Album Recommendations

[Terracosmo]

Hey yo.

Recommend an album. Any artist. Any group. Any genre. New or old. Anything.
Rate them if you want to and write shortly (or long, if ya want to) why you think it's good etc.

See it as a topic for mini-reviews regarding CDs.
Fun, eh?

Well I'll start by recommending Dir en grey's new album Withering to Death.
It contains 14 tracks but is unfortunately rather short, clocking in at 51 minutes.
For any fan of jrock with distorted sounds and unique elements, I'd recommend it.
For the fans, it's a must... a step up from 2003's Vulgar, which was a pretty dull CD overall.

Album highlights: Merciless Cult, C, Saku, The Final

[kooshi]

Vanessa Mae - The Best of Vanessa Mae
16 tracks
Vanessa Mae is a half Chinese and half Thai violinist who mixes her violin with today's pop music. Some of her songs are just amazing on how she is able to mix them so well. I find it surprising that regardless of her being an international superstar, almost none of my friends know about her.

[jing]

smile- laruku

although i only liked 1 song, which was hitomi no jyunin

[Hellraiser]

Appetite For Destruction by Guns N' Roses (1987)
Classic Rock/Bluesy, Metallic Hard Rock

1. Welcome To The Jungle 4:33 (5/5)
2. It's So Easy 3:22 (3.5/5)
3. Nightrain 4:28 (3/5)
4. Out Ta Get Me 4:23 (4/5)
5. Mr. Brownstone 3:48 (3/5)
6. Paradise City 6:46 (5/5)
7. My Michelle 3:39 (4/5)
8. Think About You 3:51 (4/5)
9. Sweet Child O' Mine 5:56 (5/5)
10. You're Crazy 3:17 (4/5)
11. Anything Goes 3:26 (3.5/5)
12. Rocket Queen 6:13 (4.5/5)
*All song times are only approximate.

I'm not much of a Guns N' Roses fan, but this is my favorite CD because it shows off the talent of Slash's unique guitar style and Axl's voice, especially in the ballad "Sweet Child O' Mine." $10 also isn't a bad deal for a great album like this so if you have cash flowing around, I recommend picking this up.

[basey44]

foo fighters should have a best of coming out later this year or early next year, so if u havent got any of their stuff go for that
also theyd prolly add some new tracks, and fooys have a habit of releasing quality songs i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif

[PSJ]

Dream Evil - Dragonslayer.

well what can i say, most songs are simply amazing. they mix fast and slow songs in a great way, a must for people who like melodic heavy metal and even if you dont pick it up and give it a try.

[KaneInferno]

Halo 2 Soundtrack Vol. 1- Martin O'donnell & Michael Salvatori, with Breaking Benjamin, Incubus, and Hoobastank

Great music, with combination of rock and classical elements. Good CD, but good luck finding a copy anywhere other than the internet.

[SK]

college dropout by kanye west, this album brought some originality back into hip hop and won best rap album grammy.
the documentary, the west is back with the game's debut. great lyrics and production.
get lifted, john legend, something different in the r and b genre, he has a great voice and already has grammy predictions for best album and new artist.
r & g : rhythym and gangsta : the masterpiece, by snoop dogg this is a great album, hard to explain just get it.
street's disciple, nas's first 2 disk album, nas takes aim at kobe in coon's panic and has some strange cool beats eg suicide bounce.

[Shi_No_Shikaku]

Buck-O-Nine It a Ska band that has some wierd tunes the Album I like right now is "On A Mission"

Flogging Molly Irish Punk and with sanit Patrick's day coming up this is a good band to get you into the mood. A good album is "Drunken Lullabies"

[Prof. Chaos]

The two greatest albums of all time were done by the Beatles[b] - [b]Abbey Road and Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band

[Foomanchew24]

If you like alternative/punk then The Used are really good, both albums are excellent, check them out. Some other interesting bands are The Killers, Franz Ferdinand, and Modest Mouse all interesting listens.

[PSJ]

ill go ahead and reccomend some more albums

Iron Maiden:
seventh son of a seventh son- this album is a true masterpiece in my opinion, all songs are great a must for heavy metal lovers.

dance of death- many maiden fans disliked this album, but it is a new sound to maiden and got some awesome songs.

Dream Evil:
ill go ahead and reccomend both their other albums to.

evilized - awesome album. almost better than their debut, if possible.

the book of heavy metal- also a very very good album, cant really bet evilized or dragonslayer but i'd say all of them are at the same level.

dream evil has cranked out 3 masterpiece albums. one each year since 2002. lets hope theres more coming this year. i highly reccomend this band everyone should try them.

