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Thanks for sharing those 5! I had 3 of them on the list already but I didn't have Sunburst. I just checked out the single, Hollow Lies, and now they're on my list cause I enjoyed that. I'm not as sure about listening to the Anvil album. I listened to the single, Feed Your Fantasy, and the main riff sounds like a slower version of Woman by Wolfmother and it was giving me really cheesy vibes. I don't know much other stuff by them though so maybe they're good?

@@deathbyunicorn Anvil used to be better in the olden days (Metal on Metal) and when they got their resurgence with their documentary Anvil! The Story of Anvil. I mean it is very cheesy quasi-thrash stuff and they seem to put out the same record every single time but still an enjoyable romp. Here's one that took me by surprise today: Ætheria Conscientia - The Blossoming

@@FranticDav Ætheria Conscientia's going on my list too. I checked out 1 song and sounds like some great progressive atmospheric black metal.

Replacire is solid techdeath. I don't like all techdeath generally but I like all albums The Faceless put out and Replacire scratched that itch. Nice Marillion connection there with Dave Foster Band! The Kind City sounds cool. Just listened to 1 song. I'll have to check out that album. Great underground gem there. Thanks for sharing!

Thanks for the tip. I see it has Derek Sherinian and Simon Phillips who I enjoy so I'll check it out.

Fair enough. I don't think they would appeal to everybody. Is it the vocals that you can't get into or the instrumental side/composition? I think for many people, the vocals will take some warming up to before it clicks.

@@deathbyunicorn that's a good question. Over the past 2 years I've moved into finding instrumental versions of bands like periphery as an example and have been listening more to groups like Intervals and Buckethead mostly because I'm a guitar guy and am trying let those influences sink in. I can't do that with some bands because the vocals are so much apart of the songs they feel empty without them. Metallica being one of those examples.

@@YOUCANTDOTHATONTELEVISION Nice. Animals as Leaders and Intervals are my favourite instrumental bands.

Sykofant is excellent and definitely worth hearing. I think you'll like it. I think you'll like Marjana Semkina too. It's a lot more relaxed music. I plan to check out The Crooked Fiddle Band. Not sure yet about if DK the Drummer will be for me but I'll sample a song or two to see if I want to go through the full album.

Great work on the vocals on the latest Azure album Chris! As I listen to it more and more, I'm really getting even more into both the music and your unique and powerful vocal style. I loved them on first listen but they just keep getting better on repeat listens. Looking forward to more great music from Azure in the future and hopefully can catch you live someday. Keep it up!

​@deathbyunicorn Really, really appreciate that! Extremely grateful that the weird variety of vocal stylising is something you dig - I know it's not for everyone haha! Thanks for putting time into digesting this release, appreciate the positivity you're bringing! Keep doing what you do!

Thank you for the music! Excellent work! I'm hopeful I'll hear more great things from you in the future.

I see how the Azure vocalist is not for everyone. He reminds me of Hemina, Native Construct and The Kindred/Today I Caught The Plague's vocalists in how he really pushes himself to hit some intense high notes with power but also aims to be very theatrical in his delivery. Also possibly influenced by power metal, Bruce Dickinson and Rob Halford. X isn't the best Toehider EP in the project for me but I think it's always worth hearing what Toehider makes. Thanks for the tip on Sound&Shape, that sounds pretty interesting for me so I'll have to listen to it. Lenny Kravitz isn't as exciting for me. I think he has some good songs but I never get too excited and I feel he is fairly average from my perspective. No the Red Handed Denial One More Night isn't a Phil Collins cover. It's just another poppy track that shares the same name. I'm not sure if you'll like them that much. Depends how much you appreciate djenty/poppy metalcore with female vocals. They have the odd progressive moment but they aren't too proggy.

Good to know. I heard that name but thought both names were still accepted and I'm used to calling it Czech Republic out of habit.

I've only heard 2 Of Montreal albums so far. I like them but don't love them. I can see how the vocals would be a turn off. I may go back and check some of their other stuff out but there's some bands I think I can love that I still haven't finished their full discographies so it'll probably be a while before I decided to prioritize listening to Of Montreal. I've never heard Apes & Androids but now I'm curious.

