| 4.5 superb |
| Agalloch Ashes Against the Grain |
| Angel Vivaldi Universal Language |
| Artillery By Inheritance |
| Atheist Unquestionable Presence |
| Blind Guardian Imaginations Through the Looking Glass |
| Blotted Science The Animation of Entomology |
| BUCK-TICK Razzle Dazzle |
| BUCK-TICK One Life, One Death |
| BUCK-TICK Cosmos |
| BUCK-TICK Tenshi no Revolver |
| BUCK-TICK One Life, One Death Cut Up |
| BUCK-TICK Tour 2010 Go on the Razzle Dazzle |
| BUCK-TICK Mona Lisa OVERDRIVE -XANADU- |
| BUCK-TICK TOUR 2007 Tenshi no Revolver |
| BUCK-TICK At the Night Side |
| BUCK-TICK FISH TANKer's ONLY 2017 |
| Dark Angel Darkness Descends |
| David Sylvian Secrets of the Beehive |
| Diablo Swing Orchestra Pandora's Pinata |
| Dir En Grey TOUR05 It Withers and Withers |
| Dir En Grey TOUR14 PSYCHONNECT -mode of GAUZE- |
| Dir En Grey Tour 12-13 In Situ-Tabula Rasa |
| Dir En Grey TOUR2011 AGE QUOD AGIS Vol.1 |
| Dir En Grey TOUR2011 AGE QUOD AGIS Vol.2 |
| Dir En Grey Rinkaku |
| Dir En Grey Tour08 The Rose Trims Again |
| Dir En Grey BLITZ 5DAYS [DVD] |
| Dir En Grey TOUR16-17 -mode of 鬼葬- |
| Dream Theater Images and Words |
| Exhorder Slaughter in the Vatican |
| Gorguts Obscura |
| Guniw Tools Other Goose |
| Hibria Defying the Rules |
| IU Palette |
| John Mayer Continuum |
| Johnny Cash At San Quentin |
| Julien Baker Sprained Ankle |
| Kashiwa Daisuke Program Music I |
| Koan When The Silence Is Speaking |
| Kuroki Nagisa Jiyu Ritsu |
| Kuroki has returned to prove she is the queen of the Japanese charts, refusing to fall into either Major or Single syndrome. If her self titled was the start of the inferno, 'Hyouhon Bako' the transition to a Japanese Rock Star, then 'Jiyu Ritsu' is her fully embracing her role as one. Not wanting to create the same album again she fuses her poppish, bombastic sound with more of an emotional side along with playful songs such as 'You Will Ruin Me'. Kuroki's vocals are still divine, having a sense of maturity and emotional passion which very few can match, presenting soft and delicate tones combined with a often bombastic approach which is endearing to say the least. Her vocals on '107' are especially noteworthy of attention, subduing to a soft and mournful woman being conflicted with loneliness and looking back with a smile from a relationship that wasn't to be. Songwriting and instrumentally the record is top notch, boasting with a wide variety of sounds and tones from the uplifting violin bombast of the opener, blistering drumming at the end of 'Almond' to the relaxed, soft guitar chords and tambourine of the closer. Everything comes together to create so many incredible melodies which will be stuck in your head forever, composition mainly being relatively simple yet so effective at making you smile at every energised note. Despite her previous outing being still a pretty superb album, this is the follow up to her masterpiece s/t truly deserves. Minus ‘Template’ and to a much lesser extent ‘Inochigake...’, every song is a winner. This still may be just behind her s/t, but damn does it come close. Most likely my album of the year, Kuroki has done it yet again: 4.6/5 |
| Kuroki Nagisa Hyouhon Bako |
| Maximum the Hormone Bu-ikikaesu |
| Megadeth Rust in Peace |
| Meshuggah Nothing (Re-Release) |
| Metallica Master of Puppets |
| Metallica Ride the Lightning |
| Morbid Saint Spectrum of Death |
| Mr. Bungle Mr. Bungle |
| Mudvayne L.D. 50 |
| Naked City Naked City |
| Nightmare Kyokuto Symphony: The Five Stars Night @ Budokan |
| Opeth Ghost Reveries |
| Opeth Watershed |
| Opeth Damnation |
| Pestilence Consuming Impulse |
| Pestilence Malleus Maleficarum |
| Phutureprimitive Sub Conscious |
| Plastic Tree Nega to Poji |
| Queens of the Stone Age ...Like Clockwork |
| Rodriguez Cold Fact |
| Ryo Fukui Scenery |
| Ryo Fukui Mellow Dream |
