My List of Favorite Albums (Will update if not lazy)

So yeah, this thread idea was inspired by the Hentai Library created some time ago. The idea is to list many of my favorite music albums I've listened to in the past along with some information and my reviews (usually be added later because I'm kinda lazy to write it) about it~

The music I mostly listen to are usually not most people's cup of tea but feel free to ask any questions if you want to get some music that matches with your preferences. I'll try to help out with my limited scope of knowledge~

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1st Batch

Genesis - Selling England by the Pound
Caravan - In the Land of Grey and Pink
Devin Townsend - Ziltoid the Omniscient <--Coffee Metal ftw
Pain of Salvation - Be
Edge of Sanity - Crimson
Akerstache - Heritage (Of Love) <--- EPIC ALBUM, MUST LISTEN
Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here
Dream Theater - Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory
Animals as Leaders - Self Titled
Van der Graaf Generator - Godbluff
X Japan - Art of Life
Anekdoten - Nucleus
Opeth - Damnation
Death - The Sound of Perseverance
The Mothers of Invention - We're Only in It for the Money <--Masterpiece of Classic Rock
Beardfish - Sleeping in Traffic : Part Two
Ozric Tentacles - Jurassic Shift
Steven Wilson - Grace for Drowning
Green Carnation - The Acoustic Verses
Far East Family Band - Nipponjin
Porcupine Tree - Fear of a Blank Planet
Gunther - Pleasureman
Neutral Milk Hotel - In the Aeroplane Over the Sea <---Prepare your Mountaintops

2nd Batch

Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin IV
Pink Floyd - The Dark Side of the Moon

- Reserved for the continued list -

Reviews

Me and this album go along way back while I'm still in High School. It's a period when I'm start listening to some of the songs by classic rock bands mainly from 70's. You name it : Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, The Doors, Eagles, Pink Floyd and many more by looking up the VH1 list titled 'Greatest Songs of All Time'. Go look them up on your favorite search engines if you're interested, it's my own memorable starting point for finding music while I'm still just spending my days watching MTV.

After listening to some jazz at middle school until that point I've developed some liking for music that kind of explores the usual musical ideas like playing in irregular time signatures, you name it...one popular example is a standard jazz song 'Take Five' playing in 5/4 which was covered by so many jazz musicians with their own style of improvisation. Letting only the main riff intact while they start disassembling the original and making their own musical interpretation~

Okay and so how is this related to me reviewing this album? Okay, let me explain about the musical style this legendary band has. Genesis combines the musical styles of Rock bands listed above with technical music like Jazz and Classical, forming another genre of it's own, Art Rock or Progressive Rock...in other words. Think about it at some Rock music with technical elements, it's hard to explain...just look up some of their music on Youtube.

I first came upon this band by listening to a CD of their MP3 collection, mainly starting up with their compilation albums. Later I tried my hands on listening this record, at the first listen I can't really get to it and I don't understand the music at all. My first impression is "What is this? The music is really strange! I've never heard anything like this before."

The next moment I found myself getting really addicted to the album for a reason I dunno myself, the music just starts appealing to me even more and more. And as for now, I could say it's a brilliant masterpiece of Rock music. Totally innovative and far beyond it's time, this is the music that will never gets old to me. The production quality is finest, the sound is crystal clear and deep...I hardly believe this is a record that came on the early 70's with this level of quality.

About the music itself, I should say that I really enjoy Peter Gabriel's vocals on this one along with Steve Hackett guitar plays and Mike Rutherford basslines that complement all the instruments perfectly, he's truly a monster at bass..just listen to the track "Los Endos" at the Wind and Wuthering album and you'll know what I mean.

Phil Collins also did a good job while performing the track "More Fool Me" it's a calm and relaxing song though at the same time it's really touching for the heart along with brilliant drumming throughout the album that impresses me until this day. Tony Banks also gave me a really rewarding experience while listening to his Keyboard and Synthesizer plays, one of the most memorable tracks featuring him are the opening piano sections on "Fifth and Firth" and the synth solo at "The Cinema Show".

