Here is where I'll review some of my albums I got on cassette! Got most of these from traders passing through Lakebloom, so I got a wide variety of tunes available! If you couldn't tell, this saccharid is a certified metalhead, so I'll be reviewing some of the most killer albums Clostros has ever seen. Real shredders!!!

Nova Killer Ultra - The Third God

This is THE album that started it all!!! Got this one from a trader coming from Lucidite. Apparently, NKU meditated in the floating islands of Satvam for nineteen days straight when the idea for the album came to them! Then they recorded it all in twenty-nine hours. Isn't that the most rad stuff you've ever heard? There's twenty-two tracks on this bad boy, and I recommend ALL of them. This is the album that got me into shreddin', in fact! I'd never heard the head-banging harmonic flavor of metal before that trader opened my eyes. Suddenly, your boy's using his entire stockpile of jarred Nectar to trade for his first electric guitar! (Also my only electric guitar!) Didn't actually have an amp so I couldn't shred like the pros just yet, but this album put the starry-eyed wonder of a true rock fan in motion.

Score:

Favorite track: Ardency of the Floating Visage

InstincT - Blade of Machina

Absolutely KILLER album. It's a little on the short side for a solar opera (two hours) but I think it more than makes up for it with the story its trying to tell. It's the tale of the virtuous Wandering T, the savior of the solar system after the destruction of the All-Fire Com'et creates a blast wave that destroys every planet, causing the people of Clostros to flee to the moons of each of their domains. It's got a kickass main character and some straight-up gnarly guitar solos. Plus, I find myself relating a lot to the main character! Hate to make myself the center of attention or anything but I feel like Wandering T and I got a lot in common, yknow? Only issue I really got is that the portrayal of the Wandering Crawler people has a couple inaccuracies, but I can't blame for not knowing a ton about them since they only show up every other decade and it seemed like a positive portrayal nonetheless. Overall, really good stuff, and I wish Rocker Wheelblades were real. (Maybe I can ask Coda to make one?)

Score:

Favorite track: The Fault in the King's Deathly Request (Reprise)

Green Kingdom - Tower of the Fading Sun

This one was a gift from the village elder! They picked it up for me in celebration of me succeeding at my right of passage quest! I'll admit, not too familiar with Green Kingdom's stuff, but I have to assume their entire catalog is this awesome. A straight hour of power-metal storytelling about a wizard-biker-hitman taking revenge on the Tower of the Fading Sun for taking his wife as sacrifice twenty years ago. It's very engrossing! I really love the ending where the lead guitarist actually snaps his guitar in two in time with the Magirider slamming his bikesword into the heart of the tower. Very experimental in that sense! This thing's got a lot of sentimental value to me! Even if I can't tell what the lead singer is saying through all the screaming.

Score:

Favorite track: It's actually one long song, but I like the last forty minutes the most!

Kiwi and Son - Voyage Beyond Sea and Star

What a CRAZY album! This is the fifth entry in the long-running Whalefall Supernova series, which is a series of concept albums about the titular Kiwi and Son, who are chasing a space whale that ate their mentor, Joshuham. It spans several millenia and a couple different dimensions, so you can imagine that the plot rocks pretty hard. I thought that Son was the son of Kiwi and was a little confused, but that's actually his name! Son! That rules. The kiwi is nameless, both in the album and in real life apparently! Anyway, this album takes them across the universe to a civilization on a dying sun where they try and pursue the space whale, Nobian, through the Grave Sea, which is a sea made of blood and lost souls. Pretty intense! I think a lot of this is allegorical, but if it's not that also rules!!! This one's a little on the shorter side, with only 32 tracks instead of the usual 55 (an arc number that runs throughout the albums!) but I think that the shorter length is more than made up for by the sheer quality and shredditude of this entry!!! Rock on, I hope they catch Nobian sometime in the next twenty years.

Score:

Favorite track: O'er a Sea of Rage and Regret (2nd Recurse)

Station 10 - Be Seeing You.

Oh man...oh man oh man oh MAN! This one is a real gut punch...in the best way! Station 10's always been a guilty pleasure of mine, but what can I say? A saccharid's gotta let himself be soft and weepy sometimes! A true warrior is in touch with his emotions...that being said, I love this album, but I can barely listen to it! I end up crying about a fourth of the way in. It's just too good!! Let it be known I'm not afraid to cry at all! I just know I'm LOUD and not everyone wants to hear a big guy like me snort and sniffle for forty minutes. For those of you with bifocals, let it be known that crying with THREE eyes gets extra messy! I get a little hesitant showing it to other dudes because I'm kind of a wreck listening to it, but Voleric put it on and he really enjoyed it! Something about those soft, breezy electric guitar tunes resonated with him, I guess. I appreciate that he liked the album even through all the loud crying on my end. I suppose those long ears of his really help! Anyway, a real classic, I go back to it all the time whenever I need to cry one out. You can't be heavy metal all the time, after all!

Score:

Favorite track: Definition.