Narrow my search:
From
HI-RES$69.79
CD$63.09
Over-Nite Sensation
Frank Zappa
Rock - Released September 1, 1973 | Frank Zappa Catalog
Hi-Res
Booklet
Love it or hate it, Over-Nite Sensation was a watershed album for Frank Zappa, the point where his post-'60s aesthetic was truly established; it became his second gold album, and most of these songs became staples of his live shows for years to come. Whereas the Flo and Eddie years were dominated by rambling, off-color comedy routines, Over-Nite Sensation tightened up the song structures and tucked sexual and social humor into melodic, technically accomplished heavy guitar rock with jazzy chord changes and funky rhythms; meanwhile, Zappa's growling new post-accident voice takes over the storytelling. While the music is some of Zappa's most accessible, the apparent callousness and/or stunning sexual explicitness of "Camarillo Brillo," "Dirty Love," and especially "Dinah-Moe Humm" leave him on shaky aesthetic ground. Zappa often protested that the charges of misogyny leveled at such material missed out on the implicit satire of male stupidity, and also confirmed intellectuals' self-conscious reticence about indulging in dumb fun; however, the glee in his voice as he spins his adolescent fantasies can undermine his point. Indeed, that enjoyment, also evident in the silly wordplay, suggests that Zappa is throwing his juvenile crassness in the face of critical expectation, asserting his right to follow his muse even if it leads him into blatant stupidity (ironic or otherwise). One can read this motif into the absurd shaggy-dog story of a dental floss rancher in "Montana," the album's indisputable highlight, which features amazing, uncredited vocal backing from Tina Turner and the Ikettes. As with much of Zappa's best '70s and '80s material, Over-Nite Sensation could be perceived as ideologically problematic (if you haven't got the constitution for FZ's humor), but musically, it's terrific.© Steve Huey /TiVo
From
HI-RES$15.09
CD$13.09
Formentera II
Metric
Alternative & Indie - Released October 13, 2023 | Metric Music International, Inc.
Hi-Res
From
HI-RES$18.09
CD$15.69
The Likes of Us
Big Big Train
Rock - Released March 1, 2024 | InsideOutMusic
Hi-Res
The Likes of Us is the 15th studio album from veteran British prog outfit Big Big Train and follows their 2023 release Ingenious Devices. The album is the first to feature frontman Alberto Bravin and the first to be released on InsideOut Music. Recorded in Italy, The Likes of Us continues with the band’s classic prog sound while also pushing it forward.© Rich Wilson /TiVo
From
HI-RES$16.59
CD$14.39
Typhoons
Royal Blood
Rock - Released April 30, 2021 | Warner Records
Hi-Res
The third album from Royal Blood, Typhoons, unites the rock core of previous releases with new elements, including a dance-rock turn, and even hints of disco on some tracks. The Independent praised the album, comparing Royal Blood to Daft Punk! Oblivion is a fine example of this new direction, with a spartan, synthetic rhythm that manages to be both oppressive and danceable at the same time. This feeling permeates the 11 tracks that make up the album. Limbo is a relentless dancefloor beast, with a feverish disco bent. But it's on Boilermaker that producer Josh Homme really makes his presence felt. On this track we find all the ingredients responsible for the searing flavour of Homme's Queens of the Stone Age. Typhoons is a record that is just bursting with pleasure. This might reflect the glee that Mike Kerr and Ben Thatcher feel in wrong-footing everyone who had pigeonholed them into a particular style. After a spin on the disco ball, the duo finish with a rather subdued All We Have Is Now, a piano ballad which urges us to follow the band in truly appreciating the present before it runs through our fingers. The present moment is, after all, for better or worse, all that we have left when the typhoons have passed us by. © Yan Céh/Qobuz
From
HI-RES$16.59
CD$14.39
The Fall of the Shires
Oblivion Protocol
Metal - Released August 18, 2023 | Atomic Fire Records
Hi-Res
From
HI-RES$16.59
CD$14.39
The Sin and the Sentence
Trivium
Rock - Released October 20, 2017 | Roadrunner Records
Hi-Res
The Florida-based decibel pushers continue their sonic metamorphosis from thrash-blasted metalcore to melody-driven (almost) trad-metal on Sin and the Sentence, their eighth full-length effort and first studio outing with touring drummer Alex Bent. If 2015's Silence in the Snow marked Trivium's deep dive into arena rock, then Sin and the Sentence is the free fall; a perfectly formed horned hand framed by a smoldering wall of pyrotechnics. It may have taken eight albums to get there, but the band has never sounded more confident, delivering a positively lethal 11-song set that strikes the perfect balance between unhinged and meticulously crafted. The addition of Bent, a powerhouse, hammer-of-the-gods-style kit man, and the newfound conviction of vocalist Matt Heafy, seem to have put a charge into the group. The riffage is meaner and leaner, and the songs themselves -- especially the singles "Heart from Your Hate" and the combustible title track -- feel both lived-in and visceral, with highlights arriving via the serpentine, gang-vocal-led "Beyond Oblivion" and the throat-mangling closer "Thrown Into the Fire." Produced with significant sonic heft by Josh Wilbur (Lamb of God, All That Remains), Sin and the Sentence is the perfect distillation of Trivium's myriad attempts at bending the genre to their will. It's vintage Metallica by way of System of a Down, with enough Maiden-esque melodies percolating underneath to please even the most ardent old-school headbanger, but what's most impressive is that, despite all of the obvious influences, it finally sounds like them. The band's detractors jumped ship years ago, but for those who have stuck around for the long haul, Sin and the Sentence is here to pay some dividends.© James Christopher Monger /TiVo
From
CD$19.76
Oblivion (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
M83
Film Soundtracks - Released April 9, 2013 | Back Lot Music
From
HI-RES$18.19
CD$15.79
Crack the Skye
Mastodon
Metal - Released December 3, 2008 | Reprise
Hi-Res
First off, a warning: the best way to encounter Mastodon's Crack the Skye for the first time is with headphones. Reported to be a mystical -- if crunchy -- concept record about Tsarist Russia, this is actually the most involved set of tracks, both in terms of music and production, the band has ever recorded. "Ambitious" is a word that regularly greets Mastodon -- after all, they did an entire album based on Moby Dick -- but until now, that adjective may have been an understatement. There is so much going on in these seven tracks that it's difficult to get it all in a listen or two (one of the reasons that close encounters of the headphone kind are recommended). It may seem strange that the band worked with Bruce Springsteen producer Brendan O'Brien this time out, but it turns out to be a boon for both parties: for the band because O'Brien is obsessive about sounds, textures, and finding spaces in just the right places; for O'Brien because in his work with the Boss he's all but forgotten what the sounds of big roaring electric guitars and overdriven thudding drums can sound like. The guitar arrangements on tracks like "Divinations" and "The Czar," while wildly different from one another, are the most intricate, melodically complex things the band has ever recorded. There are also more subtle moments such as the menacing, brooding, and ultimately downer cuts such as "The Last Baron," where tempos are slowed and keyboards enter the fray and stretch the time, adding a much more multidimensional sense of atmosphere and texture. Still, Crack the Skye rocks, and hard! Its shifting tempos and key structures are far more meaty and forceful than most prog metal, and menace and cosmological speculation exist in equal measure, providing for a spot-on sense of balance. Some of the hardcore death metal conservatives may have trouble with this set, but the album wasn't recorded for them -- or anybody else. Crack the Skye is the sound of a band stretching itself to its limits and exploring the depth of its collective musical identity as a series of possibilities rather than as signatures. And yes, that is a good thing.© Thom Jurek /TiVo
From
HI-RES$11.49
CD$9.19
Monteverdi - A Trace of Grace
Michel Godard
Miscellaneous - Released September 6, 2011 | Carpe Diem Records Berlin
Hi-Res
Booklet
If you get to thinking there's nothing new under the sun, try this release by French serpent player Michel Godard. (And if the serpent is new to you, visit www.serpentwebsite.com.) Recordings featuring the serpent are rare enough anyhow, and this one inhabits a whole new universe. The large-print Monteverdi in the graphics does not give the buyer an accurate representation of the contents; Claudio Monteverdi is the inspiration for the whole project, but only five of the tracks are performances of Monteverdi madrigals, and even those are for the most part heavily modified in very unexpected ways. Basically this is an album that combines early Baroque music and jazz in an experimental manner. Godard adds serpent lines to the Monteverdi pieces and to the other works on the album, all instrumental, which derive from Monteverdi in not very obvious ways: perhaps from a harmonic progression or motif, perhaps only in mood. The musicians have not tried to present a finished, coherent product but instead to force distinct traditions together and see where they begin to mix; in Godard's words, "the project was to try to make every musician understand the language of the other and to respect this language sufficiently so that together we can try to find a common language." The other improvising musicians are saxophonist Gavino Murgia (who in addition to his usual way of playing the horn channels vocalizations through it) and bassist Steve Swallow, best known for his collaborations with jazz pianist Carla Bley. Their Baroque counterparts are singer Guillemette Laurens, who plays it straight and sounds fine in the Monteverdi, violinist Fanny Paccoud, and theorbo player Bruno Helstroffer. If you're having trouble imagining what this is like, that's not surprising; the only recourse is to give this brilliantly original music a try.© James Manheim /TiVo
