Rate the album you last listened to

[Mega-Tallica]

Device was AWFUL, by far the most disappointing album of the year thus far for me. I know people love to disagree with this, but it really is nothing more than a watered-down rendition of Disturbed's sound with some splashes of industrial thrown in. And when I say watered-down, I mean very watered-down when every song follows the exact same structure with a guitar riff that sounds almost exactly the same as the last song. Just a boring album all in all and instrumentally was extremely weak. To use a term I use a lot with bad movies, it's a snoozefest. I'd probably give it somewhere around a 3/10 as well.

Kinda sad when the best song on the album is a cover...

[killer_roach]

Kinda sad when the best song on the album is a cover...

Bullseye. By far, even.

[Henry_Monteiro]

Somewhere in Time- Iron Maiden

Probably the most underrated Maiden album. While Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind, and Powerslave are part of the pantheon of Metal, Time tends to slip by, but honestly, it might be better than those albums. Every song is fully realized, the synths are used perfectly, and "Wasted Years" is a near-perfect song. My favorite Maiden album, along with Seventh Son of a Seventh Son.

9.5/10

[Ultimatum]

James Blake - Overgrown

Really ****ing good.

8/10

[killer_roach]

Another batch, forgive me...

Kadavar - Abra Kadavar
7/10

By the numbers revival of 70s heavy psych, with some interestingly spacey analog synths. Doesn't do much to break out of the mold (or differentiate itself from older work - then again, a look at the album cover would indicate that), but you can't really fault it that much when it's this good.


Volbeat - Outlaw Gentlemen & Shady Ladies
6/10

More of the same from Volbeat - a little heavier, a little more bluesy, but still enough to give the listener a serious case of deja vu at times.


The Flaming Lips - The Terror
7.25/10

While a lot of the album tends to blur into a pastiche of post-rock-infused neo-psych, the title track, thirteen-minute epic "You Lust", and opening track "Look... The Sun Is Rising" (a track that adds harsh industrial-style noise to the palette not unlike songs off of NIN's "The Downward Spiral") provide some seriously creative, engaging material. So you basically have an EP worth of really good music and an EP of very serviceable filler.


Dice - Para-Dice
4/10

Neo-symphonic album that tries its best to stretch four-minute songs to 10-20 minutes in length. Need a hint, guys? It's not working, and the tired-sounding keyboard passages seem especially weak when they have little to prop up.


Motorpsycho - Still Life With Eggplant
6.75/10

An album of outtakes, and it shows. Even the addition of guitarist Reine Fiske for the album doesn't seem to add much beyond a slightly improved set of repeated riffs. A bit of a shame that the entire album has problems standing out, as "Barleycorn (Let It Come/Let It Be)" is a surprisingly good track, and "The Afterglow" is pretty decent as well. Problem is, they're two of the shorter songs on the album.

[MrFruitLord]

New Youth Lagoon gets an 8/10

more like a 5/10

New Flaming Lips gets an 8, Deerhunter a 9

[ClaptonsWig]

Although I'm not finished yet listening to it, I have this to say:

Halestorm -- The Strange Case of... (5/10)

Its not really doing much for me at the moment, still on play through attempt 2 though so it still has time to grow on me. I recognized 1 song prior, glad to know who its by now though. The music sounds pretty generic, although something I'm not against listening to.

[killer_roach]

Although I'm not finished yet listening to it, I have this to say:

Halestorm -- The Strange Case of... (5/10)

Its not really doing much for me at the moment, still on play through attempt 2 though so it still has time to grow on me. I recognized 1 song prior, glad to know who its by now though. The music sounds pretty generic, although something I'm not against listening to.

When I listened to it when it came out, it reminded me of a cross between The Donnas and Paramore.

Museo Rosenbach - Barbarica
9/10

First album in forty years... and it's absolutely fantastic. Had this come out in the mid-1970s, it would be considered an essential album of RPI. Today, it will have to settle for being one of the linchpins of the genre's renaissance.


Amorphis - Circle
7.75/10

Still no Skyforger, but better than The Beginning Of Times. Very well done, although starts to get a bit samey-sounding toward the end. That being said, few do the folk/death/doom thing better.


Thyrfing - De Ödeslösa
9/10

Outstanding Viking metal release with a handful of borrowed elements from, of all places, jazz fusion and symphonic prog. Overall easily compares with the best of the genre, and likely further establishes Thyrfing's position as the best Viking metal band out of Sweden today.

[GandWuser]

Area 11 - All the Lights in the Sky

Area 11's first true album shows a tighter sound than the excellent Blackline EP (which sadly seems to be no longer avaible for digital purchase), and it shows in the re-records of two songs from said EP. While fans who have heard the original versions of these songs may be slightly disappointed at the gamer guitar parts, these versions honestly fit better with the rest of the album than their original versions, and the new songs written for the album more than make up for it. Now onto the rest of the album. It's a J-Rock inspired album, as could be expected from their other works, and they continue the tradition of writing songs about anime. This is not too bad a thing, as the songs are still enjoyable to those who don't know much about this culture. Some questionable choices, however, such as the "stylistic" auto-tune that pops up occasionally, dampen some bits of its enjoyability. Most of the elements of their earlier releases are still present though.

For this album, I give two grades. If you're into all that J-Rock stuff, this gets a four-star ranking (out of five of course). If not, a three-and-a-half seems about right.