EdensParadise

One of the best early Blackened Thrash albums ever recorded.  Celtic Frost gave birth to many genres of music and many of the big name Death and Black Metal bands owe a huge debt to Tom G Warrior and the boys. From grand sweeping operatic theatricality to heavy, doom laden riffs and guttural growls: To Mega Therion is one of the best metal albums period.  I listened to Celtic Frost out of curiosity originally. I wasn't huge into them, but I loved Circle Of The Tyrants and eventually started listening to a lot of their albums as a result. To me there's not a bad Celtic Frost record and I think that their early stuff aged incredibly well and you can listen to it now without it feeling dated or boring. If you love thrash, death, or black metal you'll love this album. A lot of what Celtic Frost did laid the foundation out for other bands to emerge and refine it.   

Continuing the trend of albums that spelled doom for a band.  Reinventing The Steel isn't well loved by many Pantera fans. Most of them complained that the album felt disjointed and very slap dash, but I disagree. I think RTS is one of the best Pantera albums ever released and it was released during a very tumultuous time when Phil Anselmo and the Abbott brothers both despised each other. Putting all that aside though: RTS works because of that tumultuous relationship. This was also around a time when Phil and Dime were both neck deep in addiction (Phil with heroin and Dime with alcohol). Some of their best live shows came near the end, the lyrics became less juvenile and more interesting as well.  RTS isn't party music. It's music for a band dealing with issues and each other's behaviors. I feel like if Dime lived that maybe we would have gotten something even better, but that would never come to pass due to Dimes death. I would recommend people to listen to the origin...

One of the best live albums based on one of the best Rock Operas of all time: The Wall.  There isn't much you can say that hasn't already been said about Pink Floyd's The Wall. A genuine labor of love for Roger Waters that pulls from his own life and from the life of former bandmate Syd Barrett. The story tells of rockstar Pink and him spiraling into his own world where he builds walls from the traumas that he's faced in life from losing his father during WW2, to having an overbearing mother, abusive teachers, and a loveless marriage. Pink is a tragic figure even as he unravels and Roger does a great job of making you empathize with him. The whole band is firing on all cylinders as well and the live variations of the songs lose none of the power of their studio counterparts.  I would even say that this is probably the definitive way of listening to The Wall and I would recommend listening to both the studio album and this one too. Some people can be split on what they p...

Ah yes the redheaded step child of Weezer's discography. Also one of the best albums they've ever recorded and one of the albums that unfairly gets the 'incel' label thrown at it by jaded men and women who don't understand nuance or complexity.  When I first listened to Pinkerton I was a casual listener of Weezer. Heavily dislike their later stuff and stuck more to their early work, but Pinkerton was different amidst the Blue and Green albums. Pinkerton was meaner and leaner and had this sense of self despair and self loathing. It was Rivers and CO at their most vulnerable and self destructive which worked wonders and resonated deeply with somebody like me who was going through my own personal turmoil.  This is an album that you don't throw on for a party or to impress that one girl who you think will go far with you due to your immaculate taste. And that's exactly why I love it so much. It's the tatted up girl with big, fake tits and bleached blonde hai...

 I listened to the audiobook narrated by Campbell Scott who did an excellent job doing so, but I'm talking about the actual content within the book. I'll say that the build up and middle segments do a really good job of painting the Overlook as this foreboding presence that overshadows everything; not just Jack but Wendy, Danny, and Hallorann as well. The worst parts of the novel were Jack's inner monologues which mostly consisted of him remembering his abusive father, his weak willed mother, and the various bad things he's done to people including his son and a student at the school he worked for.  The major issue with Kings writing is that he goes on tangents and that's where the Kubrick film succeeds in my opinion. You didn't need to know every single thought, memory or feeling that Jack was going through in order to get that the hotel was changing him and manipulating him for its own nefarious purposes. King's novels tend to over explain everything thus ...

 I love grunge music. I'm more into the AIC and Soundgarden side of things, but there's one band that I love from the early early days of grunge and that's Mother Love Bone comprised of former Green River band members and future Pearl Jam members with lead singer Andy Wood from Mafunkshun.  Apple is one of the best albums to come out of the early nineties. Enough bite to be hard Rockin' and enough cheesiness to be fun. Andy never took himself too seriously and you can see it in some of the released and unreleased tracks from Mother Love Bone. If Andy hasn't passed away I think MLB would have been just as huge as AIC and Nirvana and Soundgarden. Andy was born to be a star and you can tell by listening to this album that his lyricism, sense of humor, and overall humble demeanor would have endeared him to bigger crowds.  Sadly it was never meant to be as Andy passed on from an allergic reaction to medication in a hospital. MLB changes into Pearl Jam and Pearl Jam becam...