A smörgåsbord of bands and artists this time around.

Finally picked up a Butthole Surfers album—I’ve been meaning to do that since I saw them on an episode of Beavis and Butt-head some time back.

Protest the Hero seems to be a pretty solid heavy metal band. On first listen, I was actually reminded of the sonic characteristics of Avenged Sevenfold , with the major difference being that the music is actually enjoyable to listen to. Too bad the Hot Topic era of heavy metal doesn’t have clue what constitutes quality music—just give them lots of skull-imagery, and songs with contrived Halloween-style lyrics and redundant chugging guitar riffs.

Also, major props to Haken for working plenty of Gentle Giant worship into their songs. The latter is such a criminally overlooked and underappreciated band; the former probably is too.

Haken
→ Restoration
→ The Mountain

Animals as Leaders
→ The Joy of Motion

Butthole Surfers
→ Independent Worm Saloon

Constantines
→ Kensington Heights

Protest the Hero
→ Fortress

Melvins
→ Bullhead

Skinny Puppy
→ VIVIsectIV

Michael Manring
→ Thonk

Angel Witch
→ Angel Witch

Steven Wilson
→ To the Bone