Negură Bunget - Om (Negura Bunget - Om)




Genre: Black Metal, Melodic Black Metal, elements of: Ambient
About: This is also one of the best albums of 2006. I feel that it captures the true spirit of Black Metal. And the production is crystal-clear unlike a lot of other 'true' black metal I've heard.

"Negură Bunget is a black metal band from Timişoara, Romania. The name is taken from archaic Romanian meaning ‘Black Foggy Forest’."

The best song is "Inarborat". Starts off a bit rocky sounding but i think that was intentional. The suicidal-ish scream that happens at 2:42 and again near the end is so amazing.


Year: 2006
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John McLaughlin - Industrial Zen




Genre: Guitar Virtuoso, Jazz, Fusion, Progressive Rock
About: This is awesome even if you don't think you like Jazz. I'd say one of the best albums of 2006. Plus, the best drummer ever is in it, Dennis Chambers.

Year: 2006
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Oathean - Ten Days In Lachrymation




Genre: Black Metal, Melodic Black Metal
About: Oathean is a melodic black metal band from Korea, similar to Sad Legend, Catamenia, Agathodaimon, etc. Track 11 is a cover of Ozzy Osbourne's "Mr. Crowley." Highly recommended.

Year: 2001
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Royal Hunt - Paradox II: Collision Course




Genre: Progressive Metal, Power Metal, elements of: Melodic Metal, Heavy Metal
About: Their first album with vocalist Mark Boals of Yngwie Malmsteen. He returns to some of the best vocals since he left YM in 2000. He has probably the best clean high screams I've heard. The band is from Denmark, though Mark Boals isnt.

Year: 2008
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Opeth - Watershed




Genre: Progressive Metal, Death Metal, elements of: All other types of metal
About: Honestly, If you haven't heard of Opeth, I don't even know how you're here. But if you have, you should expect this album to be epic, and it is. (They are touring this summer! :D)

Year: 2008
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Sarah Brightman - Symphony




Genre: Classical, Female-Fronted, elements of: Symphonic Metal, Gothic Metal
About: This is a cool album I don't know what else to say. If you're into these genres its a must-listen. It actually gives me the same vibe "My Winter Storm" by Tarja Turunen does. Track 4 is a duet with Andrea Bocelli and track 6 features Paul Stanley of the band Kiss. My favorites on here are track 6, 2, 10, and 13, in that order.

Year: 2008
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Vision Divine - Stream of Consciousness (Demos, with Fabio Lione)




Genre: Power Metal, elements of Progressive Metal
About: The last tracks recorded in this band with Fabio Lione of Rhapsody / Rhapsody of Fire singing. He quit the band before the actual album was recorded.

Year: 2004
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The future of the planet

Women Strike for Peace
Photo credit: Dot Marder. I worked at Women Strike for Peace in 1981-1982 and was 23 when this photo was taken.

(Inspired by the prompt from Sunday Scribblings.)

I grew up in the days of the Vietnam War. My mother taught in an inner-city high school and came home with almost daily reports on on-site violence. She also praised students who fought for their education against tremendous odds. Every day, it seemed, I heard about drug epidemics, riots, the war, the population explosion, massive pollution events, and hyperinflation.

I lived through my childhood in a state of almost constant terror and was fairly certain I wouldn't survive past my 20s. This year I turn 50, which to me means 20 years of pure gravy. I celebrated turning 30 in 1988 and I've been celebrating ever since -- even though I've lately felt a sense of dread about the future of this planet that I haven't felt in almost 40 years (continued)....

A major heart attack almost killed my mother in 1969, when I was 10 years old. She died in 1982, shortly after turning 57 and when I was 23. I've lost other people dear to me who died too young. At age 7 I almost lost my life in a major car accident. As a toddler I dreamt repeatedly that I was dead. No wonder my childhood fantasies included reincarnation as a component. No wonder mortality infuses my writing.

Shows like the History Channel's Mega-Disasters and National Geographic Channel's Six Degrees underscore my emotions. One moment the planet seems distressingly fragile, the next it seems miraculously resilient. One moment I'm learning about the latest archaeological and paleontological breakthroughs, the next moment I'm learning about how they could all be wiped out by one cataclysmic event or another, leaving me with questions like:

What happens to all we are and all we have created -- art, music, writing, theater, the works that live after us -- in the aftermath of global disaster?
and
How many people, species, environments, and everything they've generated, and of which the rest of us have never become aware, have already been lost?

