| 5.0 classic |
| Alabama Thunderpussy Open Fire |
| Be Bop Deluxe Modern Music |
| Be Bop Deluxe Sunburst Finish |
| Dave Edmunds Repeat When Necessary |
| Dave Edmunds D.E. 7th |
| Echolyn Cowboy Poems Free |
| Echolyn Mei |
| Elder (USA-MA) Dead Roots Stirring |
| Elder (USA-MA) Lore |
| Elder (USA-MA) Reflections of a Floating World |
| Elder (USA-MA) Omens |
| Elvis Costello This Year's Model |
| Helstar A Distant Thunder |
| Humble Pie Smokin' |
| A stone cold classic. One of the first albums I owned as a youth and I've never tired of it. The production and vibe of the album is unmatched; you can feel the presence of the instruments and voices like you're right there in the studio with them. |
| IQ Dark Matter |
| IQ Frequency |
| Jethro Tull Thick as a Brick |
| Jethro Tull A Passion Play |
| Jethro Tull Songs from the Wood |
| Manowar Hail to England |
| Manowar Sign of the Hammer |
| Mike LePond's Silent Assassins Mike LePond's Silent Assassins |
| Who knew the bassist from Symphony X was such a big Manowar/power metal fan? This stuff fits right into that genre and kicks major butt. Lepond is even the touring bassist with former Manowar guitarist Ross the Boss now! |
| Pagan's Mind God's Equation |
| Pagan's Mind Enigmatic: Calling |
| Pagan's Mind Celestial Entrance |
| Pagan's Mind Infinity Divine |
| Pagan's Mind Live Equation |
| Pagan's Mind Full Circle |
| Pink Floyd Wish You Were Here |
| Porcupine Tree In Absentia |
| Porcupine Tree Deadwing |
| Presto Ballet Peace Among the Ruins |
| Energetic, uplifting prog. The main influence I hear is Kansas (but no violin). Great stuff! |
| Raven All for One |
| Raven Wiped Out |
| Renaissance Live at Carnegie Hall |
| Rhapsody of Fire Dawn of Victory |
| Rush Signals |
| Rush Moving Pictures |
| Rush Permanent Waves |
| Rush Hemispheres |
| Rush A Farewell to Kings |
| Spiritual Beggars Earth Blues |
| I've got their entire catalog and feel this is their best yet. The songs are accessible and inspired, the throaty organ sounds make it feel like 1973 again, and the guitar tone is gorgeous. I was not enamored of Apollo as the new singer on "Return to Zero"; the album was rather tame by their standards. But he's "on fire" here and this might be my favorite vocal performance on any SB album, and that's saying a lot. |
| Symphony X The Odyssey |
| Symphony X Paradise Lost |
| The Flower Kings Flower Power |
| The Flower Kings Unfold the Future |
| The Good Rats Tasty |
| The Good Rats Ratcity in Blue |
| The Good Rats From Rats to Riches |
| Tiles Presents of Mind |
| My favorite Tiles album - will satisfy any Rush fan who laments their modern cluttered, multi-layered sound and yearns for the days when their music used to breathe. Brainy Peart-like lyrics with classic Rush-like riffing. Terry Brown does a great job of "sweetening" the sound but unfortunately when you hear the live bonus tracks on their albums, you realize that as a live 3-piece they sound flat, unable to capture those Brown studio touches as well as duplicate the vocal harmonies. |
| Transatlantic SMPT:e |
| Transatlantic Bridge Across Forever |
| Transatlantic The Absolute Universe...(Extended Version) |
| Transatlantic The Absolute Universe |
| Wo Fat The Singularity |
| Yes Close to the Edge |
| One of the grand achievements of progressive rock that still stands the test of time. You had to be there hearing this in real time, trying to wrap your head around the complexity, lyrics, musicianship, arrangements and emotion, so unlike anything else you'd heard before. |
| Yes Relayer |
| Zero Hour The Towers of Avarice |
| 4.0 excellent |
| Artimus Pyledriver Artimus Pyledriver |
| Be Bop Deluxe Axe Victim |
| Be Bop Deluxe Drastic Plastic |
| Blue Cheer What Doesn't Kill You... |
| Blue Snaggletooth Dimension Thule |
| Bruce Springsteen Greetings from Asbury Park, N.J. |
