| 5.0 classic |
| Alter Bridge Blackbird |
| My favorite album of all time. Blackbird is hard rock perfection. Myles Kennedy's vocals are simply phenomenal throughout, and Mark Tremonti delivers the performance of his career with incredible guitarwork that never once grows boring. The diversity in the album is also a plus: Ties That Bind shows the band at their heaviest and catchiest and is as attention-grabbing as an opening track can get, Rise Today and Before Tomorrow Comes show a more commercial side to the band that nonetheless still rules, Watch Over You is a lovely acoustic ballad, and the 8-minute title track is an emotional journey and epic in every sense of the word (that solo gives me chills every time). Even if you're not a fan of the current style of hard rock, check this out to hear how the genre should be played. |
| Anberlin Cities |
| Boston Boston |
| Buckethead Shadows Between The Sky |
| Camel Mirage |
| Deep Purple Machine Head |
| Fates Warning A Pleasant Shade of Gray |
| Opeth Damnation |
| Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here |
| Riverside Second Life Syndrome |
| Soundgarden Superunknown |
| Sufjan Stevens Carrie and Lowell |
| Thrice Vheissu |
| After letting this grow on me for a while, I finally understand the hype for this. Passionate and moving vocals, good and unique instrumentation, and there's not a bad track on this. The screaming is well placed and used effectively to enhance the emotion of the songs (particularly effective in For Miles and Like Moths to Flame). It's emotionally powerful, easily Thrice's best work, and one of the best albums I've ever heard. |
| 4.0 excellent |
| 10 Years The Autumn Effect |
| Alter Bridge Live from Amsterdam |
| Alter Bridge AB III |
| After Blackbird, expectations were set very high for Alter Bridge's next album. I'm pleased to say that the band hasn't let us down. Tremonti still rules behind the ax, dishing out more memorable riffs and solos, and Myles Kennedy still dazzles with his vocals. It's also a darker, more brooding album, so it's a bit less accessible than the band's previous work. It may not have a track as good as Blackbird or Ties That Bind, but it still rules nonetheless, a much-needed triumph for mainstream rock. |
| Alter Bridge The Last Hero |
| Anathema Judgement |
| Anathema Weather Systems |
| Anberlin Dark Is the Way, Light Is a Place |
| Anberlin Lowborn |
| Animals As Leaders Animals as Leaders |
| Bear McCreary Battlestar Galactica - Season Four |
| Between the Buried and Me Colors |
| Between the Buried and Me The Great Misdirect |
| Between the Buried and Me The Parallax II: Future Sequence |
| Black Stone Cherry Black Stone Cherry |
| Bon Iver For Emma, Forever Ago |
| Boston Don't Look Back |
| Brand New The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me |
| Brand New Science Fiction |
| Breaking Benjamin Phobia |
| Buckethead Population Override |
| Buckethead Electric Tears |
| Buckethead The Elephant Man's Alarm Clock |
| Buckethead It's Alive |
| Buckethead Decoding the Tomb of Bansheebot |
| Camel Moonmadness |
| Camel Camel |
| Camel The Snow Goose |
| Coldplay Viva la Vida or Death and All His Friends |
| Deftones Diamond Eyes |
| Devin Townsend Ocean Machine: Biomech |
| Devin Townsend Project Ghost |
| Dream Theater Images and Words |
| Dream Theater Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory |
| Earth, Wind and Fire Greatest Hits |
| Eric Johnson Ah Via Musicom |
| Evergrey Recreation Day |
| Explosions in the Sky The Earth Is Not a Cold Dead Place |
| Fates Warning Perfect Symmetry |
| Fates Warning Parallels |
| Fates Warning Disconnected |
| Fates Warning Darkness in a Different Light |
| Fleet Foxes Sun Giant |
| Fleet Foxes Fleet Foxes |
| Fleet Foxes Helplessness Blues |
| Fleet Foxes Crack-Up |
| Flight of the Conchords The Distant Future |
| Flight of the Conchords Flight of the Conchords |
| Foo Fighters The Colour and the Shape |
| Foo Fighters Wasting Light |
| Gungor I Am Mountain |
| Gungor One Wild Life: Soul |
| Gungor One Wild Life: Spirit |
| House Of Heroes The End Is Not the End |
| Hurt Vol. 1 |
| Incubus (USA-CA) Morning View |
