genre:Post-Rock, Shoegaze
Year:1999 (Iceland), 2000 (Uk), 2001 (US)
Mood:Beginning melancholy, shifting to brooding, continuing to breathtaking and uplifting, and ending melancholy.
Similar Bands:Mogwai, Explosions in the Sky, The Album Leaf, Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Summary:Absolutely breathtaking.  Lush strings, cello-bowed guitar, intense melodies ranging from the beautiful  Svefn-g-enlgar and Staralfur to the brooding Flugufrelsarinn and Ný batterí, conveying waves of emotion without being emo at all, and leaving you with an amazing feeling.  This is by far Sigur Ros' best album.
Funny Stuff:Gwyneth Paltrow listened to Sigur Ros while birthing her child Apple, several songs off this and another Sigur Ros album were featured in Vanilla Sky, a song (Staralfur) from this album was included in The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou.

Storm Rider:


Atheist - Elements
-Genre: Jazz-influenced death metal
-Year - 1993
-Mood - really difficult to describe... not really 'aggressive' in the traditional sense, but calling them 'laid-back' would be pretty misleading too
-Other Bands this sounds like: later Death, Watchtower, Spastic Ink, Spiral Architect, Cynic

Summary: Atheist's last (so far, they've recently reunited), and probably most accessible release. Atheist's work is filled with amazing technical facility from every instrument but still manages to bust out some serious groove, mostly due to the slick bass work by Tony Choy (bassist Sean Malone had recently left the band). The jazz elements are more prevalent in Atheist than any other of the prog-death bands except for possibly the short-lived Cynic, with plenty of smooth, sometimes even Latin-sounding interludes between thrashy speed riffs. Also, the remastered version of Elements has 5 tracks from Atheist's second album Unquestionable Presence on it as well, and every one of the nearly 20 tracks sounds much better after 10 years.



Testament - The New Order
Genre: Thrash Metal
Year: 1988
Mood: Aggressive, angry
Similar Bands: early Metallica, Megadeth, Exodus, Heathen, Dark Angel, Death Angel

Summary: You could argue, and very rightly so, that this isn't even Testament's best album. However, this is probably the best pure thrash metal album to come out of the San Francisco Bay Area (though Megadeth's seminal Rust In Peace gives it a tough competition), because Testament's later works took no shame in incorporating death metal into their sound. However, this album stands alone as a thrash metal classic. Sure, the album's only a little over 40 minutes long, but out of the 10 tracks (2 of which being instrumental interludes), there are no less than 5 classic songs, 2 of which (Disciples of the Watch and Into the Pit) being two of the most enduring songs in the entire scene, as recognizable to a thrash fan as the opening riff to Master of Puppets. Lead guitarist Alex Skolnick makes Kirk Hammett look like Billie Joe Armstrong (well, not quite, but close). On top of which, rhythm guitarist and main songwriter Eric Peterson writes some pretty fantastic riffs, and is not afraid to throw some more complicated song structure into a genre usually focus on straightforward aggression.


And are we really worried about people not knowing who Metallica are?

Praeserpium Machinarum:
Updated 9/5

I think I am going to promote danish artists here so be warned ;)



Album: Samme Stof som Stof(Same Matter as Matter)
Artist: Under Byen(Below the City)
Genre: Somewhere between electronic chamber pop, noise rock and nowhere.
Year: 2006(Europe)
Mood: mysterious, dreamy, dark, fragile as well as harsh
Other Bands this sounds like: The last two Talk Talk albums Spirit of Eden and Laughing Stock is a reference point. Perhaps a more fragile Sonic Youth or even Sigur Rós but really no-one.
Review:
Samme Stof som Stof isn't as much an expansion as an continuation of their previous albums Kyst and Det er Mig der Holder Træerne Sammen. The major difference is that they are louder here and have embraced some noise-rock aesthetic. Likewise lead singer Henriette Sennenvaldt have fallen in love with a voice distorter device and uses it to great effect throughout the album. Under Byen sings in Danish which might be gibberish to most of you. But it is conveyed with such emotion that it doesn't really matter. The range is pretty wide from the almost pastoral pop of "Tindrer" to the noiseheavy "Film og Omvendt" and "Den Her Sang Handler om at Få det Bedste ud af Det". As always there are a couple of small interludes with piano which acts as sort of a breather between the emotional outbursts. It ends on a fragile note with the spacious "Slå Sorte Hjerte".

Their sound have been described as the sound of dreams which is not completely off the mark really. It is an exploration of the subconscious, the strange and ambiguous feelings. They affect me on a highly personal level which no other band as of yet have been capable of. Thus they are easily my favourite band :)

Website



Album: Electrical Bonding
Artist: Wäldchengarten
Genre: Noise ambient, isolationism
Year: 2005(Desolation House/Noisejihad.dk)
Mood: Dark, abrasive, desolate
Other Bands this sounds like: I don't listen to much noise so I am not entirely sure. A much more toned down Merzbow perhaps.
Review:
The two brothers of Wäldchengarten are the "stars" of the growing noise community in Denmark. Electrical Bonding is their second album(as well as several hard to get EPs) and consists of five cataclysmic soundscapes that give a mild headache after end listening. The "pain" however is well worth the reward, a for me completely unique and slightly terrifying experience.
Their music seems completely devoid of human intervention, a bit like Autechre I am told. I have always pictured their sound to be like a city or a landscape after a fallout. In some strange way lifeless and peaceful, solemn even. It is a sort of existential/filosophical noise, the object is not to scare but to make people ponder. Electrical Bonding is not an easy listen but like Eraserhead it is an unpleasant but ultimately very fascinating experience.  


http://www.waldchengarten.dk

Thrillho:
Album: Give It Up For Rod Stern!
Artist: Rod Stern
Genre: Country/Folk
Year: 2006
Mood: Perverted
Sounds like: The bastard son of Frank Black and Bob Dylan
Description:One man, his guitar, and a hatful of the most offensive country songs you'll ever hear, about drugs, whores, trannies God, slavery, more whores and more drugs. The wittiest, funniest artist I've heard since Dylan or Nick Cave, and that's not an over-exaggeration.

Album: Circles
Band: Fony
Genre: British Metal
Year: 2003
Mood: Dark/I can't believe what that fucking whore did to me
Sounds like: Hmmm. I'm not sure. It's quite hardcore; very British, and very angry at women.
Description: British Metal at its finest. Their debut was really bratty hardcore, but Circles shows infinitely more maturity, although Olly Gibbens is still raging against former girlfriends. It's majestic, dark, deceptively simple metal with fine, gritty production and some of the most anthemic choruses I've ever heard.

Album: True Crown Foundation Songs
Band: Lucky Nine
Genre: British Metal
Year: 2005
Mood: Dark
Sounds like: Hundred Reasons gone more metally
Description: The supergroup of British hardcore. Colin Doran shows that Hundred Reasons aren't the secret behind his charisma with this band, with his guttural howl put to the forefront over bludgeoning riffs and brutal arrangements. It's great, great stuff, the best metal album I heard all of last year, and nothing's betttered it so far this year in my estimation.

Album: Powder Burns
Band: Twilight Singers
Genre: Anthemic rock
Year: 2006 (it's not actually out until May but I reviewed it)
Mood: Blackly romantic
Sounds like: A bit like Jackson United, a bit like Foo Fighters, but recorded at night.
Description: This is a beautiful, beautiful album. It's murky, it's expansive, it's dense, and it's perfect for dark nights of the soul. It's really, really good stuff. It's all ridiculously anthemic and catchy, it dabbles in Eastern strings, straight rock and piano ballads, all to brilliant effect. It's just great stuff.

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