The Analog Cub

On 3/18/2024 at 3:11 PM, The Analog Cub said:

I've decided to give Priest a proper discography run. Will take me a while given the size but you gotta start somewhere.

 

Rocka Rolla is better than I remember it being. It's not the Priest I know, but for 70s hard rock it's surprisingly solid, at least the first couple tracks and Diamonds and Rust.

Sin After Sin is where things really start to take off for me. I know SWOD is a popular one but despite its importance, it's too much of a Queen imitation to me. Too much of the 70s cheese in these first few.

I've decided to give Priest a proper discography run. Will take me a while given the size but you gotta start somewhere.

Rocka Rolla is better than I remember it being. It's not the Priest I know, but for 70s hard rock it's surprisingly solid, at least the first couple tracks and Diamonds and Rust.

33 minutes ago, Mr. Not said:

 

RYM is a great resource for when first getting into bands, but I also like checking to see how much I agree with other fans/general listener's rankings.

 

Here's how RYM ranks Haken:

 

1. The Mountain

2. Visions

3. The Cocoon* (Henshall solo album)

4. Affinity

5. Aquarius

6. Vector / Virus (complete tie)

7. Fauna

 

^ looks like there's a good amount of overlap in agreement.

I think higher of Vector / Virus than most others do, and less of Visions.

Haken is a hard one to get aggregate reviews for because the albums are all very different apart from Vector/Virus being similar to each other.

You can tell a lot about how someone's tastes are with Haken based on where they rate Affinity, I think.

For me it's:

Fauna

Affinity

Virus

The Mountain

Visions

Vector

Aquarius

2 hours ago, JohnRogers said:

What would you pick as their best album?

I go back and forth a bit between Stained Class, Painkiller, and Screaming for Vengeance. Depends on the day. I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of Priest like I am Maiden, but they scratch the itch.

These guys impress me. Richie Faulkner saved this band. I'm enjoying this one more than a fair amount of their 70s material, to be completely honest. It's not their BEST album, but you could take a few from this, a few from Firepower, and maybe one or two from RoS and it'd be a top 5 Priest album.

I'll also pick Death Magnetic from Metallica, I'd argue their "late career" started with that one in that their tours had started playing it safe with 80s + Black Album material.

Maiden's last two were fantastic.

Pink Floyd's Division Bell is one of their absolute best.

Foo Fighters' But Here We Are is their best since Wasting Light.

1 hour ago, That One Guy said:

I have a developer friend who has been very loudly whining and complaining about this! After four years at home, they just started back up with 3 days a week in office, 2 days remote. I've never heard someone complain so much. I only did about 15 days working from home during COVID, so I never really got used to it or expectant of it.

I'm a software engineer. It's literally the hottest issue right now. I've enough clout to tell my boss to leave well enough alone if he wants to keep me and he doesn't seem too keen on enforcing it anyway. 

If I go in, I'm on a Teams call anyways since we're global. Waste of time.

On 2/28/2024 at 2:49 PM, BastillePark said:

Wendy's now says they won't be doing the surge pricing. Whew, what a relief. 

Much like companies with their bullshit return to office policies, they'll try it again once they feel they can get away with it.

5 hours ago, 1-0-0-1-0-0-1 said:

 

Five Guys has gone up a lot since the pandemic. Here in NY, their normal two-patty burger, small fries and a bottle of water is now over $18. They're good burgers, and their fries are the best (and they don't skimp on them), but that's a lot.

 

McD's burgers are bottom-tier for fast food burgers and are nowhere near as good as Five Guys, so the thought of paying $18 for a Big Mac meal is as hard to stomach as the burgers themselves.

Five Guys is expensive, and my location started skimping on them (by their standards), in that they aren't dumping another scoop straight in the bag. Just enough to fill the little fry container. It's not NY prices making it $18, either, it's stupid high in Iowa, too.

I'm game for Maiden. The top 3 are untouchable for me but 4-9 are likely to shuffle depending on how I'm feeling.

