A to Z Challenge: Z is for Ziltoid The Omniscient

Here we are, the last day of the A to Z Challenge.  I hope you guys had as much fun as I did going through this and everybody else's blogs.  I feel like this was an eye opening experience for me, mainly about how few music blogs there are out there.  I'll make sure to tag appropriately next year.

Aight, back to the real stuff.

Devin Townsend is a very talented musician.  You can tell this because he recorded almost every sound you hear on this album, mixed it, and produced it.  He had a few other people who helped out, but when it came down to it, it's almost an exclusively Devin Townsend album.

The album is a story concept.  The story is that a mighty alien known as Ziltoid comes to earth for "your universe's ultimate cup of coffee".

I'm not gonna pick out any stand out tracks here, because as a story album it all ties together to a certain extent.  What I will say is that this is some really solid music that you will probably enjoy.  I mean, you might not, but I like it, and that's what counts.

A to Z Challenge: Y is for Year Zero

I really like this Nine Inch Nails album, though that''s mostly because it's the only one that I've listen through the whole way.  I like a lot of Reznor's material, but as this is what I have listened to the most I suppose you'll all have to live with that.  Also it's a great album that starts with Y.

It's a bit on an end times concept album, so there's a lot of various world ending scenarios at play here.  You have a Fallout Esq police state, an alien invasion, an act of God, and even a Dystopian future.

If you would, please check the following.

Survivalism

The Good Solider

Vessel

Capital G

The Warning

God Given

Meet Your Master

The Great Destroyer

These are my favorite tracks on this album

I have no clue what is wrong with the second video in this playlist is, but it's actual title is The Beginning Of The End, so just ignore that.

A to Z Challenge: X is for The X Factor

Apologies for anything spelled wrong or weirdly worded.  I decided to try some Finlandia today and had a little more than I had intended.

So there's only 6 albums that start with X.  2 Mushroomhead albums, one Coldplay album, 2 I don't recognize, and this.

I didn't think I knew this album, but it turns out that one of their greatest hits albums has two of the songs on it.

The Sign Of The Cross and Man On The Edge are the tracks I'm immediately familiar with, but it's Maiden.  They don't have any bad songs really, since all their stuff sounds reasonably the same.

I mean, I really like Iron Maiden, and I have not disliked anything they've put out.  I've just enjoyed some stuff more than others.

It's also got a cover song.  My Generation by The Who.

This album was without the singer Bruce Dickenson, who is basically the voice you think of with Maiden.  This album had Blaze on it, who was only around for a short period of time.  Not a fan of him personally, but it's not too bad.

A to Z Challenge: W is for Welcome 2 My Nightmare

Alice Cooper.  I have mentioned him in the past, but I think that was only once.

This album is a sequel of sorts to his album Welcome To My Nightmare, and it takes some musical cues from it.  For the most part though, this is a wonderful example of Alice's lyrical imagery.

With artists such as Ke$ha, John 5, and Rob Zombie this is an album that is genuinely fun to listen to.  I'll mention each track that they perform on in my list.

Caffeine

Last Man On Earth

The Congregation (Rob Zombie)

Disco Bloodbath Boogie Fever (John 5)

When Hell Comes Home

What Baby Wants (Ke$ha)

The Underture

These are my favorite tracks off the album, so have at it!

This week's highlights: April week 4 Q - V

Not gonna lie, it was a lot harder than I thought it would be to choose songs this week.  I figured out one of the Queen songs that I was most familiar with, but the other stuff was just a little difficult.  I really like all the other albums this week (except that Nirvana one, it doesn't have as many that I know well), so picking just one song off of each was hard.  I almost went with Qwerty when I got to Mushroomhead, and Slipknot almost got Three Nil.  Ah well, let's not dwell on what has passed, just enjoy the here and now!

Keep yourself Alive

We Are The Truth

No Other Place

Guardians Of Asgaard

About A Girl

Pulse Of The Maggots

A to Z Challenge: V is for Volume 3. (The Subliminal Verses)

I post Slipknot probably once every other month or so, but I don't care.  It's a band I like and you'll have to just put up with that.

Volume 3 was their weird experimental album.  You follow the brutal hatred of Iowa with something that's just...  Different.  It had lower key songs, the subject matter was still messed up, but in a different way, and the had progressed greatly in the realm of sound.

The stand out tracks for me include:

The Blister Exists

Three Nil

Duality

Opium Of The People

Vermilion

The Pulse Of The Maggots

Before I Forget

Vermilion pt 2

Really I do enjoy most all of this album, and it has a really strong beginning half that continues all the way to the last couple tracks.  And honestly, those are good too, but I just don't happen to like them as much.