[GhostKaGe]

Originally posted by: Pervert-Sennin Jiraiya
ill go ahead and reccomend some more albums

Iron Maiden:
seventh son of a seventh son- this album is a true masterpiece in my opinion, all songs are great a must for heavy metal lovers.

dance of death- many maiden fans disliked this album, but it is a new sound to maiden and got some awesome songs.

Dream Evil:
ill go ahead and reccomend both their other albums to.

evilized - awesome album. almost better than their debut, if possible.

the book of heavy metal- also a very very good album, cant really bet evilized or dragonslayer but i'd say all of them are at the same level.

dream evil has cranked out 3 masterpiece albums. one each year since 2002. lets hope theres more coming this year. i highly reccomend this band everyone should try them.

im a massive iron maiden fan seen them live twice id recomend

1980 - Iron Maiden
1981 - Killers
1982 - The Number Of The Beast
1983 - Piece Of Mind
1984 - Powerslave
1985 - Live After Death
1986 - Somewhere In Time
1988 - Seventh Son Of A Seventh Son
1992 - Live At Donington
1993 - A Real Dead One
1993 - A Real Live One
1995 - The X Factor i h8 Blaze Baily
1996 - Best of the Beast (2CD)
1998 - VIrtual XI yet again Blaize Bailey proves he is a crap vocalist but futurereal owns
2000 - Brave New World
2002 - Live at Rock in Rio
2003 - Dance Of Death
2003 - Edward The Great (best of)

i got them all if anyones interested all original recordings

[Swallow Your Soul]

Originally posted by: Terracosmo

Well I'll start by recommending Dir en grey's new album Withering to Death.
It contains 14 tracks but is unfortunately rather short, clocking in at 51 minutes.
For any fan of jrock with distorted sounds and unique elements, I'd recommend it.
For the fans, it's a must... a step up from 2003's Vulgar, which was a pretty dull CD overall.

Album highlights: Merciless Cult, C, Saku, The Final

You got there first dammit. Great album, though for me Vulgar was my favourite overall (mainly cos of Audence Killer Loop and Amber, and the videos for Child Prey and Obscure which were ace). The middle part of Vulgar was bland but it started and ended well. Only song I don't really like from Withering is that Jesus Christ RnR - that 'wah wah wah-wah-wah' bits well irritating...

Since thats gone, I'd recommend The Mad Capsule Markets - Osc-Dis. Another Japanese band but they actually do pretty well in Europe which is fairly rare (they made a slight impact on America as well but not too much) - Osc-Dis is my favourite album of all time, loads of digital loops and stuff like that, kind of mixes punk, pop, rap, types of dance music and metal...really hard to explain them, but I think the album is well worth a try, each song varies really well as well. They've got like 12 albums out by now, the old stuff is all old fashioned punk and very different from the new stuff...

[PSJ]

i also love maiden, going to see them live this summer. i dont got all records tho, working on that one. and i agree with you that blaze is crap, he was crap in the x factor and even more crap whne he tried sounding like bruce in virtual xi. and i dont enjoy paul di'anno all that much either. the first 2 albums doesnt feel like maiden. bruce somehow fits much better with the music maiden makes, the music comes to life much more when bruce does the vocals.

[Elite Hentai]

Machinae Supremacy - Deus Ex Machinae (A 1337 Swedish band and the inventors of SIDmetal a music style inspired by the sound of the commodore 64)

Stratovarius - Elements part 1 (This is Finnish speedmetal but it doesn't sound as depressing as a lot of metal bands. They are also great at playing synchronious. Some other fans would say their CD Visions is the best.)

FLOW - Game (It's even better then their first cd!)

Bob Marley - One Love (He IS the god of reggae and this is his greatest hits cd....)

Wu-Tang Clan - Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) (The first and best cd by the Wu-Tang Clan. I also like this skit before every song that feature parts of old kung fu movies)

Infected Mushroom - Classical Mushroom (An Israeli goa trance duo. I recently started to listen to goa/psytrance and this is the best I've found. This is great party music (and in combination with some w33d it sounds even better i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif)

[GhostKaGe]

aerosmith - toys in the attic

gotta love aerosmith

[Uchiha Barles]

The last album I bought was Nevermore - Enemies of Reality. I bought this on the recommendation of a fellow gotwooter (former?) in the metal thread, and I must thank him. It's a phenomenal album (which I currently can't listen to for lack of a working computer drive or a cd player). As soon as I run into some money, I'll begin collecting their other disks. Do check out enemies of reality if you're into heavy metal.