Seventh Son

Brave New World

Powerslave

Somewhere In Time

A Matter of Life and Death

Number of the Beast

Senjutsu

Piece of Mind

Book of Souls

Things start to feel a little meh here but there are some absolute gems within

Dance of Death

Iron Maiden

Killers

X Factor

These have very few redeeming qualities

The Final Frontier - they just sound tired 

Fear of the Dark

No Prayer for the Dying

Virtual XI

11 hours ago, Rick N. Backer said:

I will say that I saw Sammy and Mike in 2019.  Sammy sounded better then than Dave did on the atrocious live VH album from about a decade earlier.

I wish there was an official live release of the 07-08 tour with Dave. The YouTube footage I can find is night and day better than that horrible live album. There were moments where he'd actually sing in key.

Balance has one, maybe two decent songs (Aftershock and Seventh Seal), but the rest is pretty bad.

My one defense of Truth is that Eddie and Alex sound fantastic. Some absolute fire on there, but Dave is cooked. There's a few good songs. Beats Workin, China Town, She's The Woman.

Best full ranking shot at King Gizzard - this is f***ing hard!

PetroDragonic Apocalypse

Nonagon Infinity

Polygondwanaland

Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms, and Lava

Flying Microtonal Banana

L.W.

Omnium Gatherum

Infest the Rats Nest

Changes

Gumboot Soup

K.G.

I'm In Your Mind Fuzz

Butterfly 3000

Murder of the Universe

====== This is where they start to lose me =====

Fishing For Fishes

Laminated Denim

Float Along - Fill Your Lungs

Quarters!

The Silver Cord

Sketches at Brunswick's East

Paper Mache Dream Balloon

12 Bar Bruise

Oddments

Made In Timeland

Eyes Like The Sky

Starset

1. Horizons

2. Vessels

3. Transmissions

4. Divisions

Divisions is just awful.

Enjoying the band but, like Breaking Benjamin, they're incredibly formulaic. Horizons and Vessels just happen to do it very well

30 minutes ago, J2112YYZ said:

 

Did you ever feel like you listened to far too many new releases this year? I'm all for discovering new music, but a list like this doesn't allow time to listen to the albums and really get to know them.

Yeah I feel like if I get half a dozen new releases from bands I know and maybe discover a new band for my rotation that's a really good year. I simply wouldn't have the time or energy to devote that level of attention to much more, and I've got a desk job for a living.

Haken - Fauna

Tesseract - War of Being

King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse

Foo Fighters - But Here We Are

QOTSA - In Times New Roman

Never got around to the new Steven Wilson album. Still on my list. The new Porcupine Tree live album kicks some serious ass.

On 4/12/2023 at 8:01 PM, The Analog Cub said:

I'll do 2011-2020.

 

2011

1. Foo Fighters - Wasting Light

2. Haken - Visions

3. Dream Theater - A Dramatic Turn of Events

 

2012

1. Rush - Clockwork Angels

2. Devin Townsend Project - Epicloud

3. Lindsey Stirling - self-titled

 

2013

1. Haken - The Mountain

2. Queens of the Stone Age - ...Like Clockwork

3. Daft Punk - Random Access Memories

 

2014

1. Lindsey Stirling -  Shatter Me

2. Devin Townsend - Sky Blue

3. Haken - Restoration

 

2015

1. Ghost - Meliora

2. Riverside - Love, Fear, and the Time Machine

3. Steven Wilson - Hand Cannot Erase

 

2016

1. Haken - Affinity

2. Devin Townsend Project - Transcendence

3. The Pineapple Thief - Your Wilderness

 

2017

1. Foo Fighters - Concrete and Gold

2. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Polygondwanaland

3. Mastodon - Emperor of Sand

 

2018

1. Ghost - Prequelle

2. The Pineapple Thief - Dissolution

3. Tesseract - Sonder

 

2019

1. Tool - Fear Inoculum

2. Dream Theater - Distance over Time

3. Lindsey Stirling - Artemis

 

2020

1. Haken - Virus

2. The Pineapple Thief - Versions of the Truth

3. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - K.G.