A to Z Challenge: U is for Unplugged in New York

"Oh my gosh, Nirvana was one of the greatest bands to walk the earth.  Kurt Cobain was taken from us too young.  Look at this album, just hear the diversity in their sound!  This is how you can tell they were real musicians."

These are all things that you'll hear "true music fans" say about anything Nirvana since they were big in the 90s and obviously everything from the 90s was the best thing ever.

This is entirely untrue, but that's not the point.  The point is that this is a reasonably good album and you might like it.

There aren't as many tracks on this that I know, as I am more familiar with the album Bleach.  Still, there are a couple songs off of that album here.

It's a shame, you can really hear that his voice sucks in live settings when he's not singing angry and such.

A to Z Challenge: T is for Twilight Of The Thunder God

Amon Amarth is a Melodic Death Metal band, but don't let that put you off just yet.

These guys are straight up vikings and make some pretty fantastic music.  It's great for pumping up and keeping going, and it's also great because of the lyrical imagery.  They paint stories that, to me at least, are absolutely fantastic.  Fantasy lands and tales of the Norse gods.  It's good stuff.

Let's hit up my favorite tracks now, as has become the pattern.

Twilight Of The Thunder God

Guardians Of Asgaard

Where Is Your God

Tattered Banners And Bloody Flags

No Fear For The Setting Sun

Embrace The Endless Ocean

I'm not gonna specially tag anything this time.  I just really wanted you to listen to that one song a lot.  Whatever though.

A to Z Challenge: S is for Swan Songs

Hollywood Undead is a band that I reasonably like.  They aren't super fantastic, but they have this sleazy yet heavy thing going on that I find enjoyable.

This is their first album, and it's the only one with their original lead, Deuce.

Deuce got fired for reasons, and the band has since moved on.  Unfortunately, I did really enjoy the sound that he brought to the band, so I miss aspects of him in their later albums.

This album though has some fun songs on it that you should check out.

Undead

Sell Your Soul

Everywhere I Go*

No Other Place**

No. 5*

Bottle And A Gun

California*

Pimpin'

The first album here focuses on LA and Cali.  It's kinda ridiculous in my opinion, but people like it, and it's got some fun stuff.  I've starred my very favorite tracks on the album, so make sure to check them out for sure.  More stars means more better.

Fun word fact for ya.  The phrase "Swan Song" usually means the last act before retirement or something like that.  Here's the Wiki page about it.  The funny thing is that they named their album this and it was the first album.  It was however, Deuce's Swan Song with HU.  Conspiracy?

A to Z Challenge: R is for The Righteous And The Butterfly

Here we have Mushroomhead's latest release (aside from that Game of Thrones song) to date.

This album is one that I greatly enjoy, I actually start my day with We Are The Truth almost every single day.  Not sure why, it just kinda gets me pumped and ready to go.

There's a lot of really good songs on this album, and there's even an Adele song.  You guys remember her, right?  She had like 3 hits and disappeared forever.  Good times.

Still though, other than the really cool masks and greatly enjoyable music they've got a really killer stage presence.  My brother got to see them when they came to town in early January and he realyl didn't care for them till he saw them live.

Check out these tracks though, they're really good.

Our Apologies

How Many Times

Devils Be Damned

Qwerty

We Are The Truth

For Your Pleasure

Worlds Collide

Graveyard Du Jour

Out Of My Mind

Rumor Has It

Ok, so I like almost every track on the album.

A to Z Challenge: Q is for... Queen

I'm just gonna lay this out there, I don't listen to almost any Queen.  Seriously, it's just not a band I ever got in to.  What kinda sucks though is that there's only about 17 albums ever to be released with a "Q" title, and I don't listen to The Who either, who are the other band I recognized.

Yep, this kinda sucks.

Enjoy the first Queen album, known as "Queen" and was released in 1973.

Freddie Mercury was the singer, he had fantastic range.  Brian May was one of the guitarists.  He had good tone.

That's all I've got, sorry.

This week's highlights: April Week 3 K - P

First, we're gonna talk about the show I went to on Friday night.  I went to The Agora in Cleveland to see Sabaton and Nightwish.

Let's preface this by saying that Sabaton put on a fantastic show.  They were engaging, funny, and full of energy.  Delain opened the show, and they were kinda like a watered down version of Epica, but it was ok.

Then came Sabaton singing about Tanks and stuff, and I freaking loved it.  The band was even hanging around outside during Nightwish's set to talk to anybody who wanted to say hi.  I know this cause I was so wiped out tired after 3 songs of the Nightwish set that I went out to my car to sleep till my brother came out.  Unfortunately I  have no pictures to share with you.

