Fun Stuff > BAND
My Top 25 Albums Of All Time
KharBevNor:
I have a feeling mine shall be somewhat different to most of the others on this forum. The only rule I made myself is that I can't pick any band twice.
25: Ministry - Psalm 69
Yes, it is a fact. Ministry can only make truly awesome records when a Republican named Bush sits in the white-house. From the vast, beautifully blasphemic sample-fest of the title track to the 500 mph industrial speed metal of 'Jesus Built My Hotrod', this album shows the range and scope of the band in a way none of their albums even approached matching until 'Houses of the Mole' (which deserves an honourable mention).
24: Jack Off Jill - Clear Hearts, Grey Flowers
From their debut 'Sexless Demons and Scars', to this release JoJ made huge progress in song-writing and sophistication. Gone are the mono-textural, two chord songs, and in are a perfect synthesis of hard-rocking and the 'cutesy goth' aesthetic. Jessickas voice is in perfect form, switching from ennui-ridden disinterest to prepubescent innocence to riot grrl screams at the flick of a button.
23: Therion - Lemuria/Sirius B
Therions most ambitious project to date. Though nothing quite reaches up to the standard of the apocalyptic 'To Mega Therion' from their opus Theli the sheer scale and ambition of the album, which features performances by over 350 musicians, is staggering. Therions dense, unappolagetically occultic lyrics, delivered in a bizarre and wonderful mix of operatic and heavy metal styles, are once again the perfect complement for the immense, unique scale of the music. This album once and for all proves that extreme metal is firmly rooted in the structures of classical music. And in immense style too. I mean, a balalaika solo? Genius!
22: Nightwish - Once
With this release, Nightwish finally reconcile their metal half and their symphonic half, cutting a path between the keyboard overload of Angels Fall First and reconciling the influences of Oceanborn and Wishmaster to create a brilliantly satisfying album bereft of filler: a real doozie from the epic 'Ghost Love Score' to the satisfyingly heavy 'Romanticide'.
21: Inkubus Sukkubus - Vampyre Erotica
Inkubus Sukkubus' unique brand of 'Pagan Rock' blends eighties new wave and goth rock with a hefty dollop of celtic folk and classic 70's metal to create a wonderful blend, with 80's keyboards soaring over mechanical folk drums and twisting guitar riffs surmounted by Candia's beautiful vocals. Vampre Erotica is if not the bands best, then certainly my favourite of their works to date (Supernature deserving an honourable mention). The song-writing is brilliant and, unlike most of their other works, it keeps up it's pace and quality without wavering to a substandard song or a dash of ill-thought out experimentation.
20: Immortal - Damned in Black
Really, several Immortal albums could have gone here. However, Damned in Black was the first of their works I ever purchased and listened to in it's entirety, and I fell in love with it instantly. The production is slightly changed from Immortals normal, crisp high end buzz-saw of icy guitar to a more murky, menacing mix that perfectly compliments tracks like 'Damned in Black' and 'Against the Tide (In the Arctic World)'. Won a close race with 'Battles in the North'.
19: Venom - Black Metal
Do I even have to explain this one? Venoms 1982 Meisterwerk was a kick in the balls to the stagnating European metal scene, in which they can probably claim to have pretty much invented the european mode of extreme metal. It's also a motherfucker of a record. I have the re-released version with Venom's Peel sessions. At the insanely low price of Ł10.99 it's probably the best value music purchase I've ever bought.
18: Count Nosferatu Kommando - Ultraviolence Uber Alles
This record is silly and over the top, as befits anything involving the notorious Hreidmarr of Anorexia Nervosa. This record bolts anarchistic French black metal to a solid industrial base and then goes on a drunken killing spree. If the media or your average depressed teen ever latched on to this record, then tracks like 'Get a Gun, Shoot at Random' would take a hell of a lot of explaining.
17: Forefather - Ours is the Kingdom
Man, this CD makes me feel good. It's viking metal at it's most anthemic, but unlike the stirring but somewhat removed musings of other viking bands, this CD is about the bloody Anglo Saxons. This album actually has a song praising someone who is supposedly one of my direct ancestors (Hereward the Wake). Awesomely brilliant, and, like Ancient Rites, very much on the 'fuck it' side of politically correct. I could imagine horrific racist misinterpretations of the title track (which is in fact anti-religious).
16: Danzig - Danzig II: Lucifuge
This album is like a vampire on a huge motorbike, riding through the American deep south listening to rock and roll, stopping briefly every so often to seduce, corrupt and consume innocent maidens. That's pretty much the best way I can describe it. And oh man, can Glenn Danzig sing.