The rest of the tracks like "Dancing With the Moonlit Knight", "I Know What I Like (In Your Wardrobe)", and "Battle of Epping Forest" is highly dominated by Peter Gabriel with his damn excellent vocal sound with unique and strong character...really subtle and soft but at the same time he delivers a powerful singing that greatly impacts the feelings of every listeners. Steve Hackett shines in almost every song in this album with his masterful guitar plays, this maestro knows how to arrange unique melodies for his guitar work I was fully astonished by his level of creativity, his musical presence brightly shines on the track "After the Ordeal" which features his acoustic and electric guitar solo plays.

With such incredible line up and musicality, there's still an impressive addition of masterful songwriting in the lyrics. The album is totally solid as a whole, with musical arrangements that would appeal to many kinds people especially the fans of rock music. Please give this an album a listen while you have some time to spend, this album had completely changed my perspective about music and broadening my horizons when I listened to it like magic and I will be eternally grateful for that.

Reviews

A powerful masterpiece of Progressive Rock! Its subtle and relaxing sound will send you drifting to an isolated desert island resort at first listen!

I like this album very much, the energetic yet mellow sound that Caravan makes in this album is very relaxing, not to mention the instrumentation is also excellent. One point of the instruments that I particularly like are David Sinclair's organ and piano playing especially in the track 'In The Land of Grey And Pink' where he delivers an angelic piano sound that gets me completely absorbed in the music, his breathtaking organ solo in 'Nine Feet Underground' makes those 22 minutes flows really fast! Pye Hastings' guitar works also did a very nice job in complementing the majestic organ plays, the bright-sweet sound that he makes with his guitar throughout the album are musically orgasmic!

Other strong points are the wind instruments played at some parts in the album, while it doesn't sound as dominant as the guitar and organs, it provides a really beautiful sound that strengthens the overall atmosphere of the songs further, the flute playing is one of the best I've ever heard in Prog! Now on to the bass and drums which serves as a solid backbone to the song, the rhythmic parts they made with it sounds really upbeat and catchy, a perfect complement for the masterpiece instrumentations.

Next is Richard Sinclair's subtle yet beautiful vocals that really suits the atmosphere given by the instrumentals. His vocal style are one of my favorites that makes me get into the 'Breathless' album by Camel which features him as the lead vocalist, and also both of the Hatfield and The North studio releases. When he sings, it really feels like you want to listen to him to the end, it really gets me into the music whenever the vocals came out.

For the track list, I'm impressed that there's no single weak track on this album. All of those are powerful and very well composed tracks, my personal favorite is the title track 'In The Land of Grey and Pink' and 'Nine Feet Underground', again, because of the keyboard and organs. Its also a big plus that Caravan plays really naturally without trying to show-off at all, it certainly sounds like they play music because they truly love it. And the result is a solid masterpiece of Prog music, a prime example of what Prog should be, really addictive and enjoyable, with great instrumentals, vocals, and masterfully-composed song pieces. Therefore I gave this album a strong 5 star out of 5, they really deserved it.

Reviews

There are two ways in which I viewed this album. Firstly, as an excellent Prog album and as an album with masterfully crafted in it~

Let's talk about the musical aspect from the album, Ziltoid the Omniscient offers the musicality level that I could classify as ones among the high-tier levels. It highly impressed me how Mr. Devin Townsend was able to arrange all this incredible songs by himself, in addition of playing all the instruments in addition of programming all the drum riffs using the software 'Drumkit from Hell'. Damn, I couldn't believe how much dedication and hard work was put to be able to muster such thing all by himself.

The sonic quality is album could be considered really good to me although it doesn't gave the grand atmospheric feeling included in albums mixed and produced by Steven Wilson. Nevertheless I gave one more thumbs up to Mr. Townsend for his production and mixing skills~

Briefly describing the musical styles of this album, it's mostly centered around Townsend's unique guitar riffs, vocal arrangements and the heavy drumbeats produced by 'Drumkit from Hell'. In between the vocals there's also spoken words from various characters featured in the album like 'Ziltoid the Omniscient', 'Captain Spectacular', 'The Planet Smasher' and other casts including Ziltoid's minions and the Omnidimensional Creator, the spoken words syncs perfectly along with the arrangements. All of the spoken words were voiced by Devin and I think he's done a really good job at voice acting in this album, I'm looking forward to the shows with him playing a voice acting role.

