Furthermore, as you know, we have been friends a long time. Do you really want to get into a contest over bands I have liked that you hated before liking. The List starts in high school, when you dismissed The Doors as “crappy piano music.” Then you hated The Soft Bolletin. And so on. Actaully that might be it.

also, brent and kent you should give a listen to Puscifer, then add them to the list, post-haste.

*thinks*

Judas Priest – Nostradamus. Very disappointing, especially as the last album, Angel of Retribution, was pretty good with dear old Rob Halford back shrieking the vocals. Nostradamus was not good though – far too pretentious, full of little keyboard swirls and fills. Just crank up the damn twin guitars and scream, ffs.

AC/DC – Black Ice. I liked this one. Definitely the best thing they’ve done since Blow Up Your Video. Really good. Angus even breaks out a slide guitar!

Dragonforce – Ultra Beatdown. I guess Dragonforce are an acquired taste, but if you want shredding, these guys are top notch. Saw them live a couple of months back, and they are phenomenal – I was watching the hands of the two guitarists and I still couldn’t work out how they could keep so note perfect.

Whitesnake – Good to be Bad. Superb album. Coverdale sounds fantastic. Thankfully he’s not prancing around in leather trousers anymore, and concentrating on the music. Although 1987 and Tawny Kitaen rolling around on the bonnet of a car will always be etched in my mind (hey, I was a 14), this is equal to any of Whitesnake’s 80s output.

I also bought a load of stuff which wasn’t released this year.

MC Hawking – A Brief History of Rhyme. OMG, too funny. Seriously, you have to listen to this. Nerdcore rocks.

Robert Calvert – Captain Lockheed and the Starfighters. Mad Hawkwind poet with a concept album about the post-WWII Luftwaffe. Great stuff, even if he does go a little too Peter Sellers with the accent at times.

Turisas – The Varangian Way. Viking metal. To Holmgard and Beyond. Longboats, swords, axes, fighting and pillaging. Also quite possibly the maddest cover of “Rasputin” I’ve ever heard (in fact the only metal cover of it I’ve ever heard!).