| Bruce Springsteen Born in the U.S.A. |
| Chicago Chicago II |
| Chicago Chicago III |
| Chicago Chicago V |
| Chicago Chicago VII |
| Chicago Chicago at Carnegie Hall |
| Dave Edmunds Twangin... |
| Earthless Sonic Prayer |
| Earthless Rhythms from a Cosmic Sky |
| Echolyn Suffocating the Bloom |
| Electric Mountain Electric Mountain |
| Great find, this 3-piece band from Mexico. Solid 70's retro sound with 3-piece dynamics like Black Sabbath or Grand Funk Railroad. The songs stretch out with instrumental passages based more on great riffing than flashy guitar soloing. The singer sounds a lot like the guy from Kyuss, who I can't stand, but this guy's voice doesn't bother me as strange as that sounds! Great woodchoppin' bass sound too. |
| Elvis Costello My Aim Is True |
| Elvis Costello Get Happy!! |
| Elvis Costello Trust |
| Explorers Club Age of Impact |
| Fu Manchu Signs Of Infinite Power |
| A definite improvement over the previous two disastrous albums, We Must Obey and Start the Machine! The guitar tones are thick and fuzzy again, the trippy elements have returned and the riffs are more plentiful. There are still moments where they reference the punk rock sound of the aforementioned albums, but for the most part this is solid Fu Manchu. |
| Fu Manchu Gigantoid |
| Solid FM. Yeah they're formulaic, but I like the formula. They harken back to some earlier styles though with some trippy sections, a nice surprise. The drumming is looser and wilder on this album too. |
| Fu Manchu California Crossing |
| Fu Manchu King of the Road |
| Fu Manchu Clone of the Universe |
| Gerard Power of Infinity |
| Helstar Rising From The Grave |
| Horslips The Táin |
| Horslips Dancehall Sweethearts |
| Horslips Happy to Meet – Sorry to Part |
| Humble Pie As Safe As Yesterday Is |
| Humble Pie Rock On |
| Humble Pie Rockin' the Fillmore: The Complete Recordings |
| Ice Age The Great Divide |
| Iluvatar A Story Two Days Wide |
| IQ Subterranea |
| IQ The Seventh House |
| IQ The Road of Bones |
| Jethro Tull Living in the Past |
| Jethro Tull Aqualung |
| Jethro Tull Minstrel in the Gallery |
| Journey Journey |
| Journey Look Into the Future |
| King's X Dogman |
| Lo-Pan Salvador |
| Lo-Pan Sasquanaut |
| Just got into these guys at the same time as Wo Fat. Lo-Pan... Wo Fat... sounds like I'm ordering at a Chinese restaurant! Killer sound though, picked up this and the Salvador album. |
| Lord Fowl Moon Queen |
| Magic Pie Circus of Life |
| Mos Generator Shadowlands |
| Neal Morse ? |
| Opeth Ghost Reveries |
| Peter Frampton Frampton's Camel |
| Peter Frampton Somethin's Happening |
| Peter Frampton Frampton |
| Porcupine Tree Stupid Dream |
| Porcupine Tree Signify |
| Porcupine Tree Lightbulb Sun |
| Raven Rock Until You Drop |
| Raven ExtermiNation |
| Raven Nothing Exceeds Like Excess |
| Raven Metal City |
| Raven All Hell's Breaking Loose |
| Renaissance Renaissance |
| Renaissance Illusion |
| Renaissance Prologue |
| Renaissance Ashes Are Burning |
| Renaissance Turn of the Cards |
| Renaissance Scheherazade and Other Stories |
| Rhapsody of Fire Legendary Tales |
| Rhapsody of Fire Symphony of Enchanted Lands |
| Rocket Scientists Brutal Architecture |
| Rockpile Seconds of Pleasure |
| Roine Stolt Wallstreet Voodoo |
| Rush Clockwork Angels |
| Rush Power Windows |
| Rush 2112 |
| Rush Vapor Trails Remixed |
| I like this a lot better now with the remix. So many textures come to the fore now. The original gave me such a headache that I couldn't listen to more than 3 tunes in a row before having to turn it off. |
| Rush All the World's a Stage |
| Rush Rush Replay X3 |
| Rush Rush in Rio |
| Sasquatch III |