Getting more into detail about the musical aspects, I'm highly impressed with sir Devin's guitar work for creating unique guitar riffs and brilliant solos throughout the album. In addition, the atmospheric arrange by the keyboards and synthesizers, although doesn't provide many technical improvisations, it produces a 'Fully Atmospheric' feel that brings the sense of an epic spacey adventure story to the music, eliminating all the lonely silence with the guitar and drums alone, I like it a lot.

Some of few cons I have to note, it's probably about my speakers but I couldn't really hear the bassline plays on this record so I can't really give my comments about the bass playing. Also, even though the drum sounds produced by 'Drumkit from Hell' is awesome, mostly from Devin's brilliant programming, the drum riffs are pretty much repetitive and to me the drums only serve to complement the guitar plays in order to gave a heavier feel to the song~

Even with the short lack of experimentation of the instrumentals, there still a spark of genius in the vocal arrangements with variety of effects added to create the feel of 'spacey'. Mr. Townsend's singing is really powerful and I believe his vocal abilities are amongst the top-tiers on Progressive Metal. For me the vocals are one of the strong points of the musical aspect along with the guitars. Overall, this album has an excellent musical rewards to offer although I can't really gave a masterpiece rating to this album because the lack of instrumental experimentation on some parts~

And now we're on to the conceptual aspects of this album, the first things I wanna say is...



Yeah, Devin had made such a memorable character, Ziltoid the Omniscient. He's one of my most recognized characters in Prog Rock concept albums along with Rael from the Lamb Lies Down on Broadway by Genesis. This is one of the first things I wanna say about the album concepts, unlike most concept albums in Prog where the characters featured doesn't really become more than just stills to express the band's musical ideas, in ZTO album the characters really come to life by Devin Townsend's magic touch! I still remember vividly how the characters talk like : Ziltoid, Captain Spectacular, the Planet Smasher, the Omnidimensional Creator. Truly an innovation I'd say, I would watch the Ziltoid movie with full anticipation if it ever come to fruition.

Some background itself about the story idea, Mr. Townsend wants to mix comedy and metal by creating a story about Ziltoid who's searching for...the finest cup of coffee and eventually founds himself in Earth. Because he thinks that Earth was hiding their finest coffee bean he sets forth to invade Earth where he meets the challenge of his archnemesis, Captain Spectacular, an epic battle between them soon begins as the album plays around. I admit the story itself made me laugh but it turns out to be more of an epic adventure story rather than hilarious comedy one.

Once in his interviews about this peculiar album, he says that after he tried to combine metal and comedy, he realized that idea doesn't really work at all. I strongly disagree with that, Mr. Townsend. You've created rare masterpiece by trying out some new ideas like this, it really works wonders and you should have more confidence in this incredible work of art!

While the story itself is pretty straightforward and simple with nothing really extravagant, I find it really interesting to follow up until its completion. This explains you don't need an overly complex and philosophical idea to create a truly enjoyable concept album and this album proves it. The overwhelming passion of Devin Townsend has brought fruition to one of my favorite albums and I wish for his great success on all of his musical endeavors, bravo!

Reviews

(probably needs some improvement but that's all I could muster for now)

It's really hard to get the words right on how should I review this album. Eclectic is probably the correct word to describe the musical elements used during the song arrangements, with the accompaniment of orchestra during the songs...extending their creativity by stretching the bounds of Progressive Metal. And while this release is categorized as a Prog Metal album, I felt that 'BE' sounds less metal than both of their previous studio releases whom I listened to 'Perfect Element, Part I' and 'Remedy Lane' and more Progressive Rock than both of them.

