Let it be known: it’s taken literally WEEKS to come to terms with my feelings on this album and then even longer to find the words to describe those feelings. No album up to this point has taken as long to survey as this one; I’ve had practically entire nights dedicated to rehearsing in my mind how I should explain my thoughts. Here, finally, is my attempt to actually explain myself in writing.

My involvement with Dear Agony starts with the fact that nibchan and StarPiece both love Breaking Benjamin. And I mean absolutely LOVE them. There was a period…

I liked It's Blitz! a whole lot, and even though I knew beforehand that their first album sounds markedly different from that one, I dove in and expected to like what I heard. Well, expectations were a bit unfulfilled at first, haha - it wasn't until the second listen that I really started appreciating it. I've found that the first two tracks don't really pull me in (but maybe they'll grow on me, too?), but starting with Man and going forward, it's all great stuff. Between Karen O and the guitars (something to note about em: like The White Stripes…

Hearing this, I now know that the naming of my fake Rock Band band, White Stripes, is fully justified. When this album hits the mark, it absolutely rules!! It sounds so lively, and sometimes batshit insane. Even though Meg is no technician behind the drums, she makes up for it in raw power. And I really like how the guitars pack so much of a low end, effectively stealing away the job of a bass guitar. Plus, Icky Thump gets extra points for having an Irish jig, Prickly Thorn, But Sweetly Worn.

Favorites: 300 M.P.H. Torrential Outpour Blues,…

Josh Homme and Dave Grohl have reunited a good seven years after working together on the best Queens of the Stone Age album, Songs For The Deaf, and they've joined with a legend, Led Zeppelin's John Paul Jones, to fill out the rest of the rhythm section. Theoretically, something good should be coming out of this partnership. And that's despite the fact that this is a supergroup, for Josh and Dave are highly experienced with side projects. In practice, something good DOES result, which is Them Crooked Vultures! The real question, then, is HOW good?

So, the first…

Most postgrunge rock has caught very little interest from me with just a few exceptions, so it's kind of a coup that I ended up really interested in Shinedown via Devour. Probably a huge coup, actually, since the samples I've heard from their previous two albums interest me very little. How the hell THIS album got some sharp fucking teeth compared to what I've glanced of their earlier stuff, I don't know, but it works excellently. Even some of the softer songs like Second Chance and The Crow & The Butterfly have enough color and straight-up songwriting goods to…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H02iwWCrXew

Electronica doesn't have to be all high-energy, all the time. In fact, it can even be quite…mellow. This is the realm that Röyksopp - who some of you may have gotten exposure to via Remind Me, which was featured in Geico commercials - often inhabits on Melody A.M. I had been meaning to get this album for a good while, but it wasn't until I took advantage of an iTunes gift card and the cheap buying price (only $6.99!) that I actually did so. And I'm happy that I did!

So, going into the actual music…

Up until very recently, it's the only Radiohead album I didn't listen to. I chose to stay away from it because this is the one with Creep on it. But when nibchan got it, I decided to borrow it because, ultimately, why hate an album that I've only heard one track from? Having now listened to Pablo Honey, I must say that it's better than I was expecting, considering Creep is the only song from it that I really dislike. It's still not top-form Radiohead, though, since the overall production style hasn't aged well, which does no favors to what…

I think my album-listening experience with this one suffered since I had listened to many of its tracks beforehand, so there was not much new to discover. And most of the tracks that WERE new discoveries were either just pretty bad or didn't live up to the previously-heard tracks. Big offenders: their shot at delicacy, Soldier's Poem, and their super-empowering anthem, Invincible, which both fall flat.

Ultimately, however, it must be pretty good, because I like all but three tracks. Plus, who am I to argue against the digitized Supermassive Black Hole, the techno/trance-infused Map Of The Problematique,…

There are only five metal records at this point that I have. Of those five, Mastodon takes up three of them, Crack The Skye included in that total, and that's because they're awesome. Having now listened to their latest, I'm feeling it a LOT. It doesn't have the same degree of aggressiveness or guitar sludginess as their earlier work, instead putting a significantly greater emphasis on dreamlike, otherworldly sonic textures.

And WOW, do they pull the sound off well! They already did single songs with this kind of emphasis on texture (quite well, in fact) with Naked Burn and Sleeping…

One thing that I didn't mention in my thoughts on the first The Fame, but which bears being told now, was that contrary to the impression given off by all the most widely known singles from the first, about just 6 of the 16 tracks were modern pop in that vein. Pretty much the rest of the album leaned retro. And of those 6 tracks, the only one I'd call really great is Paparazzi, with Poker Face and Money Honey trailing somewhat closely behind. Thus, around The Fame, her non-retro stuff was fairly half-baked.

Then The Fame Monster…