Nightwish mostly played songs off of their new album, and as it only came out maybe 2 weeks ago I don't know any of them.  What they did play though was spot on to the album quality.  Sabaton was really good about this as well actually, both bands kept it really tight and brought the house down.

Ok though, let's hit what you probably want to hear, which are my personal song highlights from each day.

Let's go, in letter order.

New Sleighs

Gold Digger

Step Up (I'm On It)

Nice Guys finish Last

San Ber'Dino

Candy Man

A to Z Challenge: P is for Primus & the Chocolate Factory

I don't even know where to go with this.

First we have Primus, who's catchphrase is "Primus sucks!"

Then we have the music from the original Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.

This is some really weird stuff you're gonna listen to, though if you liked the original movie you will agree that this is some pretty great music.

Pick your old favorite songs and check them out, it's worth it for the novelty at the very least.

Personally I like Golden Ticket and Candy Man the best.

A to Z challenge: One size fits "O"

I have done really good about not using any of the stupid title names I came up with that almost matched the albums.  I really really did my best to not use them cause they were horrible.  This one was too good to pass up though.

One Size Fits All is a wonderful album by Frank Zappa.  Zappa was a very interesting fellow with a lot of strange life philosophies.  He was also an amazingly talented off the wall musician who made a lot of weird sounds, put them together, and tossed a weird rambling story over top of it.

Tracks off of this album to note are:

Inca Roads

Can't Afford No Shoes

San Ber'dino

Andy

 

If you want to get specific it was Zappa with his band "The Mothers Of Invention".  Just  throwing that out there.  Like the song, "Smoke On The Water"?  That line that says "Frank Zappa & The Mothers" is talking about this guy.

A to Z Challenge: N is for Nimrod

Everybody loves Green Day, right?  Either that or everybody thinks they're overrated, I can never remember which it is.

This is one of their slightly older albums, before the whole American Idiot thing that made them super popular again.

I really like this album a lot, though if I think about it it's super freaking generic.  All of their stuff is though, that's kinda the draw of Green Day.  It's reasonably solid music, and you always know what you're getting in to.

So I like these tracks more than some others though.

Nice Guys Finish Last

Hitchin' A Ride

The Grouch

Uptight

King for A Day

A to Z Challenge: M is for Maylene

No I kinda cheated here.  Maylene &The Sons Of Disaster technically have named each album I, II, III, and IV, so I can't use it for "M".  However one might also argue that this is a form of having a self titled album, so that's what I'm going with.

Maylene is a really interesting mix.  It's Southern Metal, but not.  It's got banjo, slide guitar, and all that kinda of stuff, so maybe you could call it Bluegrass Metal?  I don't know really.

It's a really cool sound though and I'd say you should check out the following tracks.

Waiting On My Deathbed

Last Train Coming

Step Up (I'm On It)

The Old Iron Hills

No Good Son

A to Z Challenge: L is for Late Registration

You know what you need to follow a Kanye parody with?  Kanye Freaking West, that's who!

I mean, this guy is a genius, there's no way around it.  Who would have thought to take a loop of Jaime Foxx singing poorly and looping it, then proceeding to rap over it?  Well plenty of people might now, but Kanye invented this style!

Every album he has released has revolutionized music as we know it, there was nothing good before Kanye.

Listen to all of it, cause it's all better than anything you've ever heard in your life, obviously.

A to Z Challenge: K is for Kreezus

You know what April needs?  Christmas music.

So these guys known as Local Business Comedy made a Christmas themed parody of Kanye West's album Yeezus and it is one of the best things ever.  Not only does it sound an awful lot like Kanye, but it also is hilarious.

If you're familiar with any of the tracks on Yeezus then make sure to listen to their Kreezy equivalent first.  It's the best effect.

This week's highlights: April Week 2 E - J

Woo!  We're 10 posts down, 16 more to go!

I'm really liking this a lot so far and I'm really glad of all of you who either visited or came to stick around for the whole month.  I really hope that you'll stick around for the rest of the times as well.  I know a daily blog can get annoying, but I think I'm worth it, right?  I'm lovable, right?

Ok, let's get the greatest hits of the week out here.  This time it is in no particular order.

Do Me A Favor

The Curse

What I'm Not

Sentenced To Burn

Jesus Freak

I F*cking Hate You

A to Z Challenge: J is for Jesus Freak

This is probably gonna be the biggest shock on the list, especially after a week that ranged from Brutal Death Metal to just plain Metal and not much else.  Yeah, I listen to Death Metal, Gangster Rap, and such and stuff, but that doesn't mean I don't like other stuff as well, right?

