These albums are my all time favorites. The best of the best. Albums that have stuck with me for years and never seem to get old.
I am not a good writer and i cannot formulate my thoughts very well, yet i will do it.
Orbit Culture - Nija Death / Groove metal
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
This, i think, is my all time all out favorite album. It also introduced me to all other forms of metal. Before, extreme music was just one of many genres in my music library. Now, metal dominates almost all of it. This album is perfect to me, from the music, the intensity, the riffs, the cover, everything.
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ Best track: Nensha Alcest - Les Voyages de l'âme Shoegaze / Post-Metal
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
A lot of people usually pick Écailles de lune as their favorite, and while i see why, this album does juuuust a bit more for me. A lot of the songs are extremely emotional, both heavy and beautiful, and it makes me think of summer every time. Also, the album has my all time favorite album art as well, which elevates it above écailles.. but barely.
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ Best track: Les Voyages de l'âme Triptykon - Melana Chasmata Doom Metal
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
Tom Warrior has no business making albums this good, this late in his career. And yet, here it is. This album has such great riffs that it hurts. Despite their turbulent history, it shows that they still got it. The songs are a journey despite their lenghts, and very hypnotic and varied. The song black snow has one of my all time favorite riffs.
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ Best track: Black Snow Darkthrone - Old Star Black / Heavy metal
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
I love Darkthrone and i love all of their "eras," especially their earliest masterworks. They are so important that they are on display in the Norwegian history museum. But, this album i feel captures the best of both old and new Darkthrone. A return to form. The riffs are really good, hypnotic and the vocals are top notch. I always find myself coming back to this one. I think this was one of the first albums that i heard when i seriously started to explore the black metal genre.
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ Best track: Duke of Gloat Café del Mar, Vol. 13 Downtempo
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
This album is extremely special to me. In my childhood, i always visited the beaches of my hometown in Italy with my family. The beach bars always played music from this label. It became very nostalgic to me. Years later, i am sitting at this table near a lake with my Italian family. They are passionately discussing some BS, i'm eating my spaghetti, and the pasta truck near us puts this album on. This is what it means to truly live in the moment.
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ Best track: Mister Mista Slowdive - Pygmalion Ambient / Dream-Pop
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
A very divisive album. Normally people love Slowdive's main albums. And while i do too, this album hits different. I consider it the absolute perfect relaxing ambient albums out there. It is so insanely chill, there has not been any other artist that did it for me. These songs are super unique, avant-garde and very beautiful. I cannot get enough of it. The album truly feels like a dream.
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ Best track: Rutti Urfaust - Teufelsgeist Atmospheric black metal
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
When i think of "evil music" this album always comes to mind. The beginning track takes you on such a journey that it's almost hysterical. Then the "interlude" tracks of pure ambient atmospheric evilness are an absolute mood. This albums inspires me a lot when i draw. It's the perfect dark album that is actually tactful and artistically done.
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ Best track: Offerschaal der Astrologische Mengvormen Devin Townsend Project - Epicloud Alt / Prog metal
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
This is not usually the kind of music that i listen to, but i heard this album when i was in a listening party years ago, and it introduced me to Devin Townsend. It goes so hard, every song is so epic and emotional. The music does not feel corny and too theatrical like a lot of alt prog tend to do. The emotional tracks are really great and the high energy ones always pump me up, like the track More, and Kingdom.
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ Best track: Liberation Midnight Odyssey - Funerals From The Astral Sphere Atmospheric black metal
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
Wow, what a journey. From start to finish, this album tells a grand story, almost every track is iconic. The lyrics are also top-tier. Tracks like the title track always makes my imagination go wild, and Shores Serene makes me feel so melancholic. It makes you feel like you are on a grand cosmic adventure. The vocals are also very unique and strange, almost silly sometimes, but DP shows his best work when making instrumental tracks.
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ Best track: A Midnight Odyssey Opal Vessel - 深淵の反射 Ambient / Drone
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
This is, for me, the perfect dark ambient album. It's a silent hill themed album and my god it's so good. The tracks hit me deeply. It inspires me a lot in my drawing, and never fails to put me in the perfect atmospheric mood. It's so somber and ambient that it's almost suffocating. One of OV's best works.
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ Best track: The Order Heilung - Futha Neo-Pagan Folk
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
Heilung are so good at making unique and beautiful "rituals" with their music. Despite this being one of my favorite albums from them, i actually prefer the live versions of most of the songs. But this album is truly a ritual. It's unique, powerful, tribal and ambient. Put this on if you really want to get in a proper nordic ambient mood.
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ Best track: Hamrer Hippyer Orchestre National de Barbès - Poulina Arabic / Maghrebi Music
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
Definitely an odd one out in my library. I don't think i know of anyone else in my life who knows of likes this band besides me. Well, except my dad, who would play this album for me all the time when i was a kid. My dad has a really interesting music taste and i thank him for it. While i was with him as we both drove around Italy with him delivering mail, this album and the track Soudani was always playing. And i really like it.
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ Best track: SoudaniSLIFT - UMMON Heavy Psych
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
This album blew me away when i first heard it. I really love psych rock but rarely do they do it for me. This album however is so incredibly big and booming in it's sound, and the sound is so powerful, especially live. When the title tracks come on, you get so hyped, and when the main riff hits, my god you are thrown out of this world. this album in particular introduced me to Caza's great works, "The Bird of Dust," Which the music video and album art is a reference of.
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ Best track: Ummon Sanguinarius - Sin Astra Darkwave
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
Who would have thought that the guy who made the infamous "treats for beasts" spooky creepy video on YT would end up back on my radar with such a good album. This album is so underrated that it's sad. I prefer this much more to his first one. I have had Explorer and Temple on repeat for almost 2 months. It's the perfect blend of dark and melancholy, and emotional and powerful, and with a little bit of silliness mixed in there. It's quite an odd album, and that is a compliment.
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ Best track: Temple Éric Serra - Le Grand Bleu New Age / Smooth Jazz / Ambient
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━
I only had 3 tracks from this album on my old mp3 player from when i was a kid. And i don't even remember how. Then, years alter, i learned that they are from a movie, and the movie blew me away. But the music from said movie, wow. It introduced me to Éric Serra (who i misspelled as Epic sierra for years,) and their works. They might as well have used Epic as a stage name, because that's the perfect way to describe this album. I never heard anything like it. Just thinking about it now is actually making me a little emotional.
━━━━⊱⋆⊰━━━━ Best track: The Big Blue
