I don’t recall having seen this pop up in this community. Give a rundown of your favorite albums. Top slot, top 3, top 5, 10… whatever’s easiest to you since I know it can be tough to narrow things down to a specific degree.
It’ll be interesting to see where everyone is coming from in this regard. Could create for a good opportunity to discuss albums, find people with similar tastes, argue that a different album from someone’s catalog is better, etc.
I’ll throw mine down in a separate comment once I get it figured out.
Alright, Top 13 for me, because 13 and this is what I could figure well enough and be satisfied with right now. Ordering subject to roughly change somewhere around fifth slot depending on what mood I’m in on any given day, but these are solid mainstays in my rotation (most of them for decades at this point). Doesn’t reflect how broad my interests go, but you can see that I gravitate a lot toward black metal, and I favor stuff that isn’t afraid to be its own thing. Weird is good. Non-metal albums removed though there are a couple in my top 10 if I weren’t being genre specific.
- Dødheimsgard - A Umbra Omega
- Ved Buens Ende - Written in Waters
- Murmuüre - Murmuüre
- Emptiness - Not For Music
- The Skaden - You Will Hope I Had Died
- Solefald - The Linear Scaffold
- Samael - Eternal
- At the Gates - The Red in the Sky is Ours
- Ulver - Bergtatt - Et Eeventyr i 5 Capitler
- Cryptopsy - None So Vile
- Summoning - Old Mornings Dawn
- Rotting Christ - Khronos
- Akercocke - Words That Go Unspoken, Deeds That Go Undone
Many of these bands are new to me so I’m making my way down your list and Murmuüre is blowing my mind
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Between The Buried and Me - Colors
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Mr. Bungle - California
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Opeth - Blackwater Park
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Porcupine Tree - In Absentia
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The Dear Hunter - Act III
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The Dear Hunter - Act II
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Eyedea & Abilities - First Born
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Porcupine Tree - Fear of a Blank Planet
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The Ocean - Pelagial
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Sleep Token - This Place Will Become Your Tomb
Edit: I didn’t realize this was a metal community post. I just responded for my all time top 10.
If I am focusing on metal, I remove dear hunter, porcupine tree, bungle, and sleep token.
I add both Necrophagist albums, Nobembre’s ‘Everasia’, Animals as leaders self-titled, Opeth’s Still Life, and At The Gates slaughter of the soul…
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Between The Buried and Me - Colors (2007) [Progressive Metalcore]
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Opeth - Blackwater Park (2001) [Progressive Death Metal]
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Necrophagist - Epitaph (2004) [Technical Death Metal]
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Novembre - Everasia (2002) [Progressive Death/Doom Metal]
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Necrophagist - Onset of Putrefaction (1999) [Technical Death Metal]
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The Ocean - Pelagial (2013) [Progressive Metal]
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Animals as Leaders - Self-titled (2009) [Progressive Metal/Djent]
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Opeth - Still Life (1999) [Progressive Death Metal]
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At The Gates - Slaughter of the Soul (1995) [Melodic Death Metal]
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Darkest Hour - Deliver Us (2007) [Melodic Death Metal/Metalcore]
I don’t know about the other artists, but why remove Mr Bungle? In my opinion they’re metal af!
California isn’t! Lol. I mean there’s heavy parts of air conditioned night are and goodbye sober day but all in all, it’s a pretty bright album.
I see, you’re referring to that specific album. It’s just that extremely experimental including all kinds of sounds and styles that it seems very difficult to say what genre it is.
Thank you for that small interaction, it lead me to change my last night’s plans, getting my headphones out and listen to Mr Bungle and other Mike Patton bands like FNM and Fantomas. Was a great night!
In case you didn’t know, there are some badass recordings from earlier days or cut together tapes like this one.
Some faves off the dome:
Unearth - The Oncoming Storm
Unleash The Archers - Apex
Strapping Young Lad - City
Misery Signals - Mirrors
Entheos - Time Will Take Us All
Striker - Ultrapower
Astronoid - Air
Meshuggah - Chaosphere
Shai Hulud - Misanthropy Pure
I tend to listen to a lot of symphonic metal. I know some folks are turned off if the vocals aren’t harsh enough, so some of these are probably a total miss, but some of my favorite albums are:
- Delain - The Human Contradiction
- The Agonist - Lullabies for the Dormant Mind
- Within Temptation - The Unforgiving
- Opeth - Blackwater Park
- Nightwish - Endless Forms Most Beautiful
- Frantic Amber - Burning Insight
- Infected Rain - 86
- Dream Theater - Train of Thought
- Iron Maiden - Killers
- Epica - The Holographic Principle
I find a lot of times I’m more skirting around the edges of symphonic metal without landing dead center. I like female vocals a lot, so I get into stuff like Tristania and The Gathering pretty hard. And I like some stuff that’s more in the neoclassical darkwave spectrum like Autumn Tears, Rain Fell Within, Dargaard, etc. Elis is probably the most on the nose symphonic group that I enjoy a lot.
Dream Theater — Metropolis Part 2 is the best metal album ever written and I’ll die on the hill.
There are albums I like more, albums I definitely listen to more, but if we’re talking overall quality Metropolis pt 2 is an absolute masterpiece.
