best album of 2004

Prog album of the year for me was '5 Suns' by GUAPO. Gig of the year as well.

Other groovy stuff - 'Le Pas Du Chat Noir' by Anouar Brahem and 'Electric Sufi' by Dhafer Youssef.

Strong offerings also from Nick Cave, Elvis Costello and Morrisey.

Not a vintage year, but looking back not bad at all.

Alright, here's a more complete list.  I've decided to omit non-prog albums, since no one really cares about them.

10. Valley of the Giants - Valley of the Giants (A supergroup featuring members of Godspeed You Black Emperor, they're not listed on here but they should be.)
9. Rush - Feedback
8. Blackfield - Blackfield
7. Fantomas - Delirium Cordia (As I've said over and over again, I think it counts)
6. Therion - Lemuria
5. Marillion - Marbles
4. Paatos - Kallocain
3. Riverside - Out of Myself
2. Dead Soul Tribe - The January Tree
1. Ayreon - The Human Equation

Unless you've listened to every prog release this year then it's hard to make a judgement - Ands it's subjective yet again - Maybe this forum should contain a profile of each member based on the following categories...

These categories are all from 0 (low) to 100 HIGH

1 - Preference for melody, 2- Preference for dischordant din 3 - Acceptance of concept sounds 4- Preference to 70's prog 5 - Preference for Prog/Metal 6 - Classical preference 7 - Hard rock/Thrash preference 8 - Pop preference 9 - Jazz Preference 10 - Folk preference - Thus giving a good indication what you like....

will wrote: Pixel Pirate wrote: will wrote: Id have to say Ayreon but im sure there must be better this year. Glad to see Evergrey got a mention, Great band. Not to keen on Nightwish i brought one of there "best of" albums "tales from the elven path" and the women who sings just annoys me. I was also really disapointed with the extras, a crappy 2 page booklet with advertising for their ohter albums. I didn't even know they had a "Best of" album and anyway they are rather disparaging about some of their earlier stuff these days. As I said,it's ok but no more,it's "Once" you should check out. But of course if you can't stand Tarja's voice then it's probably best to avoid the band completely I would suspect. I may listen to some of their newer stuff, i really like the music, but as i said the vocals ruin it for me

Since Nightwish has been described as Opera Metal there are quite a few who have a problem with the vocals,I know. At times it does sound a lot like Wagner had come back to life and decided to start a metal band.

My 2004 Podium:

Gold medal  -  HAPPY THE MAN's "The Muse Awakens"

Silver medal  -  IQ's "Dark Matter", PETER HAMMILL's "Incoherence" and AMAROK's "Quentadharken"

Bronze medal  -  WHITE WILLOW's "Storm Season" and PROTO-KAW's "Before Became After"

ACUITY "Skyward" is very interesting.

But the vocals are crap !

Worth a listen. Probably a *** 1/2 album.

Only trice did they lasted.

James Lee wrote: trice is a perfectly good word...may not be exactly what you were going for, but your sentence still makes perfect sense.

that's why I edited it (after searching for the exact meaning of trice), left the remark bad english, for it would be cheating to alter after a response, making the response less valid/more valid.

It is "thrice" you monoglot!