Thoughts about planetary decline, species extinction, and personal mortality fuse at times like these. I often have trouble untangling the threads.

Mary and I try to address those factors within our control. We save and use our gray water. We try to strike a balance between incandescent and fluorescent bulbs. (The only reason why we haven't gone completely fluorescent is because we've heard that fluorescents should be on for 15 minutes or more to make up the difference in their higher energy startup costs. The lights we have on for only a minute or two at a time therefore remain incandescent.) Except for weed-whacking to appease the neighborhood association, we let Nature take care of the yard. We piggyback errands to get more accomplished in a single drive. Our dishwasher is our hands, we use a hand-cranked pressure washer for small laundry loads, and we dry our clothes before our refrigerator's air vent. (When we had gas heat up north, we used our oven's pilot light instead.) My treadmill is a NordicTrac WalkFit, which uses no electricity (that model seems discontinued; I wish they'd bring it back) -- and if there were a way for me to generate electricity from foot-power, I would. Apparently it can be done, at least for small appliances (see, for example, this article, and this one). We've got crank flashlights, crank radio, solar-powered lantern.

On our walks, Mary (more so than I) picks up fallen wheel weights and discarded batteries to keep lead and corrosives from contaminating the aquifer. She chases after wayward plastic bags and scoops up littered bottles and cans to wash and dispose of properly.

Baby steps, for sure. We can always do more.

I watch the battles overhead: crows driving marauding hawks away, mockingbirds driving marauding crows away. In our five years of living in Florida, I have never before seen so many hawks in our neighborhood. After three years of being a waystation for flocks of robins in late January, the flocks returned early, in December 2006, and we haven't seen them this year. We speculate about changes in migratory patterns.

The future of the planet plays a significant role in my attitude toward my writing and toward the industry. I've always had trouble reconciling the spiritual component of my craft with its business end and I try to educate myself in the latter. For me it's all pretty much an exercise in blind faith. I make my mudpies, show them off where I can, and hope readers can relate to my corner of the human condition.

A while back I answered a post from someone who had been published but who was dealing with the fear of submitting larger works. This person wrote:

"That desperate need to prove yourself but being deadly afraid of failing and hearing the I told you sos."

One of my favorite ads reappeared in the January/February 2008 issue of Poets & Writers Magazine. The ad is for the Author's Guild. It wasn't the Guild that caught my eye, but the way it advertised itself, beginning with:

"Kafka toiled in obscurity and died penniless. If only he'd had a website...."

I love the irony here. Did Kafka think he failed while he was alive? Maybe. Did people tell him, "I told you so," or the equivalent?

Maybe.

Look at the attention he gets now. He and his works are remembered long after he's dead. I wanna be like him when I grow up and push daisies.

Another quote I love comes from Henry Petroski, PhD, PE, who is the Aleksandar S. Vesic Professor of Civil Engineering at Duke University. Among other works, Petroski is the author of Success Through Failure: The Paradox of Design (Princeton University Press, 2006).

In an interview with Jeff Stein, AIA, in the May/June 2007 issue of Architecture Boston, he said:

"If we copy success, the eventual result is going to be failure. We don't often understand fully why successful designs work. And they often mask potential failures. No matter how closely we follow successful models, designing something new involves new conditions that require changes in the design."

Petroski was talking about engineering, but for me his quote holds a universal appeal. Following the beat of one's own drummer courts failure. Exploring new avenues and improvising court failure. But taking the well-trodden, "safe" path -- the "successful" path -- also courts failure.

Given those odds, I'd say follow your gut and your heart.

Several years ago I listened to a panel discussion about how SF print runs on average have plummeted for both books and magazines. Years ago, what authors lacked in pay they got in circulation. Now the circulation is also largely gone. And the pay per word has in many cases gotten worse than when I was published 20+ years ago, not counting the effects of inflation.

We might be looking at a collapsing industry and precipitous declines in readership. But we might also be looking at global warming, asteroidal impact, pandemics, and any one or more of a number of disasters that result in massive species extinctions and the fall of civilization as we know it. So even the long term might be moot. In the end we're all a bunch of dust.

