Philbin’s Top 7 Albums of the Library

I don’t need to remind you that we have a lot of music in the library. Most of could spend years rifling through albums and still miss some incredible gems. So for the musically curious DJ out there, I and the rest of the assistant MDs have come up with a list of our favorite albums in the library right now. So please read and stay tuned for more to come.

7.      Dillinger Escape Plan – Calculating Infinity - RR25,332A

Math-core         

Okay, Okay, I admit, I’m a Dillinger Escape Plan hipster. I loved them when I first heard them, which right before they released Miss Machine back in 2003 and I got to see them when I was 14-15 years old. That was when they were still playing in small clubs, blowing fire into the crowd, and picking people up from the crowd by their throats while screaming in their face.  It was intense, it was insane, and it was beautiful.

Since then they’ve release quite a few more albums, gained quite a few more fans, and picked up a bit of suck on the way. Yes, I’ve listened to their more recent albums and seen them live recently, so I’m not just pulling the hate from out of my butt.

So Why Do I dislike them now? Listen to Calculating Infinity. Listen to how very little seems to make sense. Listen to the chaos, the complete lack of choruses and verses (in the traditional sense), and the courage it took to create such unique music and then try to market it. Now, DEP just isn’t the same in my eyes and I just don’t think they could ever go back to the musical brilliance that is Calculating Infinity.

6.      Daughters – Hell Songs - RR31,513A

 

Spaz-core

Where DEP drops the ball on the spastic hardcore genre, Daughters picks it up and then proceeds to rape said ball while on some weird ecstasy trip behind the dumpster of an abandoned orphanage, all while slithery, snake demons from the lowest level of hell laugh and mock at the ball’s inadequacies.

That’s how I feel about Daughters. Before Hell Songs, Daughters was a scream-core band with guitars that sounded like their players just purchased whammy pedals and refused to not use them on every-single-second of every song.  Then, they released Hell Songs and the lead singer dropped the screaming and chose to just sing like an enthusiastic evangelical preacher is doing a bad Elvis Impression, which sounds  a thousand times scarier. Daughters will creep you out and make you feel like you need to take a shower afterwards and I love it.

5.      Candira – Process of Self Development - RR13,503

Rap-metal-jazz-ambient-core/ “Urban Fusion”

Being unique plays a big factor on whether or not I like a band’s music and to say Candiria’s Process of Self-Development is unique may be a bit on an understatement. Very few bands have had the balls to combine genres in such an apparent manner and this album specifically makes almost no attempt to try and mold sounds and styles of each kinds of music.  The result is an album that may have a hardcore-rap-metal track with low tuned guitars, breakdowns, and in-your-face vocals followed by a simple jazz track with horns followed by a long ambient track with jungle rhythms. The combinations seem abrasive at first, but it forces you to listen and wonder what may be next. I would describe listening to this album the entire way through as an “unpredictable trip” or a “truly unique experience”.

4. Death – Sound of Perseverance-RR6,998D

Death Metal (obviously)

 Most metal heads know that Chuck Shuldiner and his band Death were pioneers of the genre and more than qualified to hold the title of “Fathers of Death Metal” even though it isn’t particularly true. So, I’ll address the rest of this review to those who don’t “get” Death Metal. If you don’t, then I would recommend to you Death and the album Sound of Perseverance. Death showed that that death metal isn’t all about unpleasant lyrics and chug-chug guitar rhythms. No, Death approached complex, mind-opening lyrics while introducing us to evermore complex, interesting song-writing and structures.  While death metal is difficult for most people to open their hearts to, Death can easily silence the critics and show that it can be treated like art just like anything else.   

3. Billy Cobham – Spectrum - JZ286L

Jazz-fusion

I have a love/hate relationship with Fusion. While I can appreciate the mastery that is required to play it, I find it boring and better suited for elevators than my Ipod. Though if asked me if I liked Jazz fusion, I would say “Yes”. Why? Because of the early days of Fusion, when it was raw, powerful, and a truly great representative for both of the genres.

Billy Cobham’s Spectrum is a prime example of that.  If you listen to the album, you can hear that mistakes were made and that it wasn’t perfectly produced, but who cares? No one, because all the elements that made up the band seems to come together in one giant mass of jazzy-aggressive-rock awesomeness.

 

2.      Meshuggah – Nothing - RR10,599E

Goddamn Metal

I was hesitant on putting this album on the list because, if you know anything about metal , you know Meshuggah. From what I understand, those who know metal, most like Meshuggah in some form and those who don’t know anything about metal, hate Meshuggah. Regardless, Nothing was the album that got me to love metal in a very serious way and I have never looked back.  So… there.

1. Morphine – The Night - RR8,729H

Jazz-rock

A friend of mine would ask “<insert band name> 1 through 10?” and I would rate the band with what would usually be a “7” or an “8.5” if I liked the those bands. This led to think of what bands I would give a perfect 10, a band that I love so completely that I wouldn’t change a damn thing, and only two bands came to mind. One is the Swedish metal band Meshuggah and the other is the jazz rock band Morphine.

Morphine is just one of those bands that never fails to make me feel something when I listen to them and The Night is a shining example of that. It doesn’t matter if the feeling is sorrow or happiness, morphine has its way of reeling me in with their low frequency jazz rock. Highly recommended.