DC Talk is one of those classic christian groups from the 90s.  A lot of people really liked them and I occasionally count myself in that list.  They've got a decent sound and a lot of catchy tunes, so check out what I've picked out.

So Help Me God

Jesus Freak

What If I Stumble

Like It, Love It, Need It

I'm not the best at recommendations for a lot of albums that I've been posting cause at times I have't listened to all of it or I'm just not as well informed as I thought I was when I first decided what I was posting.  I've actually had these albums picked out for the better part of 2 months, so there ya go.

You can ignore half of this, it's just the remaster and all that.  It's the first 13 tracks you want.

A to Z Challenge: I is for Indestructible

Disturbed.  I'm not sure where they sit in the realm of Nu-Metal and Hard Rock, so I just kinda set them in the generic Metal file.

This album has some really cool tracks on it.  The title track for example has an air raid siren in it, and I really love a well used air raid siren in music.  There are a few albums that I had early on in my music revolution that I've mentioned before, and this is one is on that list as well.

To be honest these guys are a reasonably generic sounding band.  They have some cool riffs, but nothing that stands out from a lot of other artists.  They have some really cool vocal work, but it's repetitive and expected.  When it comes down to it though while they'll never be my favorite band again, they do hold a lot of nostalgia for me, so if you're kinda interested, check out these tracks.

Indestructible

Divide

The Curse

Deceiver

Façade

Divide has a part that I really like on it, and The Curse has some stuff that just hits me in some sort of way.  I don't know, it's good stuff.

A to Z Challenge: H is for House of Gold & Bones

You guys are lucky, you get a double album for "H"!

Stone Sour is a Metal band fronted by Slipknot singer Corey Taylor.  They're really a pretty good band and have put out at least 1 song that you'll know, Through Glass.

The albums we have today are a 2 part story that is meant to be listened to along with a story that comes in the album booklet.  It follows a character named Alan and his adventures through another world.

Musically these are really solid albums with a lot of dynamic, so I'll give you some of the best tracks.  I don't know the first album as well, so there are a few other tracks that I like on it that I'm just not sure which they are.

Part 1

Gone Sovereign + Absolute Zero

RU486

Part 2

Red City

Black John

Gravesend

'82

Do Me A Favor

House of Gold & Bones

This album was strongly influenced by Alice In Chain's album "Dirt" and Pink Floyd's album "The Wall"

A to Z Challenge: G is for Gallery Of Suicide

Ah, Cannibal Corpse.  I have bad news now, this is an album I'm only partially familiar with.  I know I Will Kill You and Sentenced To Burn, but that's really it.  Honestly I had planned on doing Skeletal Domain, but since I already reviewed it once I figured it'd be overkill.

Death Metal alert, you probably won't like this.

Still though, I have yet to be disappointed with a Cannibal Corpse album.  It's kinda nice, generic Death Metal.  Well, more like Brutal Death Metal if you want to be one of those super picky Genre people.  Or if you want to go full opposite you can be like, "It's all just music man, Genre's mean nothing."

If you remember waaaaaay back like a billion years ago I posted these guys I made a comment about how they "cannot play their song "Born in a Casket" but can still play "Dismembered and Molested" live" while in Germany.  well this album has Dismembered and Molested on it.  Just in case you're interested.

Just as a heads up by the way, Youtube restricts sound quality on the lower resolution videos, so playing it at 720p or 1080p is actually helpful.

A to Z Challenge: F is for Faceless

We've talked about Godsmack before and how I really like them even though they're really repetitive.

This is a wonderful example of an album for that.

For instance, the songs Faceless and Changes have extremely similar choruses.  Like, really similar.  come on guys, the songs are even right after the other.

Still though, I do love a lot of these tracks.  Several of them are on my workout playlist actually.

My favorite tracks are:

Straight Out Of Line

Changes

Make Me Believe

I Stand Alone

I F*cking Hate You

Serenity

They're all pretty good songs, and I'd advise checking most or all of them out.  I mean, I think you should listen to the whole album, but that's a lot of time to commit, so I can understand if you don't.

A to Z Challenge: E is for Extremist

If I'm gonna add another band to my top 3 Demon Hunter claims a position without question.  One of my first Metal bands, they are what broke me from Weird Al and Classical Music.  Yeah, I hadn't branched too far back in the day.

I own each of their albums, and I helped Kickstart an album that the singer is releasing sometime within the next few weeks, so I could say that I'm a reasonably big fan.