15: Crotchduster - Big Fat Box of Shit
Supposedly a concept album (about smuggling the mysterious 'Mammal Sauce' to the dimension known as Williamsburgland in an interdimensional pickup truck in order to avoid taxes). Crotchduster casually sweep up and flatten every other Avant-Garde band in the world with what is categorically the most insane (and possibly obscene) record ever. Deathgrind meets rap, jazz, black metal, music hall, new wave, power metal, country, thrash, funk, blues, hard rock and everything in-between in this insane rollercoaster of parody and immature comedy. This album is pretty much a metal in-joke: no-one who hasn't heard a live death metal concert will quite grasp 'Stars Ingenious Cooter [live]', and you have to actually be able to pick out grindy death metal vocals to realise that at one point the singer is screaming 'I love rainbows, I love balloons, I cried at Forest Gump and Disney cartoons' (this comes after a light funk passage about analingus). Sheer brilliance.
14: Edge of Sanity - Purgatory Afterglow
Crimson and Crimson II are technically better records, but imo Purgatory Afterglow is the closest EoS ever came to their unfulfilled promise of producing the best MDM record ever (they are superior, imo, to popular favourites like In Flames and At The Gates). This album isn't truly impressive until you realise that it was made in 1994. Then it suddenly sinks in just how far ahead of the game the unstable writing team of Dan Swano and Andreas Axellson really was. Purgatory Afterglow is simply too dischordant in the nature of it's songs to be a true masterpiece, sounding somewhat like a compilation (a curse that would afflict all of EoS' later works) but some of the cuts on here are sheer genius: from the sheer brutality of 'Enter Chaos' to the epic 'Twilight' and the beautiful 'Blood-Coloured' the album shows that there really was something special happening here, despite filler tracks like 'Song of the Sirens' and 'Black Tears'. If only the band hadn't got mired into the combat between Swano's love of progressive rock and Axellson's affinity for first wave black metal...
13: Pink Floyd - The Wall
This is, quite literally, the album that got me in to music. Though my tastes have come on a long way since then, I still look back on it with great fondness and rightfully acknowledge it's place as probably one of the best concept albums ever put out, certainly one of the best if not the best to gain true mainstream appeal. Though 'Dark Side of the Moon' is another brilliant offering from Floyd The Wall has always captivated me with it's diverse influences and sheer intricacy of detail.
12: Bathory - Blood on Ice
Another record startlingly ahead of it's time, Quorthon kept this album back for almost eight years, fearing that it would be ridiculed and misunderstood by his audience. It showcases more than any other album Quorthon's gift for both story-telling and evoking a sense of truly epic scale with the simplest of means (parts of this album were recorded in his flats toilet). Great music compliments a great story well told.
11: Acid Bath - Paegan Terrorism Tactics
Acid Bath is a brilliant career cut tragically short. Their unique brand of hallucinogen-influenced sludge metal, veering wildly between grind and bluegrass, delivers along with excellent vocals and lyrics a perfect musical approximation of their name: slowly drowning in a bath of Acid. What type of Acid is not always clear...
10: Wuthering Heights - Far From the Madding Crowd
Probably one of the most goddamn impressive albums I own guitar-wise, Wuthering Heights fourth offering (and still the only one I have been able to track down) is totally blistering speed/power metal with a hefty dollop of folk and beautifully bereft of a good deal of the flowery bollocks (well, as much as you can realistically expect for the genre) that marr a lot of power metal. Cuts like 'Bad Hobbits Die Hard' and 'Land of Olden Glory' leave DragonForce and Rhapsody coughing dust in their wake.
9: My Dying Bride - Turn Loose the Swans
TLtS is the soundtrack to depression. Forget all that emo bollocks: MDB albums are atom bombs of gloom each capable of vapourising a whole legion of foppy-fringed crybabies, leaving behind nothing but a thousand smoking pairs of converse. This is the gloomiest of them all: a slow, apocalyptic symphony of utter despair. Great fun.
8: Ewigkeit - Radio Ixtlan
The solo project of Tom Fogarty (aka Mr. Fog), former Meads of Asphodel keyboarder, Ewigkeit is an insanely individual mix of everything from electronica to thrash to folk to black metal. Fogarty gave his entire music collection away to Oxfam several years ago, simply to be free of influences. His latest offering is truly spectacular, and word about it MUST be spread. To give you an idea how underground Ewigkeit is, Fogarty is offering the original cover art to several of his albums and the sound card on which this album was recorded for sale on his website. I am seriously, seriously tempted.
7: Waylander - Reawakening Pride Once Lost
Folk metal comes in two general varieties. Either the folk melodies are played using traditional metal instrumentation or they are played over the top on an additional instrument. Waylander is of the second type, and this, their first and most acclaimed album, passes it's ultimate test, in that the removal of the folk instruments would still leave a pretty good album of black metal (and probably quite a nice album of celtic folk too). This album never flags, with it's greatest tracks only standing out from a very prominent crowd: 'Born to the Fight' is an unarguable blast of furore Celtica, and the version of the traditional song 'King of the Fairi' contained on this album is simply jaw-dropping.
6: 3 Inches of Blood - Advance and Vanquish
3 Inches of Blood's sophomore effort is an unrelenting barrage of the kind of heavy metal that should, by all rights have died with the eighties. And it proves, categorically, that there's no school like Old School. Stupidly metal in the best sense of the word, 3 Inches of Blood are a band to be enjoyed best whilst drunk or in a fast moving vehicle. The crisp production and brilliant song-writing of this album drives home the promise of Battlecry Under a Winter Sun with a massive axe blow to the face. No respite, no ballads, no remorse. Beautiful.
