Despite my love for music, I don't post very much in this section. Here I go.
My music taste is all over the place, I don't stick to one genre nor artist, I try my best to hover around different artists and music and find a new favorite album to grind for a month. I kept this post in the genre of Rock/Metal. The following albums consist of classics (on my part) and fairly new finds.
City Of Evil - Avenged Sevenfold
Straying away from their metalcore roots, A7X (Avenged Sevenfold) released City Of Evil with hopes of catering to a bigger demographic of metalheads. A7X went to producing incredibly complex music with immaculate songwriting, melodic and virtuous solos and catchy choruses while still being heavy. This gave them the flair and flamboyance to make it to the top of the billboards. Despite being my favorite album from the group, I didn't really go back this far until @Reid99 pushed it upon me. I'm grateful that he did. Avenged Sevenfold looked at their influences for this album, including Metallica, Iron Maiden, Slayer and many more.
Highlight of the album - Sidewinder
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A sub-progressive metal track that metaphorically represents the life of a person generally referred to and known as a "snake." Traitorous and selfish. This song introduces progressive metal into their discography, using unconventional song structuring and odd styles not often seen in the genre, even touching on a style known as flamenco nearing the end of the song. One of my favorites from the album, second to "Beast And The Harlot."
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Ride The Lightning - Metallica
Ahhh.. Metallica, heavy/thrash metal titans alongside Slayer, Megadeth and Anthrax. This albums sticks to Metallica's thrash roots with intense percussion and fast and heavy riffs, but steps into a different light, showcasing their musical growth and sophisticated lyricism through the introduction of slower melodies, breaking away from the heavy dependence on fast tempo seen on Kill Em' All (debut album). This was also done through the introduction of different instruments (most notably the acoustic guitar), more harmonic sections and the writing of more complex arrangements. This album mainly focuses on adaptions (storytelling) of many different pieces of literature as well as touching on topics such as his past, suicide and war. I've listened to most of Metallica's content, and this is the best album by far. Their discography isn't as flawless in my eyes, but they're still totally legendary.
Highlight of the album - Fade to Black
This song is really a testament to their musical growth. Fade to black is Metallica's first ballad, a complex (given their past content) and beautifully composed masterpiece. The intro and main riff used in all the verses is legendary in the world of Metallica due to it being one of the first songs to introduce acoustic elements in the discography. The refrain in-between verses is heavier, using the classic Metallica distorted guitar, the sound that they're popular for today. The song ends with a totally awesome two minute solo. The song is about suicide. James Hetfield (vocalist) and the rest of the band were going through tough times while writing this song, as all their music gear had been stolen and he was thrown out of his manager's house. Metallica had to start from ground zero, they couldn't make music even if they wanted to, this put James Hetfield in a hole specifically because his first amp which held heavy sentimental value was also stolen. This song sets the bar high for the rest of Metallica's discography, and for the most part, they've delivered. This song in particular is worth the listen.