| Sekai no Owari Earth |
| Sekai no Owari The Dinner |
| Shakti A Handful of Beauty |
| Shiina Ringo Muzai Moratorium |
| Shiina Ringo Sanmon Gossip |
| Shining (SWE) V - Halmstad |
| Shpongle Nothing Lasts... But Nothing Is Lost |
| Simon and Garfunkel Bridge Over Troubled Water |
| Sleepytime Gorilla Museum In Glorious Times |
| Sodom M-16 |
| Spitz Hachimitsu |
| Supercell Today is a Beautiful Day |
| Symphony X The Divine Wings of Tragedy |
| Thanatos Realm of Ecstasy |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan One of Us Is the Killer |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan Option Paralysis |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan Ire Works |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan Miss Machine |
| The Dillinger Escape Plan Irony Is a Dead Scene |
| The Seatbelts Cowboy Bebop |
| The Seatbelts The Seatbelts - Future Blues |
| Tigers on Trains Grandfather |
| Tokyo Jihen Dynamite Out |
| Toxik Think This |
| Versailles Noble |
| Versailles Jubilee |
| Versailles Chateau de Versailles Holy Grail |
| Versailles Chateau de Versailles Jubilee |
| Whispered Shogunate Macabre |
| X Japan Blue Blood |
| X Japan The Last Live |
| 4.0 excellent |
| Aborted Goremageddon: The Saw and the Carnage... |
| AES Dana Pollen |
| After Forever Decipher |
| After the Burial Rareform (Re-release) |
| Agalloch The Mantle |
| Aion Aion -Aion- |
| Alice in Chains Jar of Flies |
| Alter Bridge Fortress |
| Amethystium Odonata |
| Amethystium Aphelion |
| Anathema Judgement |
| Angelus Apatrida The Call |
| Animals As Leaders Animals as Leaders |
| Anthrax Among the Living |
| Aspid Extravasation |
| Atomship The Crash of `47 |
| Blind Guardian Somewhere Far Beyond |
| Blind Guardian Nightfall in Middle-Earth |
| Blotted Science The Machinations of Dementia |
| Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago |
| Boris Pink |
| BUCK-TICK Memento Mori |
| BUCK-TICK Kyokutou I Love You |
| BUCK-TICK Sexy Stream Liner |
| BUCK-TICK FISH TANKer's ONLY 2009 |
| BUCK-TICK Devil and Freud - Climax Together |
| BUCK-TICK Atom Miraiha No.9 |
| Overall I appreciate this album more than I enjoy it, but musically it has plenty awesome songs and moments abound. Lyrically the album is littered with intrigue and depth, ranging from a variety of topics from visions of death while going deeper into the suicide forest of Mt. Fuji to Imai spouting the most odd and obscure references to history/literature you'll hear in music today which add greatly to the enjoyment of this. Also Imai's electronic fetish really has taken a big grip here, much to their benefit due to them sounding lush and aggressive while blending with their sound perfectly. Variety being the spice of life, every single song is vastly different with them finding new musical ideas to explore constantly (even by their standards). Fun 80's Goth influenced jam about a mermaid dying at dawn but in love with someone, mystical cult like chanting, electronic rock taken to an obscene extreme, rain setting to tone for a huge violin 7 minute ballad...it's all here. Main problem they suffer here is many songs have awesome segments but don't quite fall into place for an awesome song due to individual songwriting or production choices. Jukai's solo being ill-fitting for the song musically and lyrically, the annoying bell sound in Seaside Story, septem's chorus being very underwhelming due to it being musically uninteresting are all examples. However easily worst of all butchering New World by taking all the power the song had in the single version by adding unnecessary extra electronics which covers a beautiful guitar line in the verses and the high pitched tone which lifts the chorus to a beautiful driving anthem along with mixing the guitars to have less punch. Despite the album's flaws, I enjoyed this as much as Sexy Stream Liner and it is a fitting 20th album for them: 3.8 |