Extremist is DH's newest album so far, and I can happily say that it's continued to keep a solid quality.  The World Is A Thorn and True Defiance were a little iffy, but they did grow on my after a little while, so I can be happy.

Let's get into my favorite tracks now, eh?

Death

Artificial Light

What I'm Not

Cross To Bear

Gasoline

The Heart Of A Graveyard

Even if you ignore this album, just listen to What I'm Not and The Heart Of A Graveyard.  You'll like the last on at the very least.

The weeks Highlights: April week 1 A - D

So the downside to being a daily blog is that even though this challenge is supposed to have Sundays off I'm still gonna post so I can keep up my uninterrupted since mid September streak.  Due to this, Sundays will be a recap of my favorite track from each album listed that week.

And yes, they will be arranged in order of how much I love them.  4 being less, 1 being more.

4 - Cowboys From Hell

3 - Blodsvept

2 - Almost Easy

1 - Rooster

 

A to Z Challenge: D is for Dirt

Alice in Chains.  I have posted them a lot and I want to make it abundantly clear that they are in my top 3 bands ever.  Period.  That being said, this album is actually quite amazing in it's own right.  Let's talk about a couple things here.

I have the greatest hits album AiC put out.  The two disc one that has a good 28 songs on it.  I would say it's safe to say that this is a really good selection of their material since it has a pile of stuff from a 4 or 5 album stretch.

Cool thing coming, aight?

10 of the 13 tracks on Dirt are on my greatest hits album.  10 out of freaking 13.  That's a lot.  I'll mark them with stars.

1. Them Bones*
2. Dam That River*
3. Rain When I Die*
4. Down In A Hole*
5. Sickman
6. Rooster*
7. Junkhead
8. Dirt*
9. God Smack*
10. Iron Man
11. Hate To Feel*
12. Angry Chair*
13. Would?*

Out of these I only see Iron Man not making the cut as a classic since it's a mostly noise track anyway.  This album is really solid and I would strongly advise you give it a listen.

At the very least listen to tracks 1, 4, 6, and 12 since those are some of my hands down favorite tracks they've ever put out.

A to Z Challenge: C of for Cowboys

First things first, this is my 200th post!  I am actually kind of annoyed that the A to Z challenge fell right on it, cause it would have been fun to throw some sort of shindig to celebrate.  Ah well, there's always the other hundreds.

Cowboys From Hell is the only Pantera album I've ever listened to.  I've heard select songs off of other albums, but this is the only one I've listened to every track.

Now I'm gonna say this right now, I really don't like Pantera that much.  I'll admit that Dime was an amazing guitarist for what he did, and as much as I don't care for Phil Anselmo I can't deny that he has a pretty good vocal range.  Phil also makes some interesting faces.

Probably my favorite tracks on this album are as follows.

Cowboys From Hell
Primal Concrete Sledge
Psycho Holiday
Heresy
Cemetery Gates
Domination
The Art Of Shredding

Each song holds some sort of appeal to me in one way or another.  Domination sounds almost like a Motörhead song, Psycho Holiday starts with machine gun fire, and Primal Concrete Sledge has a part where they add this random half a measure or so.

A to Z Challenge: B is for Blodsvept

Finntroll.  You might remember the last time I posted these guys, it's a band that I really like a lot, though I haven't really listened past this album.  I only started listening to them within the last 6 months though, so I'll call that ok for now.  I mean really listen to "too much" music, so it's hard to devote too much time to a band that isn't one of the ones that I listened to a lot before the last year.

Since this is the only album of their's I've heard it does contain all the songs of theirs I like though.  I am unable to pronounce half the titles though, so that's a shame.

Still, here goes the list of favorite tracks.

• Blodsvept
• Mordminnen
• Rösets Kung
• Skövlarens Död
• Häxbrygd
• Två Ormar

I like them all a lot, but these ones stand out for whatever reason to me.

Apparently I picked the only album that doesn't have it's full version on YouTube right now, so that sucks.  I'll link to a playlist that should work.

A to Z Challenge: A is for Avenged Sevenfold

Welcome to the A to Z thing!

I feel like it's not a great idea to start with these guys considering they're such a controversial band they are.  Not controversial like content wise, but controversial in the sense that 90% of people think they suck and the other 10 are a bunch of emo kids.

I am neither, and while I am aware that this statement totally kills my percentages above, I don't really care.

Really, this isn't a super amazing album or anything, it's just ok.

The first 5 tracks are ok, but I feel Almost Easy is the best.  It's my favorite track on the album probably.  However, if you take the special edition into play then you can tack on their cover of Pantera's song Walk.  It's not too bad either.