So, in the spirit of all that potential futility, I write anyway and send my stuff out. What the heck.

Sergei Rachmaninoff is a cautionary tale for me. From the liner notes for his First Symphony on my CD of Ashkenazy conducting the Concertgebouw:

"It was a fiasco. It earned the composer notices that were almost unqualifiedly unfavorable ... and undermined his confidence in himself as a creator ... for nearly three years. Happily, in 1900 the ministrations of Dr. Nikolai Dahl, a Moscow neurologist who specialised in a type of hypnosis-therapy, led to the spectacular resurgence of creative power which produced the Second Piano Concerto. The First Symphony was not performed again nor the full score ... published in the composer's lifetime." (Christopher Palmer)

Look at it (or listen to it) now. It's a much-beloved classic.

I wrote to the person who posted, "I believe that as creators we must take the long view because, in my not-so-humble opinion, creativity is larger, much larger, than the people who channel it. It's not about us and never was. It's about the Work."

And then there's the tremendous wisdom of Marge Piercy in her poem "For the young who want to," at http://rpo.library.utoronto.ca/poem/1610.html.

Whether or not my work survives for any length, or I do, or the planet does, all three are where I live. So I hang onto my blind faith, do what I can to be part of the solution instead of part of the problem, and keep on keepin' on.

Covenant, the first volume in the Deviations Series, is available from Aisling Press, and from AbeBooks, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Book Territory, Borders, Buecher.ch, Buy.com, DEAstore, libreriauniversitaria.it, Libri.de, Loot.co.za, Powell's Books, and Target. The Deviations page has additional details.


Norther - N




Genre: Melodic Death Metal, elements of Power Metal
About: It seems like One of those albums you'll either love or hate, based on reviews (a good example of which being St. Anger by Metallica... though this is not at all similar to that album). The singer is also in Ensiferum, who I just saw live last night. :D The best song in my opinion is "We Rock".

Year: 2008
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Týr - Land ( Tyr - Land )




Genre: Progressive Metal, Viking Metal, Folk Metal
About: I just saw them live last night, great show. Very unique band, give it a try if you're in for something new.
"Týr is a Viking Metal band from Faroe Islands. Its music can be described as a blend of viking, folk, and even hints of progressive metal. The band incorporates many folk elements and melodies in their songs, but the thing that makes Týr stand out is the musical inclusion of the island’s native folk structure. Týr’s songs include many rhythm changes and complex time signatures."

Retail album, not the promo with someone saying "You are listening to..." every few minutes!

Year: 2008
Download Pt 1
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Perambulations

Ibis Parade
Ibis parade in a neighbor's yard

The role of poetry in dynamical systems, the role of the real estate bust in attempts to save the manatee, and upcoming publication and convention doings (continued)....

Thanks to Anna Lovrics, doctoral student at the University of Nottingham, UK, for including my poem "Algebraic Sestina for the Ocean" (originally posted here) in her article, "What is the connection between poetry and maths?" The article appears in the March 2008 issue of STEM Newsletter of the Wolfson Centre for Stem Cells, Tissue Engineering and Modelling at U. Nottingham.

Lovrics reported on the 49th British Applied Mathematics Colloquium, where she first learned about the sestina form in a Dynamical Systems session. I think it's way cool that a math colloquium that included applications in biology and engineering also included poetry -- and a musical performance as well. Anna also included her photograph of the Giant's Causeway in Ireland (similar to this shot from the University of Ulster), whose natural formations tie everything together beautifully.

April is National Poetry Month in the US. I received the newsletter in time to show it to Madelyn Eastlund at the Robert Frost appreciation she conducted at the Central Ridge Library. She also conducted a Walt Whitman appreciation and emceed a poetry awards session for contests geared toward schoolchildren. From the library's announcement:

"Madelyn Eastlund has been a freelance writer and poet for over 50 years. As Madelyn Eastlund Hickey, she was editor of the Beverly Hills Visitor in the 1990s. She was an instructor for 'Creative Writing' and 'Writing Poetry' in her home state of New York as well as here in Citrus County. For the past 24 years she has directed monthly workshops for the Gingerbread Poets Chapter of the Florida State Poets Association. Ms. Eastlund is past president of Florida State Poets Association (1984-1988) and also past president of National Federation Of State Poetry Societies, Inc. (2002-2004). She was the keynote speaker at the 2007 NFSPS Annual Convention, held in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. She is editor for Poets' Forum Magazine and also for Harp-Strings Poetry Journal (both Verdure Publications) for the past 19 years. Ms. Eastlund has assisted the Citrus County Library System with their youth poetry program for many years."

