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Obsolete Rate the last album you listened to!

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Hello :)

Use this thread to rate the last album you listened to, I'd encourage you to give a very brief review too :)

Scuba's DJ Kicks. This is a dubstep mix CD, at least I think it is dubstep. Really fun listen, certainly will be playing this a lot at work. 9/10

Please use this thread for rating albums, DJ mixes, compilations and EPs, not single songs
 
Lana Del Rey's Born to Die 8/10

Some of these songs are dark, but I really love her her voice and a majority of this is really soothing. It's probably the main thing that set it apart from most main stream music (but then again I'm no expert). ^^;
 
Betty Who - Slow Dancing (EP)

This EP suffers the same problem as her last EP, The Movement--basically, it starts off really strong, but by the end of it I'm pretty much falling asleep. That being said, I would say that the songs on Slow Dancing are overall stronger than those on The Movement, so overall I felt more engaged with this release.

8/10
 
Iron Maiden - Live After Death - 9/10
Greatly superior to most of their later live albums - Bruce Dickinson's voice is in infinitely better shape than it is on the more recent Maiden England '88, and being from the World Slavery Tour means that there's a healthy amount of material from Powerslave (my personal favorite album of theirs), including "Rime of the Ancient Mariner" (my personal favorite song of theirs). The extended version of "Running Free" is also fantastic. Basically it sounds great and the setlist is terrific, which really is all you could want from a live record.
 
Mika - The Origin of Love (French Deluxe Edition) - 8.5/10

My favorite Mika album so far. It has a much more polished sound compared to his previous albums (especially compared to Life in Cartoon Motion), and he still brings the quirky Mika lyrics without making them too complicated (something I felt like he did a little too much with The Boy Who Knew Too Much). This deluxe edition doesn't really bring anything significant to the table--the deluxe editions of his albums usually don't, in my opinion--but I enjoy most of the remixes on that disc so there's that. I also haven't yet listened to the other deluxe editions for The Origin of Love to compare which is the best.

Also, I'm retroactively rating Betty Who's Slow Dancing a 7.8/10 because I like decimals too much not to.
 
I just got done listening to Eyehategod's Southern Discomfort, which isn't so much as an album as a compilation of B-sides and rarities (as the spotty production values evidence), but it's a good, strong dose of Eyehategod anyway. If you want forty minutes of soul-destroying sludge from the fathers (and to this day, in my opinion, the unsurpassed champions) of the genre, then this is just as good as anything else they've put out. Often, the curse of sludge metal releases is that they get stale and tired by the time it's over, but this release actually has the opposite problem: it starts out the bad, plodding kind of slow (the songs are pretty good, but this is compared to the back end of the album), but then picks up steam until it becomes the good kind of slow; crushing, smashing, laced with feed-back and Mike Williams' spot-on vocals. Easily a 7/10, and probably more.
 
The last album I listened to in full was Avicii's True (Avicii By Avicii), a remix of the album True (which, admittedly, I haven't listened to in full). I'm no expert on the genre or Avicii's past work, but I have to say that for what I'd consider out and out dance music, I prefer this remixed album to the songs I have heard from the original. It sounds a bit more typical to the kind of sound I have heard from Avicii before, and that's not necessarily a bad thing (if it ain't broke, don't fix it and all that). For what I went looking for when I tried it, I give it a 8/10. There isn't a single song I don't like at least a little and it's what I would consider to be good, solid music, with a couple of tracks I really especially enjoy and keep going back to to boot.
 
Kudos to You by PUSA

Went to see them live in February and they played a few songs from the album. Decided to buy a copy from the merch stand while I was there. The songs are really growing on me each time I listen to them. Cool to think that after so many years of being together they haven't lost their original sound. All in all I give it 7/10.
 
Last album I listened to was Little Boot's Hands and for me this album easily scores a 9/10.

Though I admit I'm completely bias for her work (well older work I can't stand her newer stuff), this album does not have one track I hate. Instead it just has one or two tracks that can't keep up with the rest of the genius this album is. Plus the beats are rather catchy and easily get stuck in my head. I just love it.
 
Lady Gaga - The Fame Monster (EP)

What I like most about The Fame Monster is that it sounds so eerily polished for an album that hits on some rather gritty themes. Even a song like "So Happy I Could Die", which on the surface is, well, pretty much about being so happy that you could die, comes from a place of alcohol abuse and loneliness--you can definitely hear & feel that in the song once you know the lyrics, but until then all of that probably goes over your head. And this album, bar "Speechless" and "Teeth", is pretty much filled with those pop songs of the dance and/or electronic variety that sound so polished & energetic on the surface and so gritty & depressing underneath. And since those are pretty much my favorite songs, what's not to like about The Fame Monster?

Unfortunately, when I look at this album now compared to her later works, I just can't help but notice how short the project is. It makes me beg for more, but sadly not in a good way--why listen to an album that I know won't fully satisfy my fix when I can listen to Born This Way to get the fix I need and thensome? But despite any negative feelings I might have about this album, I am always in pop heaven from that first "whoa" sung in "Bad Romance" to the last "teeth" sung in "Teeth"*, and there's just no denying that**. This will always be one of my favorite albums of all time.