5: Rammstein - Mutter
The first hard rock album I ever bought, and still one of my all time favourites. Every track is like an old friend to me, and it's one of the first I put on when I need to rock out a bit.
4: Cradle of Filth - Vempire (Dark Faerytales in Phallustein)
Cradle were my favourite band for ages. Coming in the middle of their career, Vempire is simply the best thing they ever did. Tracks like 'Queen of Winter, Throned' and 'The Rape and Ruin of Angels (Hosanna in Extremis)' can compete with the best, and it also includes the categorically finest version of 'The Forest Whispers My Name'.
3: Skyclad - Folkémon
Skyclad's unbeatable Martin Walkyier era burned brightest as it was extinguished. Folkemon adds a heaviness Skyclad hadn't known since Prince of the Poverty Line with pure folk brilliance to create an unbeatable end to an era. Strongly contested it's spot with The Answer Machine? and Wayward Sons of Mother Earth.
2: Finntroll - Visor Om Slutet
Damn, this record is hard to describe. It's an acoustic concept album, recorded in the middle of a forest, lasting just over half an hour. It has very little in the way of vocals. It achieves a transition of scale that is almost un-matched on any other record I've heard: from close, intimate fireside songs and new-agey-but-more-evil nature sounds tracks to vast musical passages that evoke massive sweeps of Scandinavian wilderness. It also has my absolutely favourite dancing track ever: 'Forsvinn Du Som Lyser', a fucking insane, raw finnish polka track full of wild cries of joy from the backgground, hand-clapping, thigh-slapping and chants of 'humpaa humpaa humpaa'. It also happens. when you translate it, to be about the destruction of the human race. Despite tough competition, I chose this offering over Finntroll's 'proper' albums, all of which deserve honourable mentions (but for the one album per band rule I enforced upon myself, one or two others would be in this list)
1: Ancient Rites - Dim Carcosa
This album is, literally, flawless. An utterly perfect fusion of several types of extreme metal with classical, chamber and folk music and even spoken word poetry. A formula almost everyone's tried, but no-one sounds like this. The lyrical theme of this album is insane: AR are European nationalists. Though they disavow nazism (In a musical scene where extreme right wing politics can gain you fans) their lyrics cut a razor-blade edge straight through self-effacing political correctness and say: well, Europe is, actually, one of the best places in the world. And man, have we kicked some asses. Ballsy and brilliant.
Other honourable mentions: Electric Wizard - Dopethrone, Iron Maiden - Powerslave, Burzum - Burzum, KMFDM - Angst, Arch Enemy - Burning Bridges, Darkthrone - A Blaze in the Northern Sky, Dream Evil - The Book of Heavy Metal, Crown of Autumn - The Treasures Arcane, Cruachan - Pagan, Orange Goblin - Frequencies From Planet Ten, Carpathian Forest - Strange Old Brew / Morbid Fascination of Death , Entombed - Sons of Satan Praise the Lord and loads more.
LightThievesAll:
--- Quote from: KharBevNor ---
16: Danzig - Danzig II: Lucifuge
This album is like a vampire on a huge motorbike, riding through the American deep south listening to rock and roll, stopping briefly every so often to seduce, corrupt and consume innocent maidens. That's pretty much the best way I can describe it. And oh man, can Glenn Danzig sing.
--- End quote ---
Fuckin' a. My favorite Danzig album is III though, just my opinion.
Inlander:
--- Quote from: nickyandthefuture ---22. Darren Hanlon - Hello Stranger
--- End quote ---
Little Chills is even better. (Can't remember if I've said that to you in another thread or not!)
Tago Mago:
I love your list, El Opium. Here's mine in no real order:
Guided By Voices - Bee Thousand
Can - Tago Mago
Charles Mingus - The Black Saint and the Sinner Lady
The Velvet Underground - The Velvet Underground & Nico
Richard Hell & the Voidoids - Blank Generation
Os Mutantes - Os Mutantes
Pere Ubu - The Modern Dance
Neu! - Neu!
The Olivia Tremor Control - Dusk at Cubist Castle
Flipper - Album: Generic Flipper
Dinosaur Jr. - You're Living All Over Me
Pixies - Doolittle
Sebadoh - Bakesale
Pavement - Slanted and Enchanted
Teenage Fanclub - Bandwagonesque
Kraftwerk - Autobahn
Popol Vuh - Hosianna Mantra
Wire - Chairs Missing
John Coltrane - A Love Supreme
Miles Davis - In a Silent Way
Glenn Branca - The Ascension
Chrome - Half-Machine Lip Moves
The Stooges - Fun House
Young Marble Giants - Colossal Youth
My Bloody Valentine - Loveless
Johnny C:
I can't wait to find the time to do this.
Navigation
[0] Message Index
[#] Next page
[*] Previous page
Go to full version