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- Devin Townsend - Ziltoid the Omniscient
- Robert Plant and Alison Krauss - Raising Sand
- N.I.N. - Year Zero
- Neil Young - Chrome Dreams II
- The Bad Plus - Prog
- Alex Skolnick Trio - Last Day In Paradise
- Steve Vai - Sound Theories
- Rush - Snakes & Arrows
- Porcupine Tree - Fear of a Blank Planet
- Explosions in the Sky - All of a Sudden I Miss Everyone
- Eddie Vedder - Into The Wild
In that order, I think.
Honourable Mentions
- Metheny/Mehldau Quartet
- Tomahawk - Anonymous
- Dominici - O3 A Trilogy Part 2
- Symphony X - Paradise Lost
- Paradise Lost - In Requiem
- Black Snake Moan OST
- Radiohead - In Rainbows
- Ministry - The Last Sucker
- Kanno Yoko - Smooth in the Shell
- Megadeth - United Abominations
Good, not great.
Disappointments of the Year
- Dream Theater - Systematic Chaos
- Foo Fighters - Echoes, Silence, Patience & Grace
- Type O Negative - Dead Again
- Velvet Revolver - Libertad
These albums are not bad. They just fall short of my admittedly high expectations.
Dishonourable Mention
- Smashing Pumpkins - Zeitgeist
Not even "so bad, its good", just mediocre.
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I'm a huge Devin Townsend fan and the song that made me an instant convert was Touching Tongues, from Vai's Sex & Religion. Here's a wonderful live performance from 1993.
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How do you cover one of the most bombastic rock songs of the 80s? If you are Slovenian industrial group Laibach, you make it more bombastic. Remade as some kind of a Wagnerian/disco mutant love-child with spoken lyrics, operatic female backing vocals and an over-the-top CGI music video, its got it all.