Thanks Nigel! That Crownshift album definitely sounds like something I will like so I appreciate you making me aware of that (I just listened to the first song but plan to check out the rest tomorrow). I will check out Elvellon as well but am not as sure it will be to my taste. I listened to 1 track and the vocals sound great. I'm just not as into the Symphonic Metal sound of bands like Nightwish and Epica which this sounds like to me. I always thinks it's good but never quite excellent or exciting. I prefer prog metal, metalcore, power metal, tech death, traditional heavy metal and melodeath over the symphonic metal sound.

Thanks Kyle. It's a hell of a cold that I got unfortunately and my voice is still shot. Here's hoping tomorrow is better. I haven't heard DK the Drummer yet but I checked out Matt Page and enjoyed his album. For Bill Fisher, yeah I recommend checking out that track and I'd recommend his first solo album too as I find it's better than the most recent one.

I agree. It's great!

I don't know them but I'm interested. I'm going to have to start writing down all your suggestions so I make sure I get to them. Much appreciated!

Everything Thank You Scientist has put out is top notch to me. I'd recommend all their albums as long as you're okay with the vocal style and their use of horns. The Mountain by Haken is amazing. I really like their debut Aquarius and think it's an underrated gem by them. But I like everything they've done. The debut Symphony X album doesn't have Russell Allen on vocals and he is really missed cause the vocalist on that is nowhere near his level of talent and the production is much rougher. I recommend starting with their second album and onwards. The first album still has some great compositions, guitar riffs, solos, etc but the vocals are hard to get into for me so it can ultimately be skipped. The Kindred and Protest the Hero are great Canadian prog acts. Maybe I could have mentioned Rush and Devin Townsend as well... And lots of other great Canadian prog talent missing from this video including Mandroid Echostar, Red Handed Denial, The Tea Party, Intervals, Alpha Galates, Casualties of Cool, Mirrelia, Driftglass, Voivod among many others

@@deathbyunicorn Adding some bands to my list there. Some of the ones you mentioned, I haven't heard yet. But The Tea Party and Voivod are in my top ten favourite bands along with Rush, and Devin is probably in the top 12. So, thanks! My list grows!

@@musicisajourney Casualties of Cool features Devin Townsend and is an interesting atmospheric country rock duo with male and female vocals. I usually strongly dislike country but there's something amazing and kind of progressive about what they bring to it. Intervals is one of the best instrumental prog bands I've ever heard. Probably my 2nd favourite after Animals as Leaders. Most of the others I mentioned are a bit more underground prog metal groups but all worth hearing.

@@deathbyunicorn I have Casualties of Cool and I like it a fair bit. Thanks to that album, I got to know Che Aimee Dorval. I think she has one of the best voices out there. Her last album, The Crowned, is like a serious, darker atmosphere pop album, but damn, she's such a good singer that I like the album.

@@musicisajourney oh yeah her voice is great. I listened to her last album. It's not my usual style but I enjoyed it quite a bit.

I'd suggest getting into newer Opeth since they don't have harsh vocals and then working your way backwards in their discography to get to albums like Watershed, Ghost Reveries, Deliverance, Blackwater Park and Still Life in particular because they all have a mix of harsh and clean vocals and if you're already into Opeth's stuff with only clean vocals, it may not be too much of a stretch to start enjoying their stuff with some harsh vocals.

Thanks for these suggestions. Surprisingly, I've never listened to either of these before but they sound like they would be right up my alley.

Control denied! RIP CHUCK expect the unexpected!

I agree I like Kezia best from PTH cause I'm a fan of concept albums. Technically speaking PTH becomes more technically proficient later in their career and their songwriting becomes smoother in terms of transitions but I like the spastic, random and chaotic nature of Kezia better even though I can see improvement over their career in other ways. I don't think they played to a click on Kezia but they started playing to a click later. Thanks for the recommendations. I've only heard Pain of Salvation, Cynic, The Faceless and Sikth from that list so it looks like there's always more for me to check out.

@@deathbyunicorn I find Kezia to be their most creative with the acoustic sections and female vocals from Jadea Kelly I think made it stand out for me. Yeah those albums are all great, you probably would enjoy most of them.

@@AllMediaReviewsPodcast Scurrilous and Volition feature Jadea Kelly doing some guest vocal appearances too. But another great thing about Kezia and Fortress that doesn't apply to their later albums is that all the lyrics are written by Arif MIrabdolbaghi and he has more fantasy, history, mythology and concept-inspired lyrics that unify everything. Scurrilous was a mix of Arif and Rody on lyrics. Rody's lyrics are more personal, literal and comedic. Rody writes all the lyrics on Volition and Palimpsest. On Palimpsest, he got a lot better at coming up with a unifying theme for all the lyrics.