| So many times I hear a song on a stoner internet station that starts with a killer guitar riff... and then the vocals come in and kill it. Not these guys. They've got a major league vocalist to go along with their thunderous riffing, which puts them head and shoulders above their stoner contemporaries. They simply excel at every aspect of making this kind of music. This is the standard against which all other hard-n-heavy rock should be measured. |
| Sasquatch Sasquatch |
| Sasquatch IV |
| A more compact offering than previous albums, but I do miss the acoustic tracks. "The Message" is not a good choice for the opening track, rather ordinary by their standards. Things get cooking after that. Killer sound, guitars and vocals rule and I don't care if they cop riffs. There's a bit in "Sweet Lady" that sounds like it comes from Humble Pie's "Four Day Creep" off Rockin' the Fillmore. Who cares, it sounds killer!rMy only other issue is some of the song lengths. "Wolves at My Door" and "Corner" are just 3 minutes and I wish they were a bit longer. "Smoke Signal" is 7:26 and the last two minutes are the repeated "Woo hoo hoo" vocals over repetitive riffs and guitar noise. It didn't need to go on that long. Only "Drawing Flies" at 7:41 works for me at that length as the melodies and riffs are quite dramatic. Overall a damn fine album, been cranking it in my car. |
| Sasquatch Maneuvers |
| Sleep The Clarity |
| Sleep Leagues Beneath |
| Sons of Otis Seismic |
| Sons of Otis Isolation |
| Sons of Otis Exiled |
| Sons of Otis X |
| Sons of Otis Temple Ball |
| Spiritual Beggars Ad Astra |
| Spiritual Beggars Mantra III |
| Spiritual Beggars Another Way to Shine |
| Spiritual Beggars Sunrise to Sundown |
| Spock's Beard V |
| Spock's Beard Day For Night |
| Steeleye Span Hark! The Village Wait |
| Steeleye Span Ten Man Mop |
| Steeleye Span Please To See The King |
| Steeleye Span Below the Salt |
| Steeleye Span A Parcel of Rogues |
| Symphony X The Damnation Game |
| Symphony X The Divine Wings of Tragedy |
| Symphony X Underworld |
| Symphony X Twilight in Olympus |
| The Bottle Rockets The Brooklyn Side |
| The Bottle Rockets Bottle Rockets |
| The Brought Low Right on Time |
| The swagger of the Rolling Stones, the rollicking abandon of The Faces, the grit of Humble Pie... if you like those bands, you'll dig this! |
| The Brought Low Third Record |
| Great blues/roots-rock out of Brooklyn with heavy Rolling Stones, Faces and Humble Pie influence. |
| The Flower Kings The Road Back Home |
| The Flower Kings Meet the Flower Kings |
| The Flower Kings Tour Kaputt |
| The Flower Kings Instant DeLIVEry |
| The Flower Kings Adam & Eve |
| The Flower Kings Paradox Hotel |
| The Flower Kings The Sum of No Evil |
| The Flower Kings Waiting For Miracles |
| The Flower Kings Islands |
| The Flower Kings By Royal Decree |
| The Good Rats Live at Last |
| The Monkees Headquarters |
| The Monkees Pisces, Aquarius, Capricorn & Jones Ltd. |
| The Monkees The Birds The Bees & The Monkees |
| The Sword Warp Riders |
| The Sword Apocryphon |
| Transatlantic The Whirlwind |
| Transatlantic Live in Europe |
| U.K. U.K. |
| Wo Fat Noche del Chupacabra |
| Wo Fat The Conjuring |
| Wo Fat Psychedelonaut |
| Wo Fat The Gathering Dark |
| Yes Fragile |
| You had to be there, hearing this album in real time when it came out. There was nothing to compare it to. It was so "out there", so rich and complex and full of musical ideas that it was overwhelming. It loses points for the gratuitous solo pieces; with the exception of Steve Howe's amazing "Mood For a Day", they are largely forgettable. But the band tracks are still granite blocks of progressive rock that stand the test of time. |
| Yes Drama |
| Zero Hour Dark Deceiver |
| Zero Hour Specs of Pictures Burnt Beyond |
| 2.5 average |
| Angel White Hot |
| Chicago Chicago VI |
| Chicago Chicago X |
| Chicago Chicago XI |
| Chicago Hot Streets |
| Emerson, Lake and Palmer Tarkus |
| Emerson, Lake and Palmer Works Volume 1 |
