The Devil and God Are Raging Inside Me - Brand New was a board 8 discovery for me, and one I instantly resonated with. I quickly consumed all they had to offer, and was forever blown away by their consistent quality, immersive lyricism, and catchy riffs, which transformed into harder and more experimental musical passages with each subsequent album. The Devil and God, however, was, and remains, Brand New's apex. A sprawling epic of brutally dark themes that wrestles with the very nature of the human soul, and as the title of the album implies, the aspects of good and evil that reside in each and every one of us, as life moves on and we continue to struggle and cope with anxiety, our beliefs, our love and romantic troubles, our effect on others, and ultimately, death, whether our own or tragically, someone else's. With, at times almost metallic playing from the band, this is a crushing, heavy, emotional album and one I resonate strongly with.
Wildcard - Back in 2019, I was already well on my way to becoming a Miranda Lambert fan, but Wildcard, was, to me, her magnum opus. In just two years, this has become one of my most played albums ever, and I still haven't tired of it. One word I use to describe it: infectious. It's everything I adore in country music, but Lambert's trademark snark and swagger stands out as unique, and for lack of a better word, badass. With Lambert's confident singing backed by equal amounts of both raucous rock and stripped back atmospheric melancholy, I'm hooked either way on every word and note for the entire run time, whether singing along to the tongue-in-cheek murder ballad parody "Way Too Pretty for Prison", rocking out to the sexual, promiscuous, but self-analytical firecracker "Mess With My Head", or getting gently swept away in the relaxing and meditative "Settling Down". It's truly an album that I found to be more and more textured with every listen, and an album I have consistently turned to in times of trouble, as it embraces the chaos and serendipity of life in a way only Miranda Lambert can pull off so deftly.
Deliverance - An album that changed my taste in metal and music forever. I first found this album through Guitar Hero: Metallica, which featured a contender for my favorite song of all time: the wonderful "Albatross", which enveloped me in a suite of nasty, sludgy riffs, blistering mini solos, and a fantastic vocal performance full of grit and vigor. I was hooked, and the rest of the album did not disappoint. It's surprisingly quite a spiritual and religious album, with many references to Jesus, and through the lyrics and heavy instrumentation portrays several portraits of broken men wrestling with their faith and trying to move on through bleak thoughts and evil temptation. It almost gives the same feeling to me as watching a horror film, and at times, the instrumentation can even be quite moody and eerie. Still, as bleak as it sounds, this album still manages to be quite entertaining, and I keep coming back to the beautifully sludgy sound over and over again.