From
HI-RES$21.99
CD$16.99
Soaked in Colour. From Purcell to Queen
Isabel Pfefferkorn
Classical - Released June 2, 2023 | Fuga Libera
Hi-Res
From
HI-RES$13.99
CD$11.19
Genshin Impact - Islands of the Lost and Forgotten
HOYO-MiX
Film Soundtracks - Released April 13, 2022 | MiHoYo
Hi-Res
From
HI-RES$7.69
CD$6.19
Live at the AFAS Live
Epica
Metal - Released October 6, 2023 | Nuclear Blast
Hi-Res
From
CD$9.69
Dream of America
Hannah Aldridge
Country - Released June 16, 2023 | Icons Creating Evil Art
From
HI-RES$18.09
CD$15.69
Sweet Oblivion
Screaming Trees
Pop/Rock - Released December 26, 1991 | Epic
Hi-Res
The Screaming Trees one-upped their major-label debut, Uncle Anesthesia, with this solid, vastly underrated effort. Sweet Oblivion's lead single, the jumpy hard rocker "Nearly Lost You," proved itself a highlight on the hugely successful, Seattle-themed Singles soundtrack. But even though the Screaming Trees stacked up quite well against their more famous peers in that particular showcase, the exposure didn't make them stars. Perhaps it was because Sweet Oblivion had been released several months before Singles, and the band thus couldn't build a sense of anticipation for a new album release, the way Alice in Chains and Smashing Pumpkins did for Dirt and Siamese Dream, respectively; nor could they capitalize on the extra publicity that goes along with new releases. For whatever reason, Singles didn't push sales of Sweet Oblivion, as the latter only scraped the lower reaches of the Billboard charts. And that's a shame, because the record is quite good -- the best songs here are easily among the best in their catalog, and the songwriting was their most consistent yet. "Nearly Lost You" is a standout, of course, but "Dollar Bill," "Shadow of the Season," and "Butterfly" are nearly as impressive. Mark Lanegan's raspy voice conveys a weary wistfulness that adds an unexpected dimension to the group's otherwise macho garage-psych grunge. The Trees no longer sound all that punkish, trading in some of their early, noisy fury for a more '70s-indebted hard rock sound, but it's done with a graceful power that proves they were at least the equal of their more famous fellow scenesters. Unfortunately, the four-year hiatus between Sweet Oblivion and its follow-up, Dust, ensured that the band would be forever relegated to cult status.© Steve Huey /TiVo
From
CD$19.59
All This Bad Blood
Bastille
Alternative & Indie - Released January 1, 2013 | Virgin Records Ltd
Bad Blood reveals that Bastille is a synth-driven band that isn't particularly arty, something of a rarity during the electronic pop revival of the 2000s and 2010s. Where many of their contemporaries used the glamour of synth-pop's '80s heyday and electronic music's infinite possibilities to craft shiny pop fantasies, Bastille builds on the glossy, anthemic approach they set forth on the Laura Palmer EP (the title track, which is included here, might also be the least arty song inspired by David Lynch's surreal soap opera Twin Peaks). Early highlights like "Pompeii," "These Streets," and the title track boast panoramic choruses and sleek arrangements that hint at a kinship with Empire of the Sun and Delphic, while the handclaps and popping bassline on the otherwise moody "Icarus" recall Hot Chip at their most confessional. However, most of Bad Blood suggests that Bastille are actually an electronically enhanced upgrade of sweeping British pop traditionalists like Keane or Coldplay. The band updates "Oblivion"'s piano balladry with ping-ponging drums and contrasts Dan Smith's throaty singing and searching lyrics ("There's a hole in my soul/Can you fill it?") with a tumbling beat on "Flaws." Like the aforementioned acts, Bastille has a way with heartfelt melodies and choruses that resonate, particularly on the driving "Things We Lost in the Fire" and "Get Home," where the slightly processed vocals also evoke Sia, Imogen Heap, and other electronic-friendly singer/songwriters. While the band occasionally gets a little too self-serious on the album's second half, Bad Blood is a solid, polished debut that fans of acts like Snow Patrol (who don't mind more electronics in the mix) might appreciate more than synth-pop aficionados.© Heather Phares /TiVo
From
HI-RES$19.89
CD$17.19
Three Thousand Years of Longing (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack)
Junkie XL
Film Soundtracks - Released August 26, 2022 | Milan
Hi-Res
From
HI-RES$11.49
CD$9.19
Human Target
Thy Art Is Murder
Rock - Released July 26, 2019 | Nuclear Blast
Hi-Res
Suppose you have a more precise idea of what you want. If you are searching for the album "Bad" by Michael Jackson, type michael jackson bad. The album in question will be displayed at the top, as it is the most relevant.
By default, search results are sorted in order of relevance. The drop-down menu to the right of "Sort by" allows you to display the results in the desired order.