The Mars Volta - Amputechture [2006]
The Mars Volta are continual contenders for the mantle of most experimental high-profile metal group, along with System of a Down, an artist they’ve toured with but who usually sell 20 times more records. Mars Volta aren’t as popular, not because their riffs are less memorable or innovative but because their cycle of musical buildup and release, although similarly jarring, can last at least 20 minutes instead of System’s two. (It’s the difference between having a background in acid rock and having one in thrash.) While the early reports on third album Amputechture commented that the duo of Cedric Bixler-Zavala and Omar Rodriguez-Lopez Read more
Avantasia - The Metal Opera [2001]
An all-star aggregation similar in conception to Ayreon, Avantasia’s The Metal Opera naturally spotlights its creator, Tobias Sammet, who wrote all the music and the involved fantasy storyline over the course of a year as a side project from his main gig with the German power metal band Edguy. Though Sammet’s vocals play a major role, he recruited some of his power metal contemporaries to sing the parts of different characters in the story, tailoring his casting choices — elves, dwarves, Druids, and other D&D-type mainstays — to their vocal ranges. (Oddly, given the themes, there’s a bit of a Christian undertone to the lyrics.) It’s tempting to say that for a grandiose conceptual project like this, the scope of the ambition is more important (and entertaining) than the actual results. Everything here is painted in such Read more
The Exies - Head for the Door [2004]
The Exies’ approach worked well enough on 2003’s Inertia, where tracks like “My Goddess” and “Can’t Relate” blended brash, grime, slick, and hook for a 21st century blend of Nirvana and Stone Temple Pilots. Head for the Door is the L.A. combo’s second effort for Virgin, and it leaves that sound largely unchanged, even if some variety or experimentation beyond their middlebrow rock sound might’ve been more interesting. Openers “Slow Drain” and “Splinter” offer grimy, ascending guitar leads as guides for Scott Stevens’ Cobain-derived rasp, and “Ugly,” “My Opinion,” and “What You Deserve” carry the formula through. Lyrically, Stevens is as self-possessed and bitter as any post-grunge frontman. “Are you like me, are you ugly,” he Read more
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