Blog Archives
Matt’s Top 100 Favorite Albums of All Time: #75-#71
Over on my favorite forum for rambling about metal, The History of Metal (it’s an open Facebook forum, so anyone, meaning you, can join and flap your jaw about metal with a wide variety of metalheads from all over the world), the admin made a challenge to all the members to create their top 100 albums of all time. Loving making lists I’m all on this. Between the ~1500 albums I have there is a lot to filter through and this has turned into quite a daunting, yet fun, challenge. This list will represent where I am with my favorite albums right now, if I were to do this last year or next year, while being similar, I’m sure there would be lots of differences. My only self-imposed limitation on this is I’m confining each band 3 albums in the list to avoid entire, very large, discographies over saturating it. Every 5 days or so I’ll make a post with the next 5 entries into the list. Fellow bloggers, I extend this challenge to you (and be sure to let me know where and when you’ll be posting it, I’d love to read it), and for readers without a blog join up with THOM and post yours there! Enjoy!!! Peace Love and Metal!!!
#75: Grace for Drowning by Steven Wilson
Going from touching and heartfelt to eerie and scary this album just hits every emotion that one can experience while listening to music. He also takes you through journeys with unexpected twists and turns that will leave you with surprise and awe at every bend. The top-notch prog-rock borders on metal territory at times, and is welcome to cross over and visit anytime. The lyric writing is superb as well, while being a bit cryptic at times, Mr. Wilson uses his words to build an image or emotion and when placed upon the backdrop of his music they create a tightly woven listening experience. IMHO this is some of Mr. Wilson’s best work and fans of all music should give this a listen, it’s just, wow. I also love the trio of music videos released for the album, the work that Lasse Hoile does with Steven is just A/V bliss.
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So Far, Everything I Expected and More
Those of us who are eagerly awaiting the release of the Mikael Åkerfeldt and Steven Wilson collaboration, Storm Corrosion, have been pleasantly treated with our first good taste of things to come. The official video for the song “Drag Ropes” is out now and both the video and the song are great. Both the artists styles shine though throughout the song and meld together wonderfully. It is more or less how I was envisioning it would sound like. It’s creative, experimental, dark, haunting, and beautiful. Same goes for the Tim Burton-esque video directed by Jess Cope. Check it out and let us know what you thought! Peace Love and Metal!!
Storm Corrosion Reveals Album Art Work
If you’ve been reading this blog it should be well-known that I am highly anticipating getting my hands on Mikael Åkerfeldt and Steven Wilson’s collaboration project Storm Corrosion. All parties have been very tight-lipped as to what to expect from the record other than stating that it will fit in with both Steven Wilson‘s Grace for Drowning and Opeth‘s Heritage as far as the feel of the album goes, sort of a sister record. Mr. Wilson has also said that there will be minimal percussion on the album, but I’m not sure if he means in the way of drums and what not because both bands are quite apt to use piano in their music quite a bit, and is something I’m really hoping is on this record. Anyways, whatever they do I’m sure it will be something special.
Above you can see the artwork for their forthcoming debut album to be self titled. It will be released on May 7th, 2012 through RoadRunner Records. Preorders are available here and the packages currently available are 1. Double LP Vinyl Set with a FLAC digital download and 2. Double LP Vinyl Set with a FLAC digital download, CD, and a Blu-Ray disk with a HQ 5.1 mix of the album plus bonus and instrumental tracks. Both packages have an honest price behind them. I do wish I had me a Blu-Ray player and killer sound system and a vinyl player. Oh well. Below are a couple of tracks from Steven Wilson and Opeth‘s latest releases to enjoy for the time being. Peace Love and Metal!!!
and on a side note, if you haven’t checked out Steven Wilson’s Grace for Drowning I implore you do so, it is a work of genius and one of the most powerful albums I’ve heard in recent years. Opeth‘s Heritage ain’t to shabby either and well worth your time and money.
This Storm is Quite Corrosive
With the amount of work that Steven Wilson (of Porcupine Tree) and Mikael Åkerfeldt (of Opeth) do on each others albums, many fans have said that they should just get together and make their own band. Well, the two have done just that and formed the band Storm Corrosion.
Scheduled to be released by Roadrunner Records in April 2012 very little is known as both members have been quite tight-lipped on the details of the project. If Steven Wilson’s latest solo album Grace for Drowning and Opeth‘s recent album Heritage are any indication of the direction both artists are heading in, I expect to hear a very unique and deep prog-rock/metal album overflowing with great songwriting and gushing with talent. According to Storm Corrosion‘s Facebook page “Apart from Mikael and Steven, the album includes guest appearances by Gavin Harrison on drums/percussion, Ben Castle on woodwinds, and Dave Stewart on string arrangements.”
What do all you wonderful readers think about this project? Are you hyped up as much as I am for this album? Could you care less? What are your expectations? Let us know! Peace Love and Metal!!!!
Photo’s from the Storm Corrosion Facebook page. Photo by Naki Kouyioumtzis. Copyright, all rights reserved 2012.
Matt’s(Atleastimhousebroken) Top 15 Albums of 2011
Hey all!!! Hope everyone had an awesome holiday season and kick off to the New Year. Now that we are at the start of 2012 I think it’s fair that we release our personal Top 15 Albums of 2011. Making this years list was quite a difficult charge. I’ve been seeing around on the internets that many were disappointed in 2011… Myself, this was one of the best years in metal, ever, making the narrowing down of the best around a bit tricky. There were great follow-ups, amazing breakthrough albums, and some wonderful debut albums. I also discovered many new bands to listen to this year with a good handful cracking my Top 15. If anyone is complaining that “new music sucks”, well they aren’t listening. There is an innumerable amount of great stuff to check out, you just have to have an open mind and give anything that catches your ear a listen (or eye if the album has great artwork). If you do a little searching for your tunes every year will be the best year in music for you(and with the internet finding awesome tunes is so much easier and cheaper than before, until you start finding music you love and going on some shopping sprees 
). Positive thinking and law of attraction and all that stuff.
When making my list the criteria I used was how often I listened to each album, initial impact and how long that first impression lasted, and how well the album grew on me. I hope you all enjoy my picks and hopefully find some cool new music to listen to. And if you look at my list and think of a band that would be right up my alley, let me know!! And let us know what some of your favorite albums were for 2011. Enjoy!! Peace Love and Metal!!!
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When Giants Collide
What happens when musical giants collide? Something really cool, that’s what! At least that’s what usually happens. Sometimes it’s an epic fail, but not in this case. Earlier today I was looking at a Steven Wilson video which led to this video I am about to attach to this post. It is a clip of Dream Theater’s Jordan Rudess on his solo tour where he is joined on stage by Steven Wilson. As you can imagine, it is a powerful duo.
Personally, I don’t know enough about Steven Wilson. I will probably download Grace For Drowning soon. I feel like I am missing something by not having it. It has been a great year in metal which is making my Top 10 of 2011 a tough list to accomplish. Enjoy the video clip (song).
Album Review- Grace For Drowning- Steven Wilson
People who have recollected about a near-death experience have often said as they were about to pass on after the moments of panic they felt a feeling of serenity before it all ended. They also recollect feelings of detachment, security, warmth, and sometimes fear, and almost all of those who tell us stories about their passage away from this world also speak of seeing and feeling a great light before they are brought back into life. How true these stories are, are really unknown to anyone other than those who have been through the experience, but nevertheless they are quite fascinating to hear. Stories such as these were stated by Steven Wilson as a major inspiration for his second solo record, Grace for Drowning.