Each songs has variety of genres mixed up to it, makes the generalization of the elements of this album hard to do since they feel kind of jumbled up. Also, all that I can say is...there's some songs that I like very much and I consider them to be one of PoS best songs, while on some few others I find them to be quite annoying. Overall most of the songs here are masterfully composed and it's really enjoyable to listen to them~

I mostly give a frequent listen to some of my favorite tracks here in this album, and it's pretty tough to listen to the whole thing since the whole album is quite lengthy. Regardless of that this is my most memorable PoS album despite all the few shortcomings, try listening to 'Iter Impius', 'Nihil Morari' and 'Dea Pecuniae', these are some of the best Prog Metal songs I've ever heard.

Can't really give much comments about the musical elements since the arranges were focused on many instruments that sounds really great as a whole with nothing really dominates over one another. All that I say is, I like the sound of guitar and piano on this release and Daniel Gildenlow's vocal performance is totally incredible.

Now let's move forth to the aspect which makes this album my favorite, when the musical aspects were a bit below the Perfect Element and Remedy Lane in my opinion. The album makes up for it with such intriguing concept and songwriting, even though I didn't really understand the philosophical context about 'God and Creation' featured in this album, I really like how PoS could turn it out to something I could enjoy very much despite not being able to fully comprehend it. The lyrics of the songs here are really touching, deep, and inspiring. It makes you wonder about things you haven't thought of before, later you find yourself contemplating, trying to find a deeper meaning behind things you usually do.

Last but not least, I consider this album to be my favorite PoS album along with their live album '12:5' and it's amongst the albums that highly inspired me to become the person I am now. This album has life-changing qualities which is a rare find amongst so many prog albums I ever came to, go give this one a listen if you ever have time to do so.

Reviews

Masterpiece of Progressive Metal, this album has left me with so much inspirations~

When someone asks me of a peculiar song that could turn a weak man into a fearsome beast, I would recommend them this song 'Crimson' the only track on this album spanning 40 minutes of length. This album is my starting point towards Extreme Metal genres when I couldn't really stand growling vocals, Edge of Sanity truly changes my paradigm about the music I can listen and enjoy to the fullest.

The music and lyrics, although has dark themes and concept, to me it sounds really uplifting and reminds me a lot to keep going strong, to fight and destroy all obstacles that lay beyond. Dan Swano's growling vocals and Mikael Akerfeldt's guitar riffing is probably the main point that catches my ear, it's the growling vocal of Mr. Swano that totally gets me into Death Metal. And although I came into Opeth first before Edge of Sanity...I can't really get into the albums that utilizes death growls and mainly start with Damnation hahaha...

After listening to this peculiar album, I began to start getting into Opeth's heavier stuff and even broadened my horizons to look for more hardcore Metal acts. Crimson is probably the album that I took a whole spin the most given it's sheer epicness, and it's very hard to find an album with quality such as this. Possibly the greatest Prog Metal album of all time, give this one a spin...it doesn't really get to me at first but after the second and third listen the magic starts seeping itself into me. Truly eargasmic!

Reviews

Now first things first, you might want to ask yourself 'WTH is Akerstache?' as you read this review and found this album amongst the gem of various well-known albums on the internet. And if you look at the album cover, you could see that those guys were using Opeth's logo in it...what happened really?

I first came across this band while browsing some music and last.fm and found some guys talking about this album on the shoutboxes; particularly Opeth, Steven Wilson, and Porcupine Tree. Labeling it the 'Greatest Album of All Time' I became really interested in their music.

And as I searched their name on Youtube I found out that they're doing parodies of Opeth's songs. Their parody release, this album, I proclaim it to be much better than the Heritage album by Opeth in which this Akerstache release is based from. To be honest I'm pretty much disappointed by Opeth's release at that year and Heritage (Of Love) brings back the love to me. As a parody band, they sure made a really great music with a splendid sense of humor to behold.



To tell ya the truth, I didn't get into it at the first spin. But the magic works wonders when I listened through it the second time, the songs were really easy to get into because of some powerful songwriting right over here. Simplistic but deep and emotional at the same time, that's quite a feat I daresay. So many musicians has lost that edge on writing epic songs like this, but Akerstache just beat them all hands down...add a sense of humor in this, prepare to witness the birth of a new musical legend!