[Terracosmo]

@Swallow Your Soul> I agree with you. JCRnR is however growing on me, slowly but surely.

Now, following the heavy metal/j-rock hybrid train we have a personal favorite of mine, the latest "full-length" release by DespairsRay.
As I said, it's a pretty heavy band. Prominent drums by Tsukasa (another one of the many outstanding japanese drummers influenced by the best of them all - X-Japan's Yoshiki).
Karyu and Zero, guitar and bass respectively, do their duties as they should... but the one element that makes DesRay stand out is Hizumi, the vocalist.
His ranges are pretty impressive and while his style is not as distorted as Dir en grey's Kyo (is that a good or bad thing? you decide!) it's very straight on and fits the music like a glove.

DespairsRay has, regardless of the fact that they have been around since early 2000, never released a full-length album.
Instead they have a myriad of singles thrown at us and the mini-albums that eventually appears serves more like single compilations (with a few bonuses).
Interesting, eh?

Anyway, the latest of these mini-albums is 2004's "Born", while lacking anything new for the fans of the band; it's a very good introduction to their music.

It consists of 5 tracks, as following:

1. Born - 4:49
This is the title track. It's well... fucking awesome. Tsukasa's soft drum line gets you started and the keyboard effects does as well, then heavy metal hell breaks loose and Hizumi takes you on a journey throughout an incredibly catchy song. After hearing this, I was stuck in the DesRay world.
- Rating 5/5

2. Marry of the Blood - 8:45
Previously appeared on 2003's "MaVERICK" (see, they even re-use songs from earlier albums...) but this time it's 2 minutes longer.
The only difference from the original song is a very weird intro as well as a longer ending. A good and heavy song when you want to break some havoc, but yeah, cheap to recycle it.
- Rating 3/5

3. Murder Freaks - 4:52
Insane song. Very good for the adrenaline rush. You can scream along with it. Not particularly awesome, but very nice to put on occasionally.
- Rating 4/5

4. Yami ni furu kiseki - 6:39
Contestant for best j-rock song ever. This song is fucking delight. The intro is BEAUTIFUL, the verses and choruses are enthralling and makes you die slowly out of it's pure awesomeness. The fact that this also appeared on MaVERICK doesn't matter at all. Even though it's almost completely unchanged. So fucking awesome.
- Rating 6/5

5. Quarter Void - 4:31
Beautiful and mysterious. Catchy. I think this song is a good defination on the music DesRay does. There's not much else to say about it.
- Rating 5/5

If you fast forward to song 83 you get an acoustic live version of Yami ni furu kiseki, though only the ending of it. Pointless.

Pick this EP up, people.
And for DesRay > RELEASE A FUCKING ALBUM. Commercial swines!

[Swallow Your Soul]

^ They're apparently releasing a live DVD soon...not heard anything about it since I saw it on the batsu forums...unfortunately Yami Ni Furu wasn't on it - thats their best song imo. It seemed a lot of the ones I listen to most were missing from the list. An album would be ace, there is apparently gonna be one coming out this spring...but thats just based on what I read on a forum (ie probably a rumour).

http://www.batsu.org/viewtopic.php?t=4347&postdays=0&postorder=asc&star t=0

[Terracosmo]

Glad to see I'm not the only one liking the band. Hell, you even have the same favorite song. Interesting. i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif

[relevasius]

You all should check out The Mars Volta's first album Deloused in the Comatorium. This band is composed of the two afro sporting members of ATDI, the other guys made Sparta. Currently their song The WIdow is getting serious radio play, but the new album, IMO, is not as original or as good as this one is. Deloused had just the right blend of rock/ambience/prog, and add to that the fact that Flea plays bass (John Frusciante, RHCP guitarist, also appears on some tracks doing a little guitar work) on this album and you've got yourself a winner.

And if you've never heard At The Drive In, go get the Vaya EP and Relationship of Command.

For rap, Mos Def, Black on both Sides. Mos, IMO, is one of the most talented rapers out there right now, I prefer this one to The New Danger.

The Arcade Fire is pretty good, not breaking any new ground, but they've got some catchy songs. The album is called The Funeral Fire

If you like electronic music then you should check out either Air's 10,000 Hz Legend, or Aphex Twin's Richard D. James album.