Edited a couple entries after discovering some new discographies this year.

Adding 2021-23

2021

1. Dream Theater - A View from the Top of the World

2. Iron Maiden - Senjutsu

3. Mastodon - Hushed and Grim

Honorable mention

CHVRCHES - Screen Violence. It's synth pop but this particular group feels like a real band behind it all and it has this cold unsettling atmosphere that reminds me of Richard Barbieri work.

2022

1. Porcupine Tree - Closure/Continuation

2. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - Ice, Death, Planets, Lungs, Mushrooms, and Lava

3. Ghost - Impera

Honorable mention

Devin Townsend - Lightwork. I feel Devy is kinda winding down on the wow factor for me anymore but this was a pretty good effort. He needs to ditch the jovial choir shtick though.

2023

1. Haken - Fauna

2. Tesseract - War of Being

3. King Gizzard and the Lizard Wizard - PetroDragonic Apocalypse

Honorable mention

Foo Fighters - But Here We Are. Their best since Wasting Light, and one of their best overall. Fantastic album that just missed the cut because the metal albums this year were SO GOOD.

On 12/21/2023 at 4:54 PM, Union 5-3992 said:

Steven Wilson is the only artist who releases bonus tracks that are exciting. Mostly because he sucks at curating what songs belong on his albums

Yep.

Futile, Drown With Me, the entire Nil Recurring EP which could've been with FOABP.

All of those are great but we're stuck with Halo, Creator Has a Mastertape, etc. on the actual albums.

Assuming they didn't turn his guitar off, he actually learned the whole song, too. Jambi is a f***ing killer track

1 hour ago, Rick N. Backer said:

Isn't this basically the band Sammy's been touring with for a few years, with Satriani in place of Vic Johnson?  Or Chickenfoot with Jason Bonham in for Chad Smith?

 

Eddie Van Halen is gone.  Alex Van Halen obviously doesn't want to go on without his brother.   Why doesn't Sammy just say he's doing another tour?

Based on the way it's being advertised I'd say the set will be leaning harder into the Van Hagar albums and less into his solo stuff, Montrose, or whatever else he plays these days.

Like, maybe they pull out stuff from Balance or F.U.C.K. that hadn't been played since the booze apocalypse in 2004

Time will tell if that's true though, or if he's just gonna keep playing the same half a dozen songs from Van Hagar mixed in with his solo hits

43 minutes ago, Segue Myles said:

Would you like to know my reason?

 

Well okay, its simple: it really triggers my low moods. 

 

Material: intense and powerful.

 

My reaction: its too intense and powerful.

 

Normally I can handle music that deals with heavy themes like a champ, but this album alongside The Cure's Disintegration just push me too far. 

That's totally fair. I suppose lyrically it's not exactly a walk in the park.

DT

1. Six Degrees

2. Scenes

3. Black Clouds

4. Distance Over Time

5. Awake

6. A View

7. Images

8. ADToE

9. Train of Thought

10. Octavarium

11. Dream Theater

12. Systematic Chaos

13. Falling Into Infinity

14. The Astonishing

15. WDADU

18 hours ago, Segue Myles said:

Dream Theater:

 

1. Awake

2. Distance Over Time

3. A View From The Top Of The World 

4. Images And Words

5. Dream Theater

6. Scenes

7. A Dramatic Turn

8. Falling Into Infinity

9. Train Of Thought 

10. Six Degrees

11. Black Clouds

12. Octavarium

13. When Day...

14. Systematic Chaos

15. The Astonishing 

+1000 points for putting Distance over Time and A View towards the top

-10000 for the Six Degrees slander!

Idk if I'd call that one the worst, but it's definitely bad (on a much overrated album too if you ask me).