Anja Garbarek, Briefly Shaking

Norway, 2005.
Anja is a singer/songwriter, and the daughter of the famous tenor/soprano jazz saxophonist, Jan Garbarek. Briefly Shaking is her latest album up to date, a mixture of experimental, alternative and trip-hop, highlighted by Anja's remarkable voice.

Playlist:

1. born that way
2. dizzy with wonder
3. the last trick
4. sleep
5. shock activities
6. yes
7. my fellow riders
8. can I keep him
9. this momentous day
10. still guarding space
11. word is out

Link.

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Mastodon, Blood Mountain

US, 2006

Metal reborn by the Atlanta band. Intelligent, technical music combined with furious riffing consolidated Mastodon's position as one of metal's brightest hopes.

Playlist:

1. The Wolf Is Loose
2. Crystal Skull
3. Sleeping Giant
4. Capillarian Crest
5. Circle of Cysquatch
6. Bladecatcher
7. Colony of Birchmen
8. Hunters of the Sky
9. Hand of Stone
10. This Mortal Soil
11. Siberian Divide
12. Pendulous Skin

Link.

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Arcturus, The Sham Mirrors

Brilliantly constructed avantgarde-black metal for the masses. As with everything Garm touches, the album's appeal far transcends it's genre. This is a must for any metal collection and should be appreciated by all fans of progressive music.


01. Kinetic
02. Nightmare Heaven
03. Ad Absurdum
04. Collapse Generation
05. Star-Crossed
06. Radial Cut
07. For To End Yet Again

Link.

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Pain of Salvation, The Perfect Element

Sweden, released in 2000.
Pain of Salvation are a progressive metal band. This is a concept album that revolves around the forming of the individual, focusing particularly on childhood and adolescence. It's the first part of conceptual trilogy. Scarsick, released in 2007, constitutes part two.

Playlist:

1. used
2. in the flesh
3. ashes
4. morning on earth
5. idioglossia
6. her voice
7. dedication
8. king of loss
9. reconciliation
10. song for the innocent
11. falling
12. the perfect element

Link.

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Nine Inch Nails, Y34RZ3R0M1X3D

Year Zero was the unexpected comeback of the year for me. After an anonymous With Teeth, Reznor seemed to be losing focus. Not that the album was necessarily bad, it's just that the previous albums had few if any weak tracks (and certainly none on par with You Know What You Are? *cringe*).

In typical nin fashion, for every album there is a remix album. Fortunately no song is repeated on this one (because how many Starfuckers Inc remixes did you really need on Things Falling Apart?). It's hard to fuck up such great source material, and hell, it still rocks, even if you can dance to it.

01. guns by computer (saul williams)
02. the great destroyer (modwheelmood)
03. my violent heart (pirate robot midget)
04. the beginning of the end (ladytron)
05. survivalism (saul williams)
06. capital g (epworth phones)
07. vessel (bill laswell)
08. the warning (stefan goodchild featuring doudou n'diaye rose)
09. meet your master (the faint)
10. god given (stephen morris and gillian gilbert)
11. me, i'm not (olof dreijer)
12. another version of the truth (kronos quartet and enrique gonzalez muller)
13. in this twilight (fennesz)
14. zero-sum (stephen morris and gillian gilbert)

Part 1
Part 2

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Eluvium, An Accidental Memory In The Case Of Death

United States, 2004.
This is an instrumental album, piano-based, very experimental, atmospheric and ambient. Eluvium's melodies are full of melancholy and beauty.

Playlist:

1. an accidental memory
2. genius and the thieves
3. perfect neglect in a field of statues
4. nepenthe
5. in a sense
6. the well-meaning professor
7. an accidental memory in the case of death

Link.

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Sylvan, Posthumous Silence

Germany, 2006.
Sylvan are a neo-progressive/art rock band, formed in 1997, highly influenced by Pink Floyd, Genesis and Marillion. This is a conceptual album, often considered their best for the way it entwines melodic parts, space rock and metal elements.

Playlist:

1. eternity ends
2. bequest of tears
3. in chains
4. bitter symphony
5. pane of truth
6. no earthly reason
7. forgotten virtue
8. the colors changed
9. a sad sympathy
10. questions
11. answer to life
12. message from the past
13. the last embrace
14. a kind of eden
15. posthumous silence

Link.

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Tool, Live at Ozzfest 2002 - Lisbon

I believe this was the final concert in the Ozzfest 2002 European leg, and pretty much documents Tool at their prime. Setlist was slightly longer than similar concerts on the tour due to Ozzy's absence for the Queen's jubilee. Killer renditions of Stinkfist and Triad and Maynard in a humourous mood throughout. No idea who originally recorded this, but I downloaded it first from IRC, then lost it, then got it through soulseek years later.

1 - intro
2 - the grudge
3 - stinkfist (extended)
4 - parabol / parabola
5 - schism
6 - sober
7 - ticks & leeches
8 - disposition
9 - reflection
10 - triad
11 - aenema
12 - lateralus


Part 1
Part 2

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VAST, Visual Audio Sensory Theater

United States, 1998.
Industrial rock meets buddhist chants in one of the best debut albums I have ever heard. Against all odds, and despite "Touched" making it onto the Beach OST, this album passed under the mainstream radar. Later releases failed to achieve increased visibility and label changes ensued.

1. here
2. touched
3. dirty hole
4. pretty when you cry
5. i'm dying
6. flames
7. temptation
8. three doors
9. the niles edge
10. somewhere else to be
11. untitled
12. you

Link.

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Sterling, Cursed

United States, 2007.
Sterling play a sophisticated and cinematic post-rock, sometimes reaching harder bits of metal.

Playlist:

1. lurker
2. acacia
3. eyes

Link.

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Neurosis, The Eye Of Every Storm

United States, 2004.
Neurosis' most absorbing work to date retains much of the abrasion which defined earlier works. Uniquely, The Eye of Every Storm conveys much of it's violence through moments of silence, intermingled with layers of crushing guitars.

1. burn
2. no river to take me home
3. the eye of every storm
4. left to wander
5. shelter
6. a season in the sky
7. bridges
8. I can see you

Link.

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Katatonia, Last Fair Deal Gone Down

Sweden, 2001.
Katatonia originally played a mixture of death and doom metal. Last Fair Deal Gone Down is their fifth full-length album, and it reveals a proximity to alternative rock, despite still being influenced by doom metal.

1. dispossession
2. chrome
3. we must bury you
4. teargas
5. I transpire
6. tonight's music
7. clean today
8. the future of speech
9. passing bird
10. sweet nurse
11. don't tell a soul

Link.

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Indukti, S.U.S.A.R.

Poland, 2004.
Indukti play a progressive rock/metal very resembling to the sound of Riverside. In fact, Mariusz Duda, Riverside's vocalist, collaborates in a few tracks.

Playlist:

1. freder
2. cold inside... I
3. no. 11812
4. shade
5. uluru
6. no. 11811
7. ...and weak II

Link.

more...