Nice! Me too. I was thinking of making it my number 1 of the month. I went back and forth about it.

Ne Obliviscaris is a great example of a band with a lot of blast beats. I sometimes dislike if a band uses too many blast beats but, for some reason, I'm okay with it when it's Ne Obliviscaris cause they're so great. Loch Vostok is basically Pain of Salvation meets Ne Obliviscaris (but no violin). I recommend you give it at least 1 listen to see if you can tolerate the extreme intensity in this context.

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll check it out.

Thanks for the suggestion! I'll check it out.

Good catch. I see they are from Finland. Thanks for the correction. I must have made a typo in my notes and put US.

Thanks for the tip on this one. I didn't hear about it but, upon Googling this and seeing the amazing list of collaborators (Simon Phillips, Marco Minnemann, Billy Sheehan, Stu Hamm, Jeff Scott Soto, Greg Howe, Mike Stern and Frank Gambale), I'm definitely interested.

True. In Vain has some cool variation in their vocal styles. Some of the harsh vocals sound like black metal and some sound like death metal. The really early Opeth albums had a bit of that black metal vocal style while the mid ones had that death metal vocal style. But the clean vocals for In Vain sound catchier, more anthemic and higher pitch than Opeth cleans. Even for 3 people, that Menomena EP sounds like it had a lot going on for some songs. Cool stuff.

I think that since I was a teenager in the 2000s, I warmed up to the post-hardcore sound at the right age and I was also just getting interested in great guitar playing then so that leads me to like these "fast guitar post-hardcore" groups like Eidola still to this day. Bend Sinister's new album is very good. I don't think it'll make my year end top 50 list cause I listen to so much but still very good.

My pleasure. Great band and album!

Thrice is a band that evolved a lot over time so I can totally see you liking some parts of their career and disliking other parts. I enjoy them cause they kind of evolved with my evolving music tastes. On their first album, they're really young and do more of a melodic hardcore punk sound and it's pretty raw. I'm not as much of a fan of that one as what comes later. Then their next 3 albums after that are post-hardcore/emo. Then their Alchemy Index albums are experimental and dabble in almost every genre from ambient electronic to folk. Then they go more in an alternative rock and hard rock direction after that but keep their experimental and progressive tendencies while always having some hints of their post-hardcore roots. I'm definitely looking forward to checking out In Vain and Bend Sinister. For Local Natives, I listened to one of the singles and it was fine but didn't grab my interest too much so I kept them off my list cause my list is pretty big. Is there a really great song from Local Natives that you think might change my mind and make me interested after 1 listen?

@@deathbyunicorn I have a friend who loves The Dear Hunter and also is very into Thrice. I know and even checked out The Alchemy Index back when it was released, but I struggled with much of it. I recall when The Color Spectrum came out, it got comparisons to The Alchemy Index. I may want to revisit it though as it was literally 15-16 years ago when I heard it and I might get into more now. As for Local Natives: I would check out songs like SUN HANDS or even WORLD NEWS or WHEN AM I GONNA LOSE YOU. They have this infectious energy that may win you over.

@@AllMediaReviewsPodcast I didn't like The Alchemy Index at first either but it grew on me a lot and I love it now. It's definitely similar to the Color Spectrum cause each part has a different sound. But there are only 4 parts: Fire, Water, Air and Earth. Fire is heavy, Water is electronic, Air is soft/atmospheric rock, Earth is folk. I know the Color Spectrum has a lot more colors than that. I'll check out those tracks by Local Natives. Thanks for the recommendations!

Thanks! Do you have a favourite from the list or someone who you think did great keyboard work that year who I missed?

I will send you the link is amazing composer, great 🎹 with amazing technique.

Fair enough. I don't think the new DragonForce would be for everyone especially if you don't like cheesy silly stuff. I hope you enjoy ALMO though!

Yeah it's kind of like that but I found some years had many albums that I loved and there were some years that didn't have any albums that made my top 30. I don't have any albums from 1989 or 1985 in my top 30 of the 80s for whatever reason. Just nothing stood out in those years as being as excellent as the ones I mentioned for me. I'd be curious to see yours for sure if you make a video on this topic.

Good suggestion. I should try to get into Slayer again. I've heard many of their songs and love Raining Blood of course but I'm not as well versed in their full albums. Metallica and Megadeth are the 2 bands in the big 4 of thrash that I got into and listened to their entire discographies.