And in the Indie Rock scene, Cursive. This band has a great sound, their newest album The Ugly Organ or Domestica are fantastic listens.

I've got more but i'll stop for now, I've gotta go to work

[TwisT]

My favorite so far of "D'espairsRay" songs is "murder freaks".. i just love that tempo

EDIT I recommend "Gamma Ray - Somewhare out in Space".. I have no real explonation why i think this is good..

[Sensei Jon]

Satyricon - Dark Medieval Times
Any At The Gates albums
Battlelore - Where the Shadows Lie and Sword's Song
Any Cruachan
Any Elvenking
Borknagar - Forget album name
Anything by Einjerher
Anything by Falkenbach
Anything by Kamelot
Anything by Vintersorg


Tons of others but I suppose I would have to reccomend my whole music collection. I can't give an exact reason why I like them but I do.

[SK]

some classics ( dont have to say much about these theyre all perfect)
ready to die- notorious big
the chronic- dr dre
straight outta compton- nwa
2001 (the chronic 2001)- dr dre
me against the world- 2pac
all eyez on me (2 disk)- 2pac
doggystyle- snoop dogg
life after death- notorious big
reasonable doubt- jay-z
blueprint- jay-z
blueprint 2: the gift and the curse (2 disk)- jay-z
the marshall mathers lp- eminem
speakerbox/the love below- outkast
illmatic- nas

[GhostKaGe]

ManOwar
Battle Hymns
Into Glory Ride
Hail To England
Fighting The World
Sing Of The Hammer
Kings Of Metal
The Triumph Of Steel
The Hell Of Steel
Louder Than Hell
Warriors Of The World

[PSJ]

oh well just for the heck of it ill revive this thread.

In Flames

colony, clayman and reroute to remain. the 3 best albums by this band, many fans dont like reroute to remain as the change their sound a bit but in my opinion it keeps their music alive and makes it interesting, you should avoid their latest album tho "soundtrack to your escape" not good at all, very boring album in my opinion.

[Sensei Jon]

I absolutely loved Jester Race, I couldn't stop listening to it. Then I got Clayman and Reroute to Remain and they just didn't work as well for me.

[Terracosmo]

The newer In Flames sounds nothing like the old one, Jester Race has a few excellent melodic death tracks such as Moonshield but generally I actually prefer their newer stuff. Soundtrack blows, but Colony and Clayman are both top notch albums.

[TwisT]

I liked song 2 and 3 on there new album.. the rest was shit..

[PSJ]

i didnt like anything with the new album, it was boring in some way it didnt get me excited like their music usually does. cant really tell what they were thinking with that album...

[Terracosmo]

To change the genre a bit... I must recommend the j-pop godess Ayumi Hamasaki to anyone who hasn't heard her yet. Her songs are all full of passion and every album is top-notch. What stands out most with her work are the wonderful lyrics, very personal and deep... easy to identify yourself with.

To pick an album in particular is hard, but Duty (2000) might be my favorite. It's full of beautiful ballads such as Far Away and Seasons (the first Ayumi song I heard, and actually the song I kissed my last gf the first time together with! ah, memories) and also faster pieces such as Vogue (with arabian influences) and Audience. We also have songs such as End of the world (great lyrics) with unusual agressiveness for an Ayumi song. Give her a try. You won't be disappointed.

And even though it's on a different album (I am..., 2001)... try finding the song M. It's so fucking good it's not funny!!!!

[SK]

I forgot Life After Death by Notorious BIG, one of the best albums ever.

[basey44]

anyone getting/or got futures by jimmy eat world
i just downloaded that album and so far it seems pretty good especially track 2 - just tonite

[GhostKaGe]

i like this thread i picked up a few bands i havn't really listen to before like Dream Evil - Evilized and Drangonslayer own wasnt to keen on Book Of Heavy metal

Angel Dust
Enlighten the Darkness
Bleed - I Love This Ablum

and if anyone has : Angel Dust - Of Human Bondage : feel free to send it me cause i can't find it anywhere i even went out to try and buy it i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif

[stos289]

I'd recommend The Black Mages & The Black Mages II - The Skies Above. These albums consist of classic Final Fantasy songs performed in a rock/heavy metal style under the original composer himself - Nobuo Uemastu. You can find the first album on many mainstream torrent sites and the second album on #gamemp3s@irc.xelium.net. Both of these albums are definite must-haves.