The music is really kickass on this album, especially the guitar and Keytar in some parts like 'Folklore...' and 'My Love Is Deeper...'. Those guitar solo in 'Famine...' also were damn epic, not to mention the riffs on 'Devil's Orchard..' and 'Slither My Snake...'. I had so many wonderful moments experiencing the magic of their songs. Go try it yourself to experience the magic. The music is probably not your usual cup of tea, but if you're looking for something new outside your usual kind of listen, it's definitely worth putting it to your must-listen list.

Reviews

Five Stars, a wonderfully-crafted album. Possibly the best tribute ever made towards their former bandmate, Syd Barrett.

Let's talk about this phenomenal Pink Floyd release, this album sets itself apart from many of their other releases. One of the other that came close to this were 'Dark Side of the Moon' but I still prefer Wish You Were Here, as my favorite album because of all the intriguing concept embedded to it, as well as the easy-to-catch music that remains highly refined and enjoyable, not to mention the musicality itself is able to express such intense emotions; from the guitars, bass, vocals, keyboards, and the drums...all of them performed magnificently by masters of their own trade.

To my preference I like David Gilmour's guitar parts throughout the whole album, especially on the Shine On You Crazy Diamond (Parts 1-5). He transcends the usual paradigm of a guitar being an instrument to play beautiful melody, when Mr. Gilmour plays, the guitar becomes a medium by itself to express the deepest recesses of the emotions. Just like, how you should it...he's able to make a guitar sound like crying, laughing, being angry or something like that. Truly remarkable performance, other songs that I like the guitar parts including the title track 'Wish You Were Here' while the guitar work is indeed a bit mellow and relaxing, it's really deep and inspiring, one of the tracks that motivates me a lot to start learning guitar on way back.

The album itself is one of the most enjoyable spins ever from the start to finish. Track by track, you're given a wonderful musical trip spanning 5 masterfully-written tracks. Just like Caravan's 'In the Land of Grey and Pink' the tracks were perfectly placed on the album, without a single weak song in it. This would be an easy-to-digest material even though you're not an usual listener of Progressive Rock, and it's highly recommended for you fans of Classic Rock or those new to Rock music. Along with Genesis' masterpiece 'Selling England by the Pound' I would gladly recommend this to someone who's starting to appreciate Prog Rock.

Can't you just post them all in 1 post?

Reviews :

It took quite a long time for me to come up with a review regarding this favorite band of mine, Dream Theater, as the band go along way back throughout my earliest days of listening to Prog, you could say DT was the gate that leads me towards a whole new world, discovering so many great bands in the Prog scene. So yeah, I think this is the band that I ever listened to the most, and many of their albums had become one of the regular inhabitants of my playlist.

This particular album, Scenes From a Memory, is my personal favorite from them along with Six Degrees oF Inner Turbulence, Awake and Images and Words came up next. While the rest of those, I think those were also pretty nice but I think I won't be listening to them as much as my favorites. So far I think they had been pretty consistent with their musical approach and I'd like the dedication and feel they put into the music, they will always have a special place in my heart as the band which greatly stretched my musical boundaries when I was just a regular music listener who knows so little about Prog.

Without further ado, let me explain the aspects which makes me like this album very much. First of all, when I first got this album, I'm not really interested in giving it a spin as I'm quite addicted to their new release Systematic Chaos, Black Clouds Silver Linings and Octavarium at that time, but when I finally decided to give it a listen, it completely blows me away! I don't know but it's so easy to keep myself on listening the whole album from the start to finish, something I can't really do when listening to their other releases beside this album~

The tracks flew through so smoothly from the first into the ending track just like listening to a single long epic, all of the parts were strong and memorable, along excellent buildup and superb musicality. Judging from the musical aspects, I think many of you guys already know that all of the members had a really masterful skill on their respective positions, what really impresses me is how they could perform as one united power while doing the solo movements, with each member complementing each other in order to make a superb improvisation within many of their tracks.