Robert Frost Appreciation given by Madelyn Eastlund

I am also fortunate to call Madelyn a neighbor and a good friend. Her format for the Frost tribute interspersed a biographical lecture with readings. Each audience member had a chance to read a favorite Frost poem. Madelyn asked us for our preferences ahead of time and then matched the tone of the poems with the events in Frost's life.

My choice was a poem I'd discovered only the night before the tribute and which blew me away. Many people think of Frost as a gentle, avuncular sort who wrote of peaceful New England farm life. But he had his rebellious, cantankerous side. When I found "The Bonfire" I thought its message at the end was as relevant today as when it first appeared in 1920 in his collection Mountain Interval. And it fit a quote of Frost's that I love, "Poetry is a way of taking life by the throat."

I read "Algebraic Sestina..." at Woodview Coffeehouse earlier this month, where I learned about Three Sisters Springs in Chassahowitzka (pronounced "Chaz-uh-WITZ-ka"). The property has been slated for development, but the real estate bust provides the best opportunity yet for it to be purchased for conservation.

Says Savethemanatee.org, "Three Sisters Springs is a complex of three spring areas, with many vents and sand boils that help feed Kings Bay, the headwaters of Crystal River in Citrus County, Florida. These springs also constitute one of the most important natural warm-water refuges for the endangered Florida manatee." The current property owners have plans to develop the property's 57 acres of land into "residences and multi-family residences as well as the potential removal of 'spring water' to be bottled from the borrow pit dug in the 1980s....These same owners have also stated that they would be willing to sell the property for the right price and, in particular, are looking for it to be managed by the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service for the Crystal River National Wildlife Refuge. This refuge was initially established solely for the protection of the Florida manatee."

Recently the Crystal River City Council unanimously agreed to to take a leadership role to try to save the property from development. The Southwest Florida Water Management District ("Swiftmud") is performing an appraisal to see if the property qualifies for financial assistance from the water district. According to this article by the Citrus County Chronicle editorial board, "This issue of buying Three Sisters Springs has come up about a dozen times in the past 25 years, and it has never been successful. This is truly the last chance Citrus County has to preserve one of the most important assets in our community."

A hint of silver lining amidst economic doldrums.

Next month my story "Hermit Crabs" appears in Electric Velocipede #14. Click here for a sneak preview of Lisa Snellings-Clark's terrific cover.

EV #14 will debut at WisCon, the world's leading feminist science fiction convention. I'll be attending WisCon for the first time and am scheduled for several panels, have signed up for a reading, and will be at the Broad Universe book table. I hadn't been back to a con in almost 20 years until Necronomicon in 2006, so I am very much looking forward to this! (I'll be at Necro this year as well.)

Three days after I arrive home from Madison, WI, I'll get my first look at the Florida panhandle when I drive to The Wrath of Con in Panama City Beach. This is an Aisling Press event, so I'll be with staff and fellow Aisling authors at the sales table(s). More events and travel follow these conventions. You can find schedule updates here.


Covenant, the first volume in the Deviations Series, is available from Aisling Press, and from AbeBooks, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Book Territory, Borders, Buecher.ch, Buy.com, DEAstore, libreriauniversitaria.it, Libri.de, Loot.co.za, Powell's Books, and Target. The Deviations page has additional details.


Dark Flood - The Dead Lines




Genre: Melodic Death Metal
About: "The melodies present highly significant role on The Dead Lines by bringing even some indie-pop influences into the melodic death metal scene. The band refuses to categorize itself as only a death metal band because of the members´ interests in emotional music, such as Mew and Tori Amos for example. Yet it is not only about grieving - The Dead Lines also shows more heavier and darker side of the band than before. The album is not necessarily for those who seek the average musical brutality. The songs are images of a wretched side of life itself for every incurable realist." -Stolen from somewhere :)

Year: 2006
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The Old Dead Tree - The Water Fields




Genre: Doom Metal, Gothic Metal
About: Extremely solid album. I recommend to all.

