Monday, April 6, 2009

Albums Listened To In March

Well, I'm a few days behind but that doesn't change the fact that another month has passed us by. I'm a little older, a little wiser, and a little more prepared for the inevitable clash of the Devil and Jesus for our souls and an epic rock-off to end all time!

Anyway... this month didn't see to many new artists or new albums. Only 18 out of the 40 are new, which by itself is kind of impressive, but compared to my past few months of almost 3/4 of the list being new, it's a tad depressing. Instead of new music, I focused on Old Bands With New Music, which I wrote about in my latest Current Trend segment. Also I re-listened to the most of the discography of 3, my favorite prog-funk-metal band, and several Queen albums. One new group that I listened to considerably was Mechanical Poet. They are a progressive symphonic folk metal band from Russia. I'm working on a more in-depth article, but I really enjoyed their first EP, but haven't enjoyed their subsequent releases as much. I still have 2 more albums and another EP to listen to before I render my final judgment, but it was all enjoyable.

One of my favorite albums for the month of March is Heading Northe by StormWarrior. It was a nice mix of power metal with a touch of folkish influences. Another good one was Diablo Swing Orchestra's singular release (thus far) The Butcher's Ballroom. It was another bizarre mesh of symphonic and gothic, alot of the album I thought was a little boring but a handful of songs made up for it (chief among them is "Balrog Boogie"). And, as I already have said Mechanical Poet's debut EP, Handmade Essence, was a creative combination of symphonic progressive metal with folk strewn about.

As far as least favorite for this month is concerned, there really wasn't anything too bad. The only thing that I can think of would be the couple of albums which weren't really in my bag. They weren't bad albums by any means, just not something I would ever really listen to again. Among them is Nebraska by Bruce Springsteen, Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols by (you guessed it) The Sex Pistols, Crógacht by Suidakra and the new Les Claypool release, Of Of Fungi And Foe, which was pretty good, but was so weird that it'll be hard to re-approach it.
One album that I was expecting to be at least decent, that was not, was Queensrÿche's Take Cover. It is their latest release (with American Soldier to come out sometime this year), and was a cover album. Now, I normally love a cover album, but Take Cover was dull and listless, nothing that I'd ever spend time listening to again.

  1. 3 - The End Is Begun
  2. 3 - Paint By Number
  3. 3 - Summercamp Nightmare
  4. 3 - Wake Pig
  5. AC/DC - Black Ice
  6. Alestorm - Captain Morgan's Revenge
  7. Alestorm - Leviathan (EP)
  8. Alice Cooper - Along Came A Spider
  9. Ayreon - Actual Fantasy - Newly Listened!
  10. Baroness - Red Album
  11. Bruce Springsteen - Nebraska - Newly Listened!
  12. Diablo Swing Orchestra - The Butcher's Ballroom - Newly Listened!
  13. Dream Evil - Gold Medal In Metal: Bronze - Newly Listened!
  14. Dream Theater - Scenes From A Memory
  15. Great Lake Swimmers - Lost Channels - Newly Listened!
  16. Guns N' Roses - Chinese Democracy - Newly Listened!
  17. Hellmouth - Destroy Everything, Worship Nothing - Newly Listened!
  18. Iron Maiden - A Matter Of Life And Death
  19. Judas Priest - Angel Of Retribution
  20. KoЯn - Follow The Leader
  21. Les Claypool - Of Fungi And Foe - Newly Listened!
  22. Mechanical Poet - Creepy Tales For Freaky Children - Newly Listened!
  23. Mechanical Poet - Handmade Essence (EP) - Newly Listened!
  24. Mechanical Poet - Woodland Prattlers - Newly Listened!
  25. Metallica - Death Magnetic
  26. Mötley Crüe - Saints of Los Angeles
  27. The Offspring - Americana
  28. Queen - The Game
  29. Queen - Jazz
  30. Queen + Paul Rodgers - The Cosmos Rocks
  31. Queensrÿche - Take Cover - Newly Listened!
  32. Rush - Snakes & Arrows - Newly Listened!
  33. Sammy Hagar - UnBoxed
  34. Seawolves - Dragonships Set Sail - Newly Listened!
  35. StormWarrior - Heading Northe - Newly Listened!
  36. Suidakra - Crógacht - Newly Listened!
  37. The Sex Pistols - Never Mind The Bollocks Here's The Sex Pistols - Newly Listened!
  38. The Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist
  39. Type O Negative - Dead Again
  40. Týr - Land - Newly Listened!

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