| Infected Mushroom Vicious Delicious |
| Infected Mushroom Legend Of The Black Shawarma |
| Iron Maiden Dance of Death |
| Iron Maiden The Number of the Beast |
| Iron Maiden Seventh Son of a Seventh Son |
| Iron Maiden A Matter of Life and Death |
| Iron Maiden The Final Frontier |
| Jars Of Clay Jars Of Clay |
| Joe Satriani Surfing with the Alien |
| John Mayer Continuum |
| John Powell The Bourne Identity |
| Joseph I'm Alone, No You're Not |
| Juno Reactor Beyond the Infinite |
| Juno Reactor Labyrinth |
| Juno Reactor Shango |
| Kendrick Lamar To Pimp a Butterfly |
| King Crimson In the Court of the Crimson King |
| Klaus Badelt Pirates of the Caribbean: Curse of the Black Pearl |
| Lunatic Soul Walking on a Flashlight Beam |
| Lunatic Soul Fractured |
| Mae (e)vening |
| Martin O'Donnell Halo 3 OST |
| Maybeshewill Sing The Word Hope In Four-Part Harmony |
| Maybeshewill I Was Here For a Moment, Then I Was Gone |
| Metallica Master of Puppets |
| Mutemath Play Dead |
| Myles Kennedy Year of the Tiger |
| Oceansize Frames |
| Opeth Still Life |
| Opeth Watershed |
| Opeth Heritage |
| Pacific Gold Sing My Welcome Home |
| Paramore Riot! |
| Paramore After Laughter |
| Pearl Jam Ten |
| Pink Floyd Animals |
| Pink Floyd Meddle |
| Poets of the Fall Signs of Life |
| Poets of the Fall Revolution Roulette |
| Poets of the Fall Jealous Gods |
| Porcupine Tree Signify |
| Porcupine Tree Lightbulb Sun |
| Porcupine Tree The Sky Moves Sideways |
| Porcupine Tree Fear of a Blank Planet |
| Porcupine Tree Nil Recurring |
| Ra From One |
| Ra's debut is one of the most unique rock albums I've heard. It's rooted in nu-metal, as shown in the lyrics and down-tuned riffs, but it's the Middle Eastern elements that are used throughout the album that make it unique. Vocalist Sahaj Ticotin has a fantastic range, and a voice that displays a lot of emotion (check out On My Side or Sky for his best). With its catchy riffs and melodies, great musicianship, and a consistently fresh Middle Eastern twist, this is highly recommended to any fan of hard rock. |
| Red (USA) Innocence and Instinct |
| Red Hot Chili Peppers Californication |
| Red Hot Chili Peppers Stadium Arcadium |
| Redemption Snowfall on Judgment Day |
| Riverside Anno Domini High Definition |
| Riverside Shrine Of New Generation Slaves |
| Riverside Eye of the Soundscape |
| Rush 2112 |
| Rush A Farewell to Kings |
| Rush Permanent Waves |
| Rush Hemispheres |
| Rush Counterparts |
| Sevendust Chapter VII: Hope and Sorrow |
| Sevendust Black Out the Sun |
| Shinedown Us and Them |
| Shinedown The Sound of Madness |
| Skillet Comatose |
| Soundgarden Badmotorfinger |
| Soundtrack (Film) Pacific Rim |
| Soundtrack (Video Game) Hotline Miami Official Soundtrack |
| Steven Wilson Grace for Drowning |
| Steven Wilson The Raven That Refused to Sing (And Other Stories) |
| Steven Wilson Hand. Cannot. Erase. |
| Steven Wilson 4 1/2 |
| Steven Wilson To the Bone |
| Stevens/Dessner/Muhly/McAlister Planetarium |
| Stone Sour House of Gold and Bones - Part 2 |
| Sufjan Stevens Michigan |
| Sufjan Stevens Seven Swans |
| Switchfoot Nothing is Sound |
| The Dear Hunter The Color Spectrum (Complete Collection) |
| The Dear Hunter Indigo |
| The Dear Hunter Orange |
| The Dear Hunter Yellow |
| Thrice The Illusion of Safety |
| Thrice The Artist in the Ambulance |
| Thrice The Alchemy Index Vols. I & II |
| Thrice Major/Minor |
| Tool Lateralus |
| Tool Ænima |
| Tremonti Cauterize |
| Tremonti Dust |
| Various Artists The Matrix Reloaded OST |
| VersaEmerge Perceptions |
| VersaEmerge VersaEmerge |
| We Came As Strangers Shattered Matter |
| Weezer Weezer |
| 3.0 good |
| 12 Stones Potter's Field |
| 12 Stones The Only Easy Day Was Yesterday |
| 12 Stones Beneath the Scars |
| 3 Doors Down Seventeen Days |
| 3 Doors Down 3 Doors Down |
| All That Remains Overcome |
| All That Remains For We Are Many |
| Alter Bridge Walk The Sky |
It's solid, but one of their worst albums. The electronic influence is a welcome addition to their
sound, and there are still a lot of great hooks, but the songwriting is too safe to reach the
heights of their other work.
