FAVE ALBUMS
Wherein I will post and then discuss, in short or at length, my favorite albums. I don't have a top 10 of all time or anything like that, I do have a long and growing list of albums I consider to be "perfect" or which can be classified as a favorite of mine for some standout reason or another. These won't just be albums that I think are great, because honestly - go visit my Bandcamp Collection for that, as I wouldn't pay for the releases if I didn't think they were great. This page, this page is for my favorites. Newest additions at the top, in descending order of addition to the website but not necessarily reflective of their ranking.
I remember the first time I saw this album advertised in one of the old extreme metal magazines. You know the ones. Where labels at the time would take out full page ads and put all their recent/current/upcoming releases on the same page with minimal info and a thumbnail sized image of the album cover? When I saw the cover for this one, I was instantly curious. It was so different from other covers in the same realm of that time. And when not very long after I found it at my local record store, I went back and listened to in store about a dozen times. I was hooked. It took me a while to get the funds together to buy it, but I made it a priority. And I've never fallen out of love with this raw, forward thinking (still) brand of relentless death-thrash. Timeless album. Thoughts... Devour thoughts... Man it still gets me pumped up, 32 years later.
Emotional gridcore. It rules and does things no other band ever has. And sadly they are no longer around and this is the only thing they did colllectively.
I couldn't put it any better regarding any piece of this band and album than this article here. Just add 5 years to the timeline when it was written.
I will also mention, where the aforementioned article does not, that in addition to it being released on Earache when it was and that nearly being enough to warrant picking it up at the time, I was drawn to the artwork - and even moreso, the logo. As a visual artist and logo designer, I still can't love either the cover artwork or the logo enough. Brilliant stuff.
"Nosferatu" is the fourth studio album from American speed/power metal masters Helstar. More speed than power, in my opinion, Helstar is one of the greatest sort of slept on cult status bands in the speed and power metal realm, especially with regard to the American scene of the late 80s and 90s. True metal heads and connoisseurs are typically familiar with the band, but they don't get the shine that a lot of their contemporaries do. And that's a damn shame.
I was in 6th grade when "Nosferatu" came out and they already had three other powerhouse albums under their belt and were a force to be recknoed with from day one. A friend of mine in 6th grade showed up to math class and put the cassette on my desk with his hand held firmly on it as he looked me in the eyes and told me that I had to check it out. He was not wrong.
As the title might suggest, the album is heavily influenced by and themed around vampires, specifically Dracula. It features some of the most incredible song writing in the speed/power metal realms - again, leaning more earnestly into speed metal than power. James Rivera's vocals are S Tier, even to this day, for the niche genre and metal (and music, as a whole) all around. The guitar work is impeccable, riffs and solos especially - but amazing musicianship in or outside of the metal genre, tpp. Great backbone to the band and album and genre on bass and drums cannot go without mention, either.
If the one minute intro and following song "Baptized In Blood" don't hook you and reel you in, I don't know what to say to you other than there's probably not much hope for you as a fan of metal. The rest of the album is just as engaging in its own way and 30+ years later stands as one of the best albums in related realms ever recorded.
"Burning Time" is the 1991 album by Last Crack. It was not their first album, "Sinster Funkhouse #17" came before it and is amazing in its own right, but it really cannot hold a candle to the front to back, top to bottom, full on brilliance that is "Burning Time". Full stop.
The frontman of this band, a guy simply known as "Buddo", seems to be a bit of an eccentric creative type who managed to find a group of incredible musicians that simply understood his brilliance and worked with and around and through him. Every moment of "Burning Time", I feel, illustrates this plainly and I don't know what else to say about it other than that. You can also watch some really remarkable early footage of Buddo which was somehow promo footage for the bands work here and here. Really incredible stuff.
At any rate, Last Crack came up in an era of "heavy" music - they at least came up with music from the fringes that was gaining popularity - that was not ready for Last Crack. By and large anyhow. Between thrash, hairmetal, goth, grunge, etc on the so-called "heavier" end of the musical spectrum and with other things like these things, Last Crack - with their supremely clean and expertly executed vocals belting out storytime and storytelling lyrics over a myriad of styles prevelant in the era, but turned up to 11, as well as a number of styles and nuances that wouldn't really gain true poularity understanding in related scenes until much later. "Burning Time" was ahead of its time and waiting for it to gain traction ended up being an exercise in, wel... burning time.
Gang Starr is widely regarded as one of the greatest hip hop outfits ever, and for good reason. DJ Premier aka Primo is basically the greatest hip hop producer of all time. MC Guru is foundational MC level business, one of the greatest to ever grip the mic as far as I am concerned.