| Fu Manchu We Must Obey |
| Continues in the vein of "Start the Machine", which is basically Fu Manchu gone wrong. The songs are slightly better though, and a few have parts that sound like they're trying to reach back to their classic stoner sound (Shake It Loose, Land of Giants, Lesson) and Sensei vs. Sensei is a killer slow closing track, but there is still too much here that sounds like punk rock. |
| Grand Magus Iron Will |
| For me, this is a case of the whole being less than the sum of its parts. All the right ingredients are there: JB's killer voice (love his work in Spiritual Beggars), classic metal riffs, great sounding instruments, Nordic themes...so why don't I love this? It all seems...average. Safe, even. Too many mid-tempo songs that seem to blur together. Nothing really exciting or innovative about the arrangements; it's all very play-by-numbers. No ragged edges to the playing. Repetitive choruses that aren't very compelling - after I hear "silver into steel" repeated 4 times, that's enough, but it goes on and on. I bought this at the same time as Alabama Thunderpussy's "Open Fire" and ironically both bands have been in the "stoner" category earlier in their career but have morphed into a more classic metal/power metal sound. By contrast, I can't get enough of "Open Fire." It also has all the right ingredients but played with fire and passion, and with some cool instrumental breaks. It grabs my ear, whereas "Iron Will" just plods along and I find my interest drifting from boredom. Wish it wasn't so because I really wanted to like this album. |
| Grand Magus Hammer of the North |
| Helstar This Wicked Nest |
| Helstar Twas the Night of a Helish X-Mas |
| Helstar The King of Hell |
| With their reunion they sound like a completely different band. James Rivera's voice is deeper and obviously he can't do the air-raid siren shrieks at his age. The overall sound production and playing is a lot heavier and the riffs even more complex. But what I don't like is the dark/evil/satanic imagery in the lyrics and artwork on all of the reunion albums, seems like a cheap, cliched gimmick to attract new fans considering they didn't go to that extreme in the 80's. Isn't it kind of ridiculous to be singing about this stuff in your 50's? |
| Helstar Vampiro |
| Horslips Short Stories - Tall Tales |
| Horslips Roll Back |
| Horslips The Unfortunate Cup of Tea! |
| Humble Pie Thunderbox |
| Burnt out from all the drugs that their success brought them, Thunderbox is the result. The recording lacks "oomph" in the production and Steve's voice especially is not well recorded. He was also short on inspiration with quite a few cover songs and not many originals. |
| Humble Pie Go for the Throat |
| Humble Pie On to Victory |
| IQ Are You Sitting Comfortably? |
| IQ Nomzamo |
| Jethro Tull Rock Island |
| Jethro Tull Catfish Rising |
| Jethro Tull Roots to Branches |
| Jethro Tull J-Tull Dot Com |
| Jethro Tull The Zealot Gene |
| King's X Please Come Home...Mr. Bulbous |
| King's X Manic Moonlight |
| King's X Black Like Sunday |
| Manowar Warriors of the World |
| Manowar Battle Hymns MMXI |
| Manowar The Dawn Of Battle |
| Manowar The Day the Earth Shook – The Absolute Power |
| Manowar Hell on Wheels |
| Opeth Heritage |
| Pink Floyd Animals |
| Rush Vapor Trails |
| Rush Rush |
| Spock's Beard The Kindness Of Strangers |
| Spock's Beard Beware of Darkness |
| Spock's Beard The Light |
| Symphony X Symphony X |
| The Good Rats The Good Rats |
| The Monkees Changes |
| The Monkees Pool It! |
| The Rolling Stones Exile on Main St. |
| Tiles Fly Paper |
| This album didn't grab me like earlier Tiles albums. As SkapalPes said in his review, the songwriting is weak here. Nothing really memorable, even with Alex Lifeson guesting on one track. |
| Yes Tormato |
| Yes The Ladder |