[Kezren]

Atreyu--The Curse.

[PSJ]

ill go ahead and recommend a few bands. Kamelot melodic power metal, the albums karma, epica and the black halo are awesome epspecially karma a must listen for all metal fans. firewind is another good power band, they're from greece but dont let that stop you. all their 3 albums are good tho they changed singer in the last one and his singing style is quite diffrent from the former singer. airged l'amh is another good band from greece, a heavy/folk metal band their album the silver arm is awesome.

[basey44]

new foo fighters album released in 47 days


everyone get that i/expressions/face-icon-small-tongue.gif

[2:25]

yay for Foo Fighters \o/
There's a Weezer one coming out soon too

[r3n]

nine inch nails - pretty hate machine
genre: industrial metal

easily within my top five albums, has such good feel and emotion to it. makes me chant biblically along to every song. everything trent reznor touches turns to gold. i wouldnt really class this as metal but most people do. a lot of their tracks are no heavier than something radiohead would bring out (but without the whining!).

highlights:
down in it (superb lyrics, great rhythm)
head like a hole (again, great lyrics like all of NIN's music, great chorus line)
terrible lie (again... superb lyrics)
that's what i get (great beat)

new NIN album is just out (with teeth), it too is pretty good, altho i havent listened enough to rank it against pretty hate machine. definately a grower.

and while im here, another album to recommend;

Far - water & solutions

if you havent heard it you're missing out. its kinda like deftones with a much more grungier and darker feel. highlights include the system, mother mary, and water & solutions. go get it!

[Terracosmo]

DespairsRay, the band of which I reviewed an EP back on page 1, finally released their first full length album following a career of 4 years which prior to this consisted of 2 EPs and about a zillion singles.

So what to say? It's too bad they waited so long to release this album, the peculiarly named Coll:set.
DesRay's formula, "dark" j-rock which focuses on dominant drumtracks and keyboard effects with a heavy metal edge, is still "good"... but a lot less so.
Why?

The heavy metal edge is more or less completely gone. No more headbanging with DesRay in other words. People would tell you that they've always been pure j-rock, but fuck that! They were heavy as hell at times and I loved that, made them stand out from the lot when it comes to the oh-so-exposed j-rock scene of today.

Having listened to this album twice, the only song capable of being called classic in their catalogue is "Forbidden" which is an excellent piece with lots of awesome guitar shredding. Other listenable tracks are "in vain", which is a fairly heavy screamer, and "Tsuki no kioku" which uses a fairly pretty keyboard melody. It also possesses one of those divine drumtracks, courtesy of Tsukasa as usual. Other than that, however, this feels extremely drained of energy. It seems DesRay has stolen ideas from Dir en grey, aiming for a lot more distorted sound than usual.

It's too bad about this release really. Had they given it to us 2 years ago and filled it with songs like Marry of the blood (which btw also appears on Coll:set albeit in the form of a below par remix), Garnet, Born, Quarter void & most of all Yami ni furu kiseki... well then it'd be a fucking groundbreaker. Now, though, DesRay doesn't feel fresh anymore. Not fresh, not heavy... just another one of those albums you'll occasionally leave on "play" while cleaning your room (or something). No lasting impression, just sound. Perhaps it will grow with a few more listens, but as it stands now, my disappointment is through the roof.

Rating: 2/5

[darkshadow]

btnh - thug world order
heck every btnh album rules

[Racso]

Juan Luis Guerra= Bachata Rosa!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11 Well this is Salsa Music!!! man I love his Music!!!!! Ajua aJua Ajua!!!

If you want to check this Out====Juan Luis Guerra-Gratest Hits!! (http://www.hackblack.com/BitTorrent/Musica/index2.htm)

[Lefty]

Sleater-Kinney-The Woods. This band is ALT rock sound with Joplin vocals that will impress.

[Madell]

I recommend Mobb Deep - Infamy

Mobb Deep - Infamy (2001)
Track Lyrics
1 Pray For Me
2 Get Away
3 Bounce
4 Clap
5 Kill That Nigga
6 My Gats Spitting
7 Handcuffs
8 Hey Luv (Anything)
9 Burn
10 Live Foul
11 Hurt Niggas
12 Get at Me
13 I Won't Fall
14 Crawlin
15 Nothin' Like Home
16 There I Go Again

http://www.northood.com/infamy.jpg

[2:25]

Coldplay - X&Y