sleep started stoner rock but kyuss made it awesome, hermano is sweet too.

Ah, alright. I'd heard of Kyuss many times, but never checked them out. The only stoner rock I've ever really listened too is CoC, like I said, and Down. I honestly like both alot, so now I'm sitting here wondering why I never dug deeper into the genre. If Kyuss is the one of the founders then it would probably be smart to check them out. And if it's better than this album, as you say, then yeah, bring it on. :)

Kyuss was putting out its 3rd album as Sleep released its first.

Sleep's Volume One came out in 1991, while Kyuss released Wretch during the same year, which unfortunately wasn't well known or widely interpreted as a landmark album. Although neither is really universally acclaimed, both these albums were the debut releases for their respective bands. If you're talking about Sleep's Holy Mountain, then that was released only a few months after Blues for the Red Sun, and is Sleep's third official release, as well as their second studio album.

Yeah, i can if you still need it.

Also, apologies but ive yet to submit my review aswell.

I made that post when I was drunk. When sobered up, I realised this album is a bit easy to get on the net, but if it's no hassle it is appreciated :D

Oh yes, schizotypic, sorry I haven't reviewed as yet either! It'll be reviewed by tomorrow though, have no fear dude.

This one from Rickenbacker...


First off, I can see where Rickenbacker's coming from regarding this sleeve art being awesome and everything. Very vivid stuff - reminds me of me most Sunday mornings.

Onto the album itself, I've given it a couple of spins having heard so much (well, a bit) of praise on these 'ere boards for it. I've gotta say first off that I'm not exactly a huge fan of prog, but this one mixes some folk elements into the whole equation, and therefore comes off with a pretty interesting result (and that's usually how I like what little prog I can lay claim to myself - when the form's mucked about with like that... at least to my ears). It's certainly a very original piece of work, and definitely had parts which made it fully worth getting (the Herald and Diana for instance), but parts of it tried a little too hard for me - the vocals on Song To Comus and the Prisoner, and all the little quirks in the musical backing did grate a little. In most places those two work fine together though and really come off well, such as the aforementioned Herald. Most of the instrumentation, particularly how the fiddle plays such a key role (as on the fabulous Bitten) was just great too.

It's an album that I get the impression is better viewed as a unit than as isolated songs though, and in this respect it's a very good, original and solid album. Didn't really knock me off my feet though, but I still enjoyed it.

Cheers Rickenbacker :thumb:

And who else wants in on the next trade?

That's very much how I feel about the album Bulldog. Great! The Herald is one of the best songs ever.

Got this one from Anteater:

http://www.metal-archives.com/images/1/6/5/4/1654.jpg
Pain of Salvation-Entropia (1997)

Prog-metal has always been a pretty polarizing genre for me, and this album isn't an exception. I had a friend in high school who listened to a lot of Symphony X, I guess you could loosely compare this album to that although there are differences. This album is downright funky at points, with slap-bass on multiple songs and constant time-signature changes similar to what you might expect from a math-rock band. Also, Entropia does a fairly good job of attempting to balance out the heavy songs with some lighter moments.

There are a few things that tripped me up with this album. As with a lot of music in this particular genre, the vocals were difficult for me to get past. Since this is a concept album revolving around a father being forced to go off and fight in a war and leave his family behind, some of the songs (Oblivion Ocean is the main one I remember) rely on the vocals and the lyrics to keep things going, which didn't do much for me. The singer (Daniel Gildenlow) does have great range though, and when the band was rocking out with him IMO his voice fit in much better (such as on People Passing By, the high point of the album for me).

This album did have a few really cool moments (People Passing By, the intro to Stress), but overall I often found myself getting hung up on the vocals too much to be able to enjoy the instrumentation, which was solid when it kicked in. Good listen though as I probably wouldn't have found this one on my own. Thanks Anteater!