Though to me John Petrucci's guitar work also plays an integral part of the musicality as his guitar playing was the one standing out the most, his guitar riffs and solo throughout the whole album leaves me feeling so addicted that I think I could listen to his solos alone for a long time without getting bored at all, really nice! James Labrie also sounds great in this album, even after suffering from an incident which ruptures his vocal cord, his vocal abilities still impressed me nonetheless, I do like his unique vocal style and his soulful way of singing which makes him one of my favorite singers, that's also the part that makes me enjoy his solo album 'Elements of Persuasion' too.

For the other musicians, they also sound great, John Myung bassline does a great job on complementing Petrucci's guitar works. Mr. Myung shines at the track 'Dance of Eternity' when he performs a monstrous bass solo which leaves me breathless, Mr. Rudess also has done many memorable parts with the keyboard playing, like those opening moments in 'Overture 1928' and the entire 'Through My Words', aside from that his keyboard solos during many of the solo moments were also fantastic! Mr. Portnoy also does superb drumming which adds the feel and intensity throughout the album, he's always been a great drummer and I admire his technical abilities too~

Ahem. As much as I do love the entire album, there's also some of them who become most memorable to me. And it really intrigues me how a band with masterful technical abilities and musicianship could also perform such a soulful song, albeit having simpler instrumentations, it greatly touches your heart, with meaningful lyrics which made you ponder and contemplate about things. Yes I'm talking about 'Through Her Eyes' and 'The Spirit Carries On', two of my most favorite tracks from the album. Go listen to it if you wanna know what I mean hahaha...

As this album showcases the shining moments from the band with all their greatness, with eclectic ranges on what kind of musical performance they could muster, I proclaim this album as a recommended listen, go give it a try if you haven't do so. And if you already listened to it, you might wanna listen to it again!

Kinda unrelated, but kudos to DT for maintaining their original musical approach by the release of 'A Dramatic Turn of Events' which I think as a great album, and it's nice to see they haven't lost their touch even after they reached stardom.

There's too many of them to complle 'em all in one, there's probably about 50-100 albums I had in mind right now~

Some of the reviews I will write also might be quite lengthy so I find that a single post for each album might fit the best

This thread does seem like it belongs in "Music" section, but it would just spam post count....

Yup, that's why I prefer posting it here so I won't be spamming for post count~

Reviews :

I first came to this groundbreaking DJENT genre when I came across a Progressive Metal band called Periphery when someone posted a Youtube video of them titled 'Racecar' while I was browsing the music section. It came to me that I kinda liked that style of music, but what really made me start getting to this kind of genre is...

Yes, Animals as Leaders. I was first introduced to this band by one of the fellows I met on some chat groups, then I start browsing their videos at Youtube and I was really surprised, not to mention excited by my findings. Thus it made me start listening to music from their self-titled debut album.

Well, what can I say about the music? The music is mostly guitar driven with the masterful touch of guitarist Tosin Abasi, along with the drum arrangements by Misha Mansoor from Periphery. I think the arrangements were really damn excellent and I like these innovative instrumental melodies they come up, whilst mixing up with these experimental electronic sounds that become the signature sound from the DJENT genre.

Many people believe that the original inspiration that leads to this whole DJENT phenomena begins with Meshuggah, an Extreme Metal band from Sweden which utilizes great rhythmic arrangements, and high-energy aggressive riffing that won so many hearts of dedicated metalheads. Though in my opinion, although in some aspect this music is derived from Meshuggah, this DJENT genre could be somewhat considered an innovation by itself as it manages to set themselves apart to some extent from their forefathers.

For the technical details, they used a 7-string guitar with alternate tunings in order to create these unique sound from what I've heard. With arrangements utilizing complex and technical progressions and excellent guitar shredding along with variety of other techniques such as alternate picking, sweep-picking, tapping, fingerpicking and slapping (cited from Wikipedia) though I personally doesn't have much clues from the others besides tapping, which become pretty familiar to me after watching the live performances of Steve Vai.