Thanks. I'm nitpicky but I heard a couple guitar moments that could have been a bit better and if I doubled the vocals and/or did a better vocal take it would sound better but I wanted to make sure I got the video out on your birthday.

Maybe Not Crying by Flight of the Conchords will have to be my next cover then.

Nice. I'm curious to see which other ones rank highly for you that I didn't mention as maybe I'll have some cool new stuff to check out or maybe I forgot some good ones I heard before.

This is the first full album by Everything Everything that I listened to but I'll keep that in mind if I start going through their back catalog. I don't know all of Daniel Romano's catalog but I can vouch for and recommend you check out all his output from 2020 cause that's when I got into him (though I was into his previous band Attack in Black well before that and that's still my most favourite stuff I've heard from him; the whole Attack in Black discography is great)

Oh yes you're right. Looks like Matt Page is May 3 but I must have read the date backwards somewhere and wrote down March 5. Lenny Kravitz and Sheryl Crow are some big names and will probably be competent albums but I'm not sure how exciting they'll be for me. In Vain's singles sound amazing so I'm pumped for that. I'm also interested in checking out the Bend Sinister album.

Yeah all great. Definitely check out everything on this top 10 list if you have time cause it's all great stuff.

Borknagar and Job for a Cowboy were both great and even better than I expected. Sleepytime Gorilla Museum's vocals would definitely be an acquired taste. The female vocals remind me of Bjork and I always have trouble with Bjork's vocal styles. Some of the male vocals go into black metal territory like Enslaved and Ihsahn which I know a lot of people don't like and I used to dislike that style but I've started to appreciate it now. It's true that they sound darker than Diablo Swing Orchestra. I'm in the middle of listening to Dirt Poor Robins right now and loving it. I'll have to listen to Everything Everything next.

Thanks! Long live Caligula's Horse!

Something about the really early Fates Warning albums just keeps me from loving them. I think it's partly the production and partly the vocal style because the music is great. But the production and vocal style gets much better for me later in their discography. I prefer Ray Alder's vocal style over John Arch but I can recognize they are both great singers. I agree The Majesty Demos are great. Probably in the top 15 demos I've heard in my life. My favourite demos are by Haken, Leprous and The Dear Hunter as it's like those bands were at an excellent or maybe even near masterpiece level even at demo time. I also prefer Voivod's stuff that comes later but respect their early career innovation even though the sound is a little bit on the rough and raw side in their early years.

I hope you enjoy any of these that you check out. I'll definitely check out that Sonata Arctica album when it comes out too.

I just listened to the Dickie tracks on UA-cam, I don't own it either. I prefer the album versions of the tracks but thought it was cool to hear the demos as I was exploring 1985. Maybe Power Windows will click with me one day. For now, it's just a bit disappointing for me. Every time I listen to Grace Under Pressure and Power Windows though, I like them slightly more than the previous listen so that's good at least.

Toad Hirer is my favourite of all the EPs to come so far as well! I didn't listen to the Chromeo album (didn't think I'd care for it based on what I heard from them before) or the Bela Fleck album (should I listen to that?). K'mono's Mind out of Mind album I heard when it came out in 2023 and it's excellent! I guess they just re-released it for a physical release and 2023 was digital only or something? Cause I already heard all that material. The Aristocrats I want to listen to but I'm not prepared to buy it yet. I couldn't find their new one on Spotify and Bandcamp only lets me listen to 3 tracks. Did you find a good place to stream that one before buying?

I've started to like Grace Under Pressure more lately than I used to. I used to just not bother with any Rush after Signals but now I can see it's still very good. Just not excellent level for me cause it's not the style I want from Rush. I'm more of a casual Marillion fan than a die hard Marillion fan. I've liked everything I've heard from them but haven't been obsessed with any of it. I slightly prefer their 80s stuff to their more modern stuff. Though I haven't heard everything they've done in the Steve Hogarth era yet. I've heard maybe only 4 with him and have a hard time remembering which ones those were even though they were pretty good. I haven't done a 1969 video yet cause I just started at 1970 but Abbey Road came out that year so that would be my easy #1. With King Crimson at an easy #2. Surprisingly, I think it was Lizard that I called my album of the year in 1970 even though I like those albums you guessed more (they were just up against tougher competition in those years).

Glad you enjoyed it! Do you have a favourite keyboard player from the list or anyone I missed?