9.7/10

*Well my version ends with the Starsmith Remix of "Bad Romance", but whatever.
**Okay fine, personally I'm not a fan of "Speechless", but again, whatever.
 
The last album I listened to in its entirety was The Dreaming by Kate Bush, which I thought was excellent. I don't really have any qualms about giving it a perfect 10.

Hard to pick a favourite track, but I really like the one about Bess Houdini attempting to contact her husband via seance ("Houdini"). Honorable mention to the tracks about the Vietnamese soldier ("Pull Out The Pin") and kangaroo roadkill (title track).
 
Last Album I listened to was The Milk Eyed Mender by Joanna Newsom. It's probably my favorite of her albums. She's quite a lot like Kate Bush^ funnily enough. Her voice, instrument of choice and musical style is very 'out there'. She's really underrated. My favorite song on the album is This Side of the Blue. It's so slow and and almost dreamlike. She's an acquired taste I guess, some of the songs on the album are a bit much at first but after a few listens you start to see the beauty in them. Over all i'd give it 7/10.

There's a few beautiful songs on there but they aren't all winners.
 
I just got done lsitening to Floor's Oblation, which I was anticipating immensely. As you can probably tell by my last review in this thread, I'm a big fan of sludge metal, and right around the time when I was first getting into it, I found that an ex-member of Cavity (a sludge metal band I already liked) and a future member of Torche (a bizarre metal band that blends crushing guitar sounds with otherwise quite poppy song structures) were in a sludge metal band called Floor. I gave them a listen and instantly fell in love with them. They were everything I looked for in a sludge band: not too fast, not too slow (or at least something going on during the slow parts that kept it interesting), pommeling guitar tone, and lots of feed-back. Unfortunately, they were a band that constantly struggled to break even, mainly releasing split EPs and other such things while at the same time recording three albums but only releasing one before they broke up in 2003.

Finally, they've reunited and released Oblation as of today. And this is the part where I actually talk about the music! Without a doubt, Floor's sound has changed since the last time they were together. Oblation contains more microphone-reliant vocals, modern production values, and worst of all, less feed-back! Where did all the feed-back go?! I counted two songs where there's ever any trace of feed-back! >:( But those are pretty much all of my complaints out of the way. Where Oblation excels is the instrumentation, which obviously is a big part of the album, so it's good that they nailed it this time around. They take their time at some points in good ol' sludge metal fashion, but then kick it up a notch and pump up the tempo at other times, also in goold ol' sludge metal fashion.

That really sums it up, actually. A paragraph of back-ground information nobody cares to read for a shorter paragraph that actually talks about the music, nice job, Jack. Over-all, in my opinion, while Oblation is marred by the more polished production standards that come with their more prominent position in the scene as well as the advent of digital recording technology (AND ALMOST NO FEED-BACK, BOO), beneath all that studio meddling is a really good metallic romp. 8/10, more or less.
 
Barenaked Ladies - Barenaked Ladies Are Me - 7/10
The last time I listened to this album was before I listened to things critically, so I was actually really surprised with how well it held up. I remember a review around the time it was released comparing it to Stunt, and looking back that's a pretty apt comparison - it's much more organic than the slicker Maroon, and the much-too-slick Everything to Everyone, and the lyrics feel a little less sardonic than they did on either of those two albums, even though they can be every bit as absurd. Shame Steven Page left not that long after it though.
 
Fates Warning - Awaken the Guardian

10+/10

My favorite metal album. I didn't quite get the hubbub back when I first bought it, it took quite a few listens before it clicked. But once it did, wow. Just about everything about this album kicks ass, the song structures, the instrument tones (especially the laser-like lead guitar tone), and above all John Arch's vocals. His melodies sound like no one else's. I never get tired of this album.
 
Last album I heard was the Eurovion 2014 album. Got all the songs i've slowly grown to love. Although I still think this year wasn't as good as 2011/2012, it's a vast improvement over the 2013 album. Songs i'm currently obsessed with include 'One Night's Anger', 'Undo', 'Cliche Love Song' and 'No Prejudice'. I give the album 7/10.
 
The last album I listened to without skipping any song was....

Týr - "How Far to Asgaard"

Released: 2002
Genre: Folk Metal
Label: Tutl Records
Metal Archives - also has additional info, reviews, & lyrics
My Rating: 11/10

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I expected to the songs to be slightly worst than my favorite Týr album "Ragnarok" but I was very impressed and loved every song on the album. Listening to the album as I'm writing this post. My most favorite songs are the 5th song "God Of War", the 7th song "Ormurin Langi" and the 8th "How Far to Asgaard". I mainly bought the album to just own all of Týr's albums, but until yesterday I had not listened to it... glad I did.
 
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Theo Parrish's Goin' Downstairs

Quite a good deep house record, the song is spread over two sides, so it lasts about 18 minutes or something. Almost like a house-blues song, it's quite weird and yet it's charm is why I love it. 4.5/5
 
Streetlight Manifesto - The Hands that Thieve
10/10

I only sort of liked this band before discovering that they have this new(ish, but I didn't know about it) album. Literally every single song is great. #2 (Ungrateful) sounds like something from one of their old albums, which is great, but if you want *the experience* you have to skip it and listen to the rest of them in order. It will feel like you've been on a journey.
 
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