Paul Gilbert's album sounds nice. The man is one hell of a musician and that is plain for all to see after a couple of spins. Nevertheless this is your typical "enjoy the experience once" album since, apart from the great hooks and performance, there's not much going on around here regarding memorable song composition. Already gave my two cents about Skid Row's first album and although it's a virtual tie I'll go with Paul Gilbert as a charity vote.
I really think Slipknot is one of the most overrated bands ever in metal. When they came up I immediately disliked Corey Taylor's half screaming half rap metal voice (the melodic tones sound alright though) and the overall pointless juvenile plastic aggressive edge of the band. When the second album (for all accounts) came out I must confess I was a bit more fond of the material. More concise, heavy, a bit less nu-metalesque while featuring an even more amazing drum work than its predecessor. But all the traits I disliked before were still there (although to lesser extent). So yeah... in the nightmare universe of awful music that is nu metal, Iowa has some cool passages and this is material that towers miles above the Coal Chambers and similar acts of the world. But let's face it: that´s a pretty low bar. And in the end Iowa is just a mediocre album with some good moments here and there that was propelled to "masterpiece quality level" by the immensely huge image and marketing machine behind the band. As for Baroness's Red you all know by now I really like it so it's a no brainer when it comes to my pick.
Ahhhhhh... Tomb Of The Mutilated. Now this is the stuff romantic songs are made of eheheheh. Ok... although I really love some brutal death metal stuff the Cannibal Corpse "disease" never infected me (with the only exception being The Bleeding). And yeah... I can see where the appeal came from: shocking over the top and almost comical horror lyrics and aesthetics alongside brutal and well played extreme music. Nevertheless Tomb failed to impress me as the vast majority of Cannibal's catalogue. And while the more than famous Hammer Smashed Face is a great track and so is I Cum Blood (perhaps the band's most hilarious title ever) then it all starts sounding ultra repetitive and boring. So while I understand how this record is ultra appealing... nah! IMO there's always been better ultra brutal stuff out there. On the other hand you all know how much I dig Vivid so Living Color it is.
Finally I also won't repeat myself on how i love Oceanic. But this time it has found a really fierce competitor. I knew Pantera with Cowboys From Hell and liked them a lot from the get go. Then Vulgar came along and loved it even more. Unlike many people I always disliked Walk and This Love (find them boring and uninspired) but man... songs like Mouth For War, Rise and Hollow were way heavier, really unique and amazing stuff. Comes '94 and I remember as it was today: I bought this on tape the day it came out (still have it) went home and hit the play button. What I heard was one of the most corrosive, in your face, let's-throw-riffs-that-hurt-like-bricks-to-your-eardrums that I ever experienced. Strength Beyond Strength's hardcore edge opens the album in a masterful fashion destroying everything (that breakdown in the middle is absolutely crushing). On Becoming Darrel's whammy riffage continues the onslaught and 5 Minutes Alone and I'm Broken are two examples of amazing groove infused heaviness reinvented for the 90's. Then things come to an alt with the WTF moment that is Good Friends and the somehow boring Hard Lines. After that the whole damn thing gets a whole different ambiance. Comes the absurdly heavy Slaughtered (perhaps the heaviest track on the record) and another brutal display in the form of Use My Third Arm. Now the following tracks see the band dwelling into more intimate, obscure and tense stuff, especially on the lyrical side. 25 Years, Shedding Skin and Throes Of Rejection are the first songs where Anselmo really spills his guts about some of his (many) ghosts, a trait that would be even more prominent in the following record. As a closer the band offer us tan awesome version of Planet Caravan. So to sum it up Far Beyond Driven was, for many years, my favorite Pantera album (some years ago it became TGST). Nowadays I rarely pick it up and only listen to Pantera far between. Don't get me wrong: while still liking the band tons and thinking they're one of metal's most incredible units when it came to compose heavy songs, my love for this genre of music really decreased substantially with time. But make no mistake: Far Beyond Driven was an album that defined an era and was the most daring evolution the band went through since they dropped their heavy/speed metal songs on Power Metal to a heavier and more unique sound in Cowboys From Hell. This is classic as classic can be (and definitely the heaviest thing to ever reach the BB #1 ... still wonder how to this very day!). And while curiously I listen more to Isis's Oceanic nowadays I obviously give Pantera my vote for all the reasons above.
