Ne Obliviscaris—Portal of I is one of my favorite albums to come out this year, and perhaps of all time. It’s heavy metal, but it’s way more intelligent, progressive, and downright beautiful than most music that can be called metal. The violinist/singer really set this band apart.
Anaal Nathrakh—Forging Towards The Sunset is a brutally heavy song off of their 2012 CD. Violent, passionate, and triumphant—an excellent motivator to get up and conquer the day.
Devin Townsend—Ghost For someone that’s ordinarily responsible for ridiculously heavy music like this or this, Ghost is an exceptionally cool, calm, and peaceful album. Great to relax with after the day’s conquering.
I was really excited by the violinist part but then it also has the machinegun drumming constantly in the background that for me always drowns out the more beautiful parts unless I play it too loud :(
The album has a lot of variety in the drumming. While there is faster and heavier drumming when it’s called for, the drummer also does a great job of reigning it in and playing softer where appropriate. It’s worth listening to the whole album—there are some really beautiful moments in there! Starting here (Damn, link doesn’t work -- 28 minute mark) is some really amazing violin/guitar playing.
Ólafur Arnalds—contemporary classical, mostly strings+piano+electronics. Try the Living Room Songs for something spare and minimally-produced (I like “Film Credits”), and “3055″ which starts slowly and builds eventually to a more powerful climax.
Music Thread
Ne Obliviscaris—Portal of I is one of my favorite albums to come out this year, and perhaps of all time. It’s heavy metal, but it’s way more intelligent, progressive, and downright beautiful than most music that can be called metal. The violinist/singer really set this band apart.
Anaal Nathrakh—Forging Towards The Sunset is a brutally heavy song off of their 2012 CD. Violent, passionate, and triumphant—an excellent motivator to get up and conquer the day.
Devin Townsend—Ghost For someone that’s ordinarily responsible for ridiculously heavy music like this or this, Ghost is an exceptionally cool, calm, and peaceful album. Great to relax with after the day’s conquering.
I was really excited by the violinist part but then it also has the machinegun drumming constantly in the background that for me always drowns out the more beautiful parts unless I play it too loud :(
The album has a lot of variety in the drumming. While there is faster and heavier drumming when it’s called for, the drummer also does a great job of reigning it in and playing softer where appropriate. It’s worth listening to the whole album—there are some really beautiful moments in there! Starting here (Damn, link doesn’t work -- 28 minute mark) is some really amazing violin/guitar playing.
Ólafur Arnalds—contemporary classical, mostly strings+piano+electronics. Try the Living Room Songs for something spare and minimally-produced (I like “Film Credits”), and “3055″ which starts slowly and builds eventually to a more powerful climax.
Max Richter—contemporary classical, strings-heavy, melancholy. Try “On The Nature Of Daylight” first.
Loquat—lyrics-heavy melodic San Francisco pop. Lots of rationalist-friendly lyrics, including “Comedown’s Worse” and “Harder Hit”; “Time Bending” is genuinely geeky.