I thought The Last Hero succeeded despite its faults because it still had some killer fretwork and
epic songs like This Side of Fate and the title track. Walk the Sky scales back that ambition, and
is a bit more consistent but it never hits those highs.
It's fun for the most part, but they can do better. The solos are the most predictable and
formulaic of any Alter Bridge album, which is disappointing. The most interesting ideas musically
are generally on the fringes of the songs (the melodic outro to Take the Crown, for instance).
As a fan, I like it, and I'm pretty forgiving of their well-established faults at this point, like
the cliche lyricism and the often suffocating wall of sound production. I just hope the
musicianship evolves from this in the future. For me, this is their most disappointing album. |
| Animals As Leaders Weightless |
| Avenged Sevenfold Nightmare |
| Between the Buried and Me The Parallax: Hypersleep Dialogues |
| Boston Third Stage |
| Boston Walk On |
| Broken Bells Broken Bells |
| Chevelle Vena Sera |
| Chevelle Hats Off To The Bull |
| Disciple (USA-TN) Southern Hospitality |
| Disturbed Asylum |
| Dream Theater Train of Thought |
| Dream Theater Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence |
| Dream Theater Octavarium |
| Dream Theater A Dramatic Turn of Events |
| Drowning Pool Sinner |
| Emery ...In Shallow Seas We Sail |
| Fates Warning Awaken the Guardian |
| Fates Warning Inside Out |
| Fireflight For Those Who Wait |
| Foo Fighters Foo Fighters |
| Foo Fighters There Is Nothing Left to Lose |
| Foo Fighters Sonic Highways |
| Foster the People Torches |
| Hurt The Crux |
| Kutless Hearts of the Innocent |
| Kutless To Know That You're Alive |
| Lincoln Brewster Joy to the World |
| Maroon 5 Hands All Over |
| Metallica Death Magnetic |
| Paramore All We Know Is Falling |
| Paramore Paramore |
| Poets of the Fall Temple of Thought |
| Poets of the Fall Clearview |
| Porcupine Tree The Incident |
| Queens of the Stone Age Era Vulgaris |
| Red (USA) Until We Have Faces |
| Red's third album shows the band sticking to the status quo. Strings, uplifting vocals, you've heard it all before from the band, but it isn't quite as inspired this time. They hint at a heavier direction in album highlight Feed the Machine, but that's as heavy as it gets, as the rest of the album is largely a lighter affair, save for the occasional scream. They manage some good tracks in the first half but after Buried Beneath there really isn't much worth listening to. Overall, it's not really a disappointment, but it is a regression after the promise Red displayed in their first two albums. |
| Redemption This Mortal Coil |
| Riverside Memories In My Head |
| Saliva Blood Stained Love Story |
| Scale the Summit V |
| Seether Karma And Effect |
| Shinedown Amaryllis |
| Skillet Collide |
| Slash Slash |
| Symphony X Iconoclast |
| The Dear Hunter Blue |
| The Dear Hunter Violet |
| The Dear Hunter White |
| Three Days Grace Three Days Grace |
| Three Days Grace One-X |
| Thrice Beggars |
| tobyMac Portable Sounds |
| Tremonti All I Was |
| Weezer The Green Album |