The album for itself was a pretty enjoyable listen from the start to finish, though there's some songs that do stand out from the others in my opinion, such as the opening track 'Tempting Time' and 'CAFO'. Though with all of the superb technicality in this album, I think there's this high energy guitar play which gives an uplifting feel, and this kind of combination along with all the goodness of this music combines, it creates a truly eargasmic experience on each listens from the start to finish~

This was purely a musical journey through exploring technical aspects, though it underlies no deeper meaning beyond the pure enjoyment of listening to this nice technical experimentation of musical endeavor. I conclude this to be an excellent album of the progressive metal genre with all the greatness I disclosed above~

A recommended listen for those who likes listening to technical music with great melodies.

Not recommended for you who seeks for a deeper meaning behind the songs and the whole album, and this is what keeps me from regarding this as a 'masterpiece' of Prog Releases. Dream Theater, Pain of Salvation, and Van der Graaf Generator might be more appropriate for you~

Reviews :

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Even if it does spam post count, I think it wouldn't matter since all of his posts here have some really meaty content...

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Reviews

Let's start by talking about how I came across the releases by Opeth starting with Watershed, then Blackwater Park some few years ago. I have to admit that I'm pretty new to the Progressive Metal stuff at that time and there I deemed things to be 'too deep for me' for my enjoyment. Their music was basically were pretty hard for me to get into at first, especially since I'm not really accustomed to the death growls and the abrasive riffs that went along with it, and it greatly derives me from totally enjoying the aggressive yet technical music that's imbued with powerful songwriting by Mikael Akerfeldt.

I started to came towards the Prog Metal world from Dream Theater, soon become accustomed to DT's sound after some time of frequent listening and that's how I suddenly came by Opeth, after I'm reading some recommendations posted there on Youtube while browsing DT's videos. I listened to 'Harvest' since it was the first video that I came across, the mellow sound they made truly amazes me, aside from the fact that I'm not too accustomed towards Death Metal stuff on that moment.

That aside, after failing to enjoy Blackwater Park and Watershed because of their heavy and technical stuff which was too much for the past me, I began to look up for some of their works with the semblance to the tracks 'Harvest', 'Still Day Beneath the Sun' and 'Patterns in the Ivy' tracks, which I like for the mellow feeling the track gives.

There I came across this album 'Damnation' which intrigues me to try my hands upon it because of the simple description that this album was solely a Progressive Rock tribute from the band, devoid of all death growls and extreme metal elements that might hinder my enjoyment. It was truly a great album to start out with for me as a newcomer to Opeth as I started out by enjoying things more on the Prog Rock side, and by listening to this album, it totally opened my horizon on exploring many more of their stuff such as Still Life and Ghost Reveries.

For the album itself, the music is mostly guitar driven that resembles the Progressive Rock bands such as Camel, with dissonant riffing and melody that reminds me of a Prog Folk band like Comus, especially on their first album which I heard the track of on Youtube recently. Their choices of melody were unique and their acoustic stuffs were truly excellent in this album, in addition of having a somewhat accessible sound to casual music listeners. It might not be an exaggeration to deem this album to be an easy-listening one that would made Prog fans addicted upon listening to it.

The musical atmosphere portrayed on this album were somehow mellow and dark, at times it were filled with some upbeat parts but it's still relaxed enough not to make you suddenly jump due to the abrupt change within the song arrangements. I especially like the opening track 'Windowpane' with the classy guitar intro, 'In My Time of Need' that's great to sing along to. There's also a memorable track 'To Rid the Disease' with parts inspired from the song 'Mordet I Grottan' by Sorskogen. Lastly I would like to mention 'Ending Credits' as a nice Camel tribute with great guitar melodies.

Overall the album flows smoothly from the start to finish. Great when you're looking for something to make you feel relaxed without being caught up in the boredom as I find this record to be entertaining and inspiring despite being inside 'the smoother lines'. All of the tracks in the album were enjoyable and it adds up to the bottom line of taking a full spin of listen from the start to finish. This is by far, my favorite release of theirs...and this album felt truly special for me as it has opened the horizons for me to enjoy more of Opeth's stuff.

In short, if you're looking for some easy-listening Prog stuff that's pretty relaxing and enjoyable, try this album. And even if you're not a Prog fan, it's also a recommended listen, go check these out if you're interested.