| BUCK-TICK FISH TANKer's ONLY 2006 |
| BUCK-TICK FISH TANKer's ONLY 2008 |
| Cannibal Corpse Bloodthirst |
| Carach Angren Death Came Through a Phantom Ship |
| Coheed and Cambria From Fear Through the Eyes of Madness |
| Coheed and Cambria The Second Stage Turbine Blade |
| Creedence Clearwater Revival Green River |
| Creedence Clearwater Revival Willy and the Poor Boys |
| Creedence Clearwater Revival Cosmo's Factory |
| Cynic Traced in Air |
| Dave Bixby Ode To Quetzalcoatl |
| Defeated Sanity Chapters of Repugnance |
| Deviant Process Paroxysm |
| Dir En Grey Withering to Death |
| Dir En Grey Sustain the Untruth |
| Dir En Grey Despair in the Womb |
| Dir En Grey TOUR16-17 -mode of DUM SPIRO SPERO- |
| Dir En Grey TOUR16-17 -mode of THE MARROW OF A BONE- |
| Draconian Arcane Rain Fell |
| Electric Masada 50th Birthday Celebration Volume Four |
| Father John Misty Pure Comedy |
| Fear, and Loathing in Las Vegas All That We Have Now |
| Foreign Fields Anywhere But Where I Am |
| Galneryus Angel of Salvation |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor Lift Your Skinny Fists Like Antennas to Heaven |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor 'Asunder, Sweet and Other Distress' |
| Godspeed You! Black Emperor Yanqui U.X.O. |
| Gorguts Considered Dead |
| Haggard Eppur si muove |
| Heathen Victims of Deception |
| Hizaki Grace Project Curse of Virgo |
| Integrity Those Who Fear Tomorrow |
| Jeff Buckley Grace |
| Johnny Cash At Folsom Prison |
| Judas Priest Screaming for Vengeance |
| Judas Priest Painkiller |
| Kalpataru Tree Preverberations From The Infinite Future |
| Kamelot The Black Halo |
| Kazumoto Endo While You Were Out |
| KOTO Platonic Planet |
| Livetune Decorator |
| Livetune Tell Your World |
| Loreena McKennitt The Book of Secrets |
| Maximum the Hormone Yoshu Fukushu |
| Mergel Invisible Landscapes |
| Meshuggah I |
| Meshuggah Alive |
| Mononofu Light of Sunset Seen From Kozuki Castle |
| Mr. Bungle OU818 |
| My Dying Bride A Line of Deathless Kings |
| My Dying Bride Songs of Darkness, Words of Light |
| My Dying Bride The Dreadful Hours |
| Naked City Torture Garden |
| Nicole Dollanganger Natural Born Losers |
| Ningen-Isu Fuuchiiku |
| Obliteration Black Death Horizon |
| One Ok Rock Niche Syndrome |
| Orphaned Land Mabool (The Story of the Three Sons...) |
| Ott Fairchildren |
| Panzerballett Panzerballett |
| Perfume Triangle |
| Phoebe Bridgers Stranger in the Alps |
| Pig Destroyer Terrifyer |
| Pig Destroyer Prowler in the Yard |
| Plastic Tree Parade |
| Porcupine Tree In Absentia |
| Radiohead In Rainbows |
| Rhapsody of Fire Symphony of Enchanted Lands |
| Rodrigo y Gabriela Rodrigo y Gabriela |
| Rush 2112 |
| Sekai no Owari Entertainment |
| Shiina Ringo Kalk Samen Kuri no Hana |
| Sodom Agent Orange |
| Sodom Persecution Mania |
| Spawn of Possession Cabinet |
| Spawn of Possession Incurso |
| Spitz Fake Fur |
| Steven Wilson The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) |
| Stevie Ray Vaughan Texas Flood |
| Stevie Ray Vaughan In Step |
| Sukekiyo Anima |
| Symphony X The Odyssey |
| Te Naraba, Imi kara Houkaisareta Hibiki ha "Oto" no S |
| The Beatles Abbey Road |
| The Gathering Mandylion |
| The Mung Showering in Shit |
| The Reign of Kindo Rhythm, Chord & Melody |
| Tokyo Jihen Adult |
| Tokyo Jihen Kyoiku |
| Tool Lateralus |
| Trophy Scars Holy Vacants |
| Uchu Conbini Feel the Dying Note |
| Uchu Conbini Looking At the Moon's Reflection |
| Versailles Lyrical Sympathy |
| Wormrot Dirge |
| Wormrot Abuse |
| Wu-Tang Clan Enter the Wu-Tang (36 Chambers) |
| X Japan Jealousy |
| X Japan Vanishing Vision |
| X Japan Dahlia |
| Yanagi Nagi Euaru |
| Yellow Swans Going Places |
| Yonin Bayashi Ishoku-Sokuhatsu |