Year: 2007
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Pelican - After The Ceiling Cracked




Genre: Progressive Metal, Instrumental, Sludge, Post-Rock, Live
About: This is one of those bands that doesn't fit into just one category. Very original, very unique, and I just bought tickets to see them in 3 weeks so I thought I'd post this live album from 2008. It's a DVD but someone ripped the audio I guess. Note: Recording is quiet. Easily fixed by right clicking the song in itunes, get info, options, volume adjustment.

Year: 2008
Download pt 1
Download pt 2

Muse Fuel

Heifetz Plays Korngold and Lalo
Heifetz Plays Korngold and Lalo. From my collection of LPs that I grew up with.

(For the Sunday Scribblings prompt, "Compose.")

The link for me between music and writing goes back to preadolescence. I'd spent countless hours lying on the living room rug between my parents' stereo speakers, watching "home movies" unfold in my head. Before my maternal grandmother gifted me with a set of headphones when I went off to college, I experienced "telepathic stereo" (as I called it when I was a child) by tuning two radios to the same station and holding one against each ear.... (continued)

I came across this prompt two days after I received a CD that includes John Adams's Shaker Loops, which I'd gotten to update my recording on cassette dating from 1983. Adams's liner notes accompanying the CD mentions the music's role in the movie Barfly (which I have not yet seen), about poet Charles Bukowski. Adams writes of how Bukowski (Mickey Rourke) "holes up in a flophouse room, writing poems in a fit of inspiration to the accompaniment of the insistent buzz of 'Shaking and Trembling'" -- the first movement of the piece.

Shaker Loops drove the writing of my story "Arachne," which first appeared in the Nov./Dec. 1988 issue of Aboriginal Science Fiction and will be reprinted in the anthology Riffing on Strings: Creative Writing Inspired by String Theory (S. Miller & S. Verma, Eds., Scriblerus Press, June 2008). When I wrote "Arachne" I was headphoned into the cassette tape, which I played repeatedly. Shaker Loops proved the perfect vehicle to transport me into the story. (My process of writing "Arachne," more involved than some, is covered in this entry.)

Music is Muse fuel for me. I can point to individual stories, scenes, and characters linked to a musical "theme." I titled "Another Place" (Amazing, May 1988) after the track by the fusion jazz group Hiroshima, which I also played repeatedly while writing that story. (Thank goodness we now have digital music and auto-repeat!) I wrote much of Appetite, the sequel to Covenant in my Deviations series (and which will be released later this year) to the music of Einojuhani Rautavaara. The CD I have of his Cantus Arcticus, Piano Concerto #1, and Symphony #3 perfectly suited the book's winter settings.

Individual scenes driven by particular musical compositions include one in the early part of Covenant, fueled by Michael Torke's Ash, and one near the end, fueled by Peter Sculthorpe's Kakadu. Individual characters with their own themes include one who answered to Maurice Durufle's Messe Cum Jubilo (especially "Sanctus") and another who answered to the second movement of Rachmaninoff's Piano Concerto #4. Sometimes, if I was stuck figuring out the next scene, all I had to do was clear my mind and wait for the right "theme" to start playing in my head and that would direct me. I'd then hunt for the CD, pop it in, and let the visions do the rest. Sometimes I got insights about character relationships by listening to the music I associated with them, one piece after the other.

Late 19th and early 20th century classical music dominated the LPs in the house where I grew up. Those "old friends" included works by Isaac Albeniz, Samuel Barber, Bela Bartok, Hector Berlioz, Aaron Copland, Claude Debussy, Manuel DeFalla, Frederick Delius, Edward Elgar, Gabriel Faure, George Gershwin, Alberto Ginastera, Paul Hindemith, Gustav Holst, Alan Hovhaness, Charles Ives, Dmitri Kabalevsky, Aram Khachaturian, Zoltan Kodaly, Erich Wolfgang Korngold, Sergei Prokofiev, Sergei Rachmaninoff, Maurice Ravel, Ottorino Respighi, Camille Saint-Saens, Alexander Scriabin, Dmitri Shostakovich, Richard Strauss, Igor Stravinsky, Ralph Vaughan-Williams, and others.