In 2022 the hip hop game is wildly different, but the album "Moment Of Truth" is a brilliant and foundational cornerstone of modern hip hop music. From the foundational boom bap production of Primo to the "what's left is the voice" rhymes and delivery of Guru, it is an undeniable classic. Toss in the collabs that are weaved in, it's inescapably brilliant hip hop. Timeless..
It may be beneficial if one is already a fan of either Cult Of Luna, Julie Christmas, or both to thouroughly enjoy this album - however, I don't think it is a requirement.
Cult Of Luna are considered post-metal and have been compared to the genres most distinguisehed acts Neurosis and Isis. I consider Cult Of Luna a little more heavy metal than either of those acts, which is not to say either act are not metal. But when one things of "heavy metal", Cult Of Luna definitely leans that way further than the other two mentioned bands. I've not always been a huge fan of Cult Of Luna but have always enjoyed their releases and given them more than a few spins. They just never struck me as heavy rotation material and seemed to require - intended or not - full attention to full album play throughs. While I historically listen to albums front to back on the first spin, often on subsequent listens I cherry pick which tunes I want to hear. I do not believe that was ever a consdieration for Cult Of Luna, I think they look at their releases is single units to be experienced as a whole, beginning to end. And that's admirable as all heck. But sometimes my ADHD and frame of mind just don't allow it.
Julie Christmas was the singer for the now defunct Made Ouf Of Babies and also defunct supergroup Battle Of Mice (who are already mentioned on this section of my wewbsite). She also released the critically acclaimed album "The Bad Wife", which will eventually find its way to this page, as well. Julie's voice is unlike any other that I've heard and when it comes to handling vocals for ebb and flow emotionally driven conceptually brilliant heavy music - there is none higher when it comes to women vocalists, IMO.
Needless to say, when you put the two together, it turned out to be one of the greatest albums ever recorded in heavy music, as far as I'm concerned.
An amazing testament to a vocal powerhouse that is, for some reason, appeearing to be wiped form the internet. The original Bandcamp release page is gone, and it is increasingly harder to find it streaming.
Go buy it on Amazon before you can't. I think some of the material is getting erased due to collabs and connections with people who have or have been considered problematic or trying to make big artistic turns, as Romy herself I believe. But this album is one of the most beautiful and emotional pieces of music to come out in the last decade that resides somewhere in or near the realm of "popular music".
She continues to grow and evolve and I'm here for it. But this album. This album is something truly special.
Probably the most emotionally charged record ever recorded, IMO.
Call it post-rock or post-metal or progressive variants thereof or anything else you can imagine, this record is nothing if not palpable angst, anger, pain, sadness, lonliness...
There was real relationship dynamics at play during the recording of this record and among its members, but never before has a bands personal dynamic been so tangibe.
Some don't considere this an album, as it is essentially 2 EPs of mostly cover songs with a couple originals thrown in, but it is classified as an official album in their discography and according to the band - and to those who know good music. The pinnacle - and early beginnings - of crossover thrash and I don't know that it's been done better ever since.Suicidal Tendencies - "Controlled By Hatred / Feel Like Shit... Deja Vu"
Suicidal
Tendencies
Controlled By Hatred / Feel Like Shit... Deja Vu
1989
In short, it is a perfect album and the high watermark for 90s thrash metal. Incredible songwriting and musicianship across the board, timely (and, in retrospect, timeless) technical and catchy thrash of the highest order.Megadeth - "Rust In Peace"
Megadeth
Rust In Peace 1990
I will defer to this article for all things every things about these things.
Disrupting the landscape of dubstep at the time and on the heals of the infamous Dubstep Warz broadcast, with heavy nods to both jungle and house music, Burial came out of nowhere as a nobody and flipped the entire script. "Untrue" is still and will forever remain an emotional piece of music and unlike anything else before or since - except for those copying and borrowing from his style today, of which there are countless.Burial - "Untrue"
Burial
Untrue 2007
I don't care what your religious beliefs are or aren't. I don't cae if you think religion should be a part of an artist's output or not. I don't care if you think religion is awesome or loathesome. I don't care. As long as you're not advocating some sort of classist, racist, sexist, etc narrative - I don't care. And you shouldn't either. And then you should go listen to the best thrash album that came out in 1989.Believer - "Extraction From Mortality"
Believer
Extraction From Mortality 1989
One of the greatest albums of all time, period. Front to back, just impeccable. No song is out of place, no note is out of place, no vocal is out of place. In fact, the only thing out of place about this album is the original art having to have been censored and inevitably re-done. But, I guess, even the secondary art, which a lot of people view as the original artwork, is incredible and has since become iconic. 1987 clearly wasn't ready for it, as it took a couple of years for this thing to gain steam, and it took even longer for most critics to appreciate it for the front-to-back perfect album that it is.Guns 'N Roses - "Appetite For Destruction"
Guns'N Roses
Appetite For Destruction 1989
