Favorite Albums

I’m an album listener. I really prefer to listen to a coherent set of songs that are narratively linked and have a cohesive them and tone. The algorithmic feeds never seem to quite leave me happy with the results. Though there is the one exception of 90s rock because that’s what I grew up listening to on the radio.

As I remember them and listen to them, I’ll add more albums here under various genres.

Metal

Unleash the Archers

I’ve been following this Canadian band since their third album, Time Stands Still. It has some catchy tracks like Test Your Metal.

All their following albums are built around a narrative, which progresses throughout the album. There are a few recurring characters and themes between them such as The Matriarch. I listened to Apex many times, but didn’t find myself drawn to Abyss as much initially. However, later I came back to the album and listened to it a dozen times on repeat.

Their latest, Phantoma, didn’t have the strength of execution and I’ve struggled to like it as much as many of the others, even though I enjoy the story. The sand out track for me is Ghost in the Mist, but sometimes I just want to listen to Buried in Code when I’m coding.

Elevation by We are the Catalyst

This Swedish alt-metal band got my attention with the track Askja. I was fed it by some algorithm or list and it’s stuck with me. I’ve enjoyed that album, Elevation, but never really picked up their others.Their lead singer, Cat Fey, infuses a lot of emotion into her vocals. Their music is melodic and relatively heavy. The singing never quite loses it’s clarity, but has the force of screaming.

Electronic / Synthwave

Unicorn by GUNSHIP

I’ve been really liking this album lately. It seems like a collection of concept pieces because GUNSHIP got various guest artists to join for single tracks. The overall album is more on hopeful and nostalgic side of retro-futurism. Bonus points for the Blood for the Blood God reference.

Scandroid by Scandroid

I’m a sucker for robots. This was actually one of the first albums I encountered that started to embrace the retro-futuristic aesthetic, with a little bit of cyberpunk mixed it. It introduced me to two terms I hope will someday become common: “probots” vs “robophobes”.