Monzter

Still in my top 2

Will be hard to top his last album since it is one of the best albums ever! The samples sound anythying but average Geoff, give me a break! Extemely high expectations on this one. Can it top the fantastic albums from Eclipse and Symphony X this year? Would not be surprised if he did.

 

 

 

Don't forget that Alex was a very talented guitar player from the beginning and has just singed only for real in 1 year when the Diamond Dawn album was released.

 

I know that he have worked with his voice with other famous vocalist the last years and in my opinion he have right now one of the greatest voices out there right now.

 

 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xIh2N2ju-VI

 

 

and how are you involved with Alex ?

I have followed him since he was 18 years old and been on his shows since then

I saw them in Stockholm together with Stiftelsen and also in Västervik together with D-A-D.

 

The crowd where awesome and the show were fantastic

 

A true fan! What other band/artists do you like beside Art Nation? My guess would be H.E.A.T. since Art Nation sounds like a H.E.A.T. clone. Trevligt med en till svensk här på sajten

Dream Theater - Images & Words

Queensryche - Operation:Mindcrime

Harem Scarem - s/t

Nine Inch Nails - Pretty Hate Machine

Lillian Axe - Poetic Justice

Lillian Axe - Love & War

The Magnificent - s/t

Waltham - s/t

White Widdow - Crossfire

Final Frontier - Second Wave

White Lion - Pride

Metallica - Ride The Lightning

 

These are albums that I can listen over and over again and have been doing so since they were released. These are releases that I can't point out a real weak track or tracks that I would skip more than others.

 

I will admit I need to be in a certain mood for Operation:Mindcrime, not exactly background music.

A to say the least, very varied list with different styles. Love The Magnificent and Final Frontier albums, rate them at 95 and 92 %.

I would have loved to include Def Leppard but not Hysteria. It's a brilliant album but for me I'm going to be controversial and say that Retro Active is their best album. It's not perfect but contains a bunch of absolute killers.

Love Def Leppard, but they didn't make it into my top 10. Retro Active has some killer ballads namely "Two Steps Behind" and "Miss You In A Heartbeat". Funny that they come in 2-3 versions each. "Miss You In A Heartbeat" is the secret song that comes after you think the album ended, always amusing with such kind of surprises. Favourite DL albums are Adrenalize, Hysteria and Pyromania.

1. Fair Warning - Go!

2. Outside Edge - Running Hot

3. Symphony X - Underworld

4. Within Temptation - The Unforgiving

5. Magnus Karlsson's Free Fall - S/T (Soooo looking forward to the new album in november)

6. Dominoe - The Key

7. Fair Warning - 4 (Four)

8. Eclipse - Bleed And Scream

9= AC/DC - Back In Black

9= Shy - Excess All Areas

Still a good sign of a quality band if we all have different favourite albums from this band.

A truly fantastic album, only beaten this year by the even more fantastic album from Symphony X - Underworld.

I had expected Warrant - Dog Eat Dog from Geoff, read somewhere that he said it was the perfect album, or it can simply be that I mix him upp with someone else.

Brilliant examples! No fan of compilations, but if a CD was ever to be released called something like "The very best of Castrati", I would but it att once!

OK, You said not just singers who hit high registers, just overall quality, right? well these are my absolute all time favorites, who I obviously believe are as good if not better, strangely enough Mr. Cosmo fell into my list, just under different circumstances, These are the best of the best to my ears, obviously there's dips into other genres who go in my list, but I am sticking only to rock and metal, not just high registers, but overall training, and just flow of voice, and class,these guys are not singers, they are vocalists!!

Spot on!

Some great examples from you, I especially like the Avantasia song. Inspired now to go and listen to some of their albums, haven't done that in a while. Never heard of Magdallan before, but hey, that guy can hit some high notes!

Thanks

 

 

 

And after relistening to the Treat album, I realize I remembered wrong. It aint that good, only 79,1 %. "Coup de Graze" is their best, followed by "The Pleasure Principle".

 

Treat - OC at 79.1% ? wow, what went wrong with that album considering you like the scandi-sound of Dalton ? as much as I love Dalton as well, i think Treat is definitely in a higher league

I do like Treat a lot, ever since I saw them live in my hometown back in the mid 80´s. And 79% is a very good rating, close to 4/5 (80 %) which in my book is "Very good". With my "It aint that good", I meant, it was not good enough to be in the top 10 in 1989 as I thought it would be. I would rate their albums in the follow order:

• Coup de Grace - 93 % (The best comeback album ever after such a long break?)
• The Pleasure Principle - 89 %
• Dreamhunter - 87 %
• Scratch and Bite - 81 %
• Organized Crime - 79 %
• S/T - Haven't given it enough spins to judge it fairly, but not their best in my opinion.

I was looking at your list thinking, wow, this dude actually thinks 'Pleasure Principle' is better than 'Organized Crime?' WTF? I'd love to see that breakdown. And then, to top it off, you have 'Scratch & Bite' higher also? Holy shit mate... I disagree hugely with that list, but to each their own.

 

I'm not sure how I'll rank everything, but I'd bet the entire mortgage on my house that 'Organized Crime,' 'Dreamhunter' and 'Coup De Grace' would be the top 3 by a large margin, possibly in that order.