Over the years I've added my own discoveries to the repertoire, including but not limited to William Alwyn, Arnold Bax, Leo Brouwer, John Corigliano, Philip Glass, Howard Hanson, Herbert Howells, Joseph Jongen, Witold Lutoslawski, Olivier Messiaen, Steve Reich, Ned Rorem, Albert Roussel, Miklos Rosza, Ravi Shankar, and William Grant Still, in addition to Adams, Durufle, Rautavaara, Skulthorpe, and Torke. I'd grown up with and use works of composers from earlier eras as well, like the "three Bs" (Bach, Beethoven, and Brahms). Some of my current novel draft is fueled on Beethoven and Mahler. I've also used jazz, rock, and world beat music as background to my writing.

A short story I'm currently drafting draws its musical fuel in part from music the story itself sent me to find. In my search for something my characters would listen to, I came across and downloaded Tempo 70's "El Galleton," which can be found here.

I am indebted to those who compose music, whose creative energies aid me in composing words.


Covenant, the first volume in the Deviations Series, is available from Aisling Press, and from AbeBooks, Amazon, Barnes and Noble, Book Territory, Borders, Buecher.ch, Buy.com, DEAstore, libreriauniversitaria.it, Libri.de, Loot.co.za, Powell's Books, and Target. The Deviations page has additional details.


Nile - Ithyphallic (Digipak, bonus tracks)




Genre: Death Metal, Melodic Death Metal, Brutal Technical Death Metal
About: Death Metal perfection. This is probably the deepest Death Metal album you will ever find, plus theres an Egyptian flair this band adds to the music. They are from Greenville, South Carolina. And in case you are wondering, "Ithyphallic" means Erected Phallus in ancient greek, though Nile has adapted the term to mean something like 'technical.'

Year: 2007
Download pt 1
Download pt 2

Power Quest - Master of Illusion




Genre: Power Metal, Melodic Metal
About: Pretty straightforward Power Metal, from England. A little heavier than previous efforts but not to the point that I consider it 'Heavy Metal'.

Year: 2008
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Thrice - The Alchemy Index Vols. 3 & 4: Air & Earth, Vols. 1 & 2: Fire & Water




Genre: Progressive Rock, Emo, Post-Hardcore
About: This band started out as a fairly generic emo/post-hardcore band but has since found their own very unique sound. This 4-part concept album (First half released 2007, second half released April 2008) is split into 4 parts: Fire, Water, Air, Earth, and each part has a unique sound. This album is closer to Progressive Rock than anything else in my opinion, but it doesn't fit into any one category. This is a must-listen for fans of these genres.

Year: 2007, 2008
Download Vol. 1: Fire
Download Vol. 2: Water
Download Vol. 3: Air
Download Vol. 4: Earth

Sofa Surfers - See the Light ( Sofa Surfers - Encounters )

See the Light
Sofa Surfers

Genre: Trip-Hop, Electronic
About: This is a re-release of "Encounters" from 2002, with small changes (Tracks 6,10 removed from Encounters and replaced with these tracks 1,2,14). If you don't know what Trip-Hop is, check this out.

Year: 2004
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Lordi - The Arockalypse




Genre: Hard Rock, Heavy Metal
About: Heavy as #(*$ and probably the most interesting voice I've ever heard.

Year: 2006
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Tarja Turunen - My Winter Storm ( Tarja - My Winter Storm )




Genre: Symphonic Metal, Gothic Metal, Female-Fronted
About: Former Singer of Nightwish. She is very operatic, and this is likely the most beautiful album of 2007. But it also has plenty of heavy parts like "My Little Phoenix" and "Ciaran's Well".

Year: 2007
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Metallica - Master of Puppets




Genre: Thrash Metal, Heavy Metal
About: A true classic. Metallica did not invent thrash metal but they perfected it with this album.

Year: 1986
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Eternal Tears of Sorrow - Before the Bleeding Sun




Genre: Melodic Death Metal
About: If you are not 'into' this genre, this will get you into it. This album is a masterpiece of modern music. Stand-outs are "Red Dawn Rising" and "Sinister Rain".

Year: 2006
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