The Analog Cub

Made it through Opeth. What a ride. 1. Ghost Reveries 2. Blackwater Park 3. The Last Will and Testament 4. Pale Communion 5. Damnation 6. Watershed 7. Still Life 8. Sorceress 9. Deliverance 10. My Arms, Your Hearse 11. In Cauda Venenum 12. Heritage 13. Morningrise 14. Orchid The new album is a new creative peak. They figured out how to take all the best parts of their 2010s output and give it a dose of heavy. It sounds like ICV but the songwriting is spectacularly put together rather than disjointed like its predecessor. I don't even care that they brought back some metal, the songs and dynamics are just top tier.

Sorceress is probably gonna slot in somewhere around Watershed and Still Life. A much more challenging listen than Pale Communion but rewarding in many areas.

Yep, in account settings for me

That Bears double doink is a pretty recent big one

Your painstakingly curated Barry Manilow rankings are safe here! ...As long as you follow up with the heaviest stuff you can rank afterwards!

Firepower is moved up to the top category for me. That album is so damn good.

Call me a filthy casual but American Idiot, half of Dookie, and half of Nimrod are plenty Green Day for me.

I would've understood if he didn't get in on the first ballot, but I think his stats and individual hardware were more than enough to get in as a pitcher of his generation. The 00s and early 10s pitchers were absolute workhorses and we're not gonna see too many of them anymore. Sabathia might not be what I'd call the best of that group, but if anything, him getting in 1st ballot means the best of that group should be slam dunk 1st balloters. That means Kershaw, Verlander, Scherzer, and Greinke.

"Ruth wasn't unanimous, why should Ichiro be?" - some clown writer's opinion

One single jackass prevented Ichiro from being unanimous. The writers can be such clowns sometimes. I think Sabathia had a solid case. Getting to 3k strikeouts alone separated him from many, and his inning counts were nothing to sneeze at. With the continuing trends of using more of the bullpen creatively, pitchers continuing to destroy their arms in their early 20s as they chase velocity, I think the days of the Sabathia, Verlander, Kershaw types are ending.

Especially with Morningrise, the "black metal" style just doesn't work for me. It sounds muddy, and the songs are more just a disjointed collection of riffs or parts of songs. The MAYH album started to pull things together better, IMO. Still Life was where I felt they finally figured everything out.

First I've heard of it, but Google uncovered a lot of it for me. Jesus, what a trainwreck.

Opeth so far, still have the latest three to try 1. Ghost Reveries 2. Blackwater Park 3. Pale Communion 4. Damnation 5. Watershed 6. Still Life 7. My Arms, Your Hearse 8. Heritage 9. Morningrise 10. Orchid I didn't expect I'd enjoy Morningrise or Orchid but the biggest disappointment after listening so far is definitely Heritage. What a wet fart of an album after having proven they could go without metal in Damnation.

It's Opeth. I'm running through the discography and the biggest highlights for me have been Blackwater Park, Ghost Reveries, and Pale Communion. Sorceress and beyond are still upcoming.

Remdawg was another great one. Here comes the pizza!

No guitars wasn't my main problem with TFB, which again I can generally enjoy. I didn't like how R&B/poppy he got on stuff like Eminent Sleaze or King Ghost. I loved what he did with the electronic effects in general and some of the other songs like Personal Shopper or 12 Things I Forgot had some really good parts. Walk The Plank was a really interesting one. Barbieri always has the magic touch.

I didn't hate The Future Bites and liked a lot of parts of the songs, but overall it felt more like an experiment than a success. The Harmony Codex was for me, a 10/10 album and the best thing he'd done since Hand Cannot Erase. I'm jazzed for this new album.

Man this one really blows. One of the very best to do it.

The second and third FC albums don't feel quite as cheesy overall, but they have their moments I need to skip through. I tried Spock's Beard for a little bit and it feels the same. I thought The Winery Dogs was Portnoy's "weakest" but tastes vary. All three musicians are super talented but the music felt too much like a clone of Mr. Big. It didn't provide me anything "new". Sons of Apollo wasn't much better but at least felt like a Dream Theater more grounded in darker, heavier rock with JSS and Sherinian's keyboard palette.

LTE is great, and I loved the new one. Flying Colors has some decent stuff but it gets so cheesy at times. Neal Morse has a disposition to make anything he touches so corny, and Casey McPherson and Portnoy pile onto it at times. I liked their second album overall.

The new King Gizzard album this year was fun, and better in a live setting, but ultimately not what I'm after when I reach for their discography. That's fine, the next one is supposedly recorded with an orchestra and the single they released is insanely good

With DT, the sum is typically greater than its parts for me, and it's especially true with the last two Mangini albums. I think DoT and A View are some of their best work, but yes if you single out a random song from either it's all too easy to say "yep it's DT following their DT formula again". If the trend is to continue with these guys, Parasomnia is probably best enjoyed in full rather than by a couple singles. We'll see how it shakes out, of course, I wasn't thrilled when Mangini got the boot because of how much I enjoyed the last two albums, but Portnoy coming back isn't inherently a bad thing. I seriously doubt we're gonna be cursed with another cheese-fest like Systematic Chaos.

Either Invincible Shield or It Leads to This from The Pineapple Thief. They outdid themselves with the new album and it's no longer a case of Gavin Harrison carrying the band on his back, it really feels complete.

Hamilton got it! Very, very well deserved.

Whatever happens, the man deserves the happiest of retirements and more. He's a legend and his signature tom fills will be so missed. I'm glad he'll still be around the Maiden camp.