 

 

Danger Danger - s/t ; 86%

Dalton - Injection ; 85%

 

Have not rated the other two yet...

 

Now you have gone mad.

Id deduct at least 10% alone just for the crap tinny sound on Dalton.

Let alone the songs.

Dalton album sounds fine to me.

 

I have to admit the closeness of ratings surprised me a bit, but when I look at why, it makes perfect sense. The best D2 songs are easily the better songs on the two albums. But, the weaker D2 songs ('Saturday night,' 'Live it Up' and to a degree 'Boys will be boys') are the weakest on the two albums. 'Heartbroken' is the weakest on the Dalton disc, but after that it'd be 'Like an angel,' which is still a great song.

Scratch and Bite has the nostalgia factor for me and might be higher rated than it deserves. It was the album they played on that concert in 1985 and We Are One was a huge hit back then. Maybe I am wrong about OC? Need to listen to it again, maybe tomorrow.

Thank you

 

And after relistening to the Treat album, I realize I remembered wrong. It aint that good, only 79,1 %. "Coup de Graze" is their best, followed by "The Pleasure Principle".

 

Treat - OC at 79.1% ? wow, what went wrong with that album considering you like the scandi-sound of Dalton ? as much as I love Dalton as well, i think Treat is definitely in a higher league

 

I do like Treat a lot, ever since I saw them live in my hometown back in the mid 80´s. And 79% is a very good rating, close to 4/5 (80 %) which in my book is "Very good". With my "It aint that good", I meant, it was not good enough to be in the top 10 in 1989 as I thought it would be. I would rate their albums in the follow order:

1. Coup de Grace - 93 % (The best comeback album ever after such a long break?)
2. The Pleasure Principle - 89 %
3. Dreamhunter - 87 %
4. Scratch and Bite - 81 %
5. Organized Crime - 79 %
6. S/T - Haven't given it enough spins to judge it fairly, but not their best in my opinion.

Great examples. Need to dig into my CD-collection to see if I can find that Zeno album. A band almost as good as their offspring (kind of) Fair Warning. Matijevic rules, what a voice!

Fran Cosmo really hits some high notes in Orion the Hunter's mega fantastic song "So You Ran". Once you heard that song you want to hear more. Best high pitch vocalist ever? If not, prove me wrong with some examples. There are probably some guy out there who can hit even higher notes, but it has to sound good as well.

And after relistening to the Treat album, I realize I remembered wrong. It aint that good, only 79,1 %. "Coup de Graze" is their best, followed by "The Pleasure Principle".

 

 

1. Dalton - Injection - 95 %
2. Signal - Loud & Clear - 95 %
3. Danger Danger - S/T - 94,6 %
4. Strangeways - Walk In The Fire - 94 %

 

 

2,3 & 4 make perfect sense to me - each one a classic album from 1989.

 

BUT..................Dalton???? Seriously????

 

A massively underproduced wet fish of an album with about 3 stand out tracks and a couple of truly awful tracks into the bargain.

 

Yes seriously, what's wrong with you? That album has that typical Swedish AOR sound of the era. Packed full of catchy songs that you like instantly. Some say you would get tired of those songs eventually. Well guess what? I still love them! A good sign of quality songs. No "truly awful tracks" on this one, you must have heard another album

His S/T album is amazing, a classic that still excites me today. "Everyboy's Crazy" is also very good. The follow up "The Hunger" is listenable, but not much more and after that it went downhill and I have not heard any of his latest albums. His work with Cher was also good, love her 1989 album "Heart of Stone".

1. Dalton - Injection - 95 %
2. Signal - Loud & Clear - 95 %
3. Danger Danger - S/T - 94,6 %
4. Strangeways - Walk In The Fire - 94 %
5. Cher - Heart Of STone - 91,7 %
6. Whitesnake - Slip of the Tougne - 86 %
7. Drive She Said - S/T - 84 %
8. Disnelyand After Dark - No Fuel Left for the Pilgrims - 83,3 %
9. Voodo X - Vol. 1 The Awakening - 83,1 %

Killer year, have not rated Treat - Organized Crime yet, but remember it was a good one, so should be up there in the top 10 somewhere.

Survivor - "Eye Of The Tiger"

Europe - "The Final Countdown"

 

Two examples that quickly came to my mind where one song became so big (and in these cases, famous) that they tend to overshadow the rest of the album. A song that now has a life of its own, which perhaps makes it strange to listen to in the context of the rest of the album.

 

What other ones can you think of?

 

It doesn't necessarily have to be a song that became famous. Perhaps it's just something that is just so awesome that it doesn't seem to fit in with the rest of the album any more. Something that is in a league of its own, and they couldn't come up with any other ideas of similar stature on the same album, thereby making it stand out like a sore thumb (but in a good way).

And those songs are not even good. Or is it because you heard them like 1000 times to many?

Definitely an album to look forward to. Loved "Steel the Light" back when it was released. Great stuff.

Picture! Wow, haven't heard them in ages. Have some of their early 80's albums in the garage, collecting dust ever since my LP-player gave up 10 years ago or so. As far as I remember "Heavy Metal Ears", "Diamond Dreamer" and "Traitor" were all about equally good, go for anyone of them. Need to relisten to them ASAP. Thanks for the tips!