Opiate (1992)
Still your worst drug value.
Grade: F
Undertow (1993)
In retrospect, they’ve gotten better and better with each album up to 2001’s ‘Lateralus’. This is a leap ahead of ‘Opiate’ (thank God) but several steps behind ‘Aenima’, not a bad thing.
(“Sober”)
Grade: C+
Aenima (1996)
GREAT first two songs and album cover. Could it turn out to be a masterpiece? No. Reason? You can’t really have an entire album full of only good/great songs, unless that album is called “Greatest Hits”, and even then it’s iffy depending on the song selection and the quality/consistency of the band. The song fragments here are annoying and unnecessary, they add nothing to the album. The final song is a waste of time, and rather annoying itself. Besides that, there are several other fairly-good-to-good songs here to back up the opening salvo.
(“Eulogy”, “Stinkfist”)
Grade: B+
4/20/13: The album cover don’t enter into it, but it’s still cool. Re: the “reason”, that’s not true. You CAN have an entire album full of only good/great songs, but it’s not common, and you need more talent than this band has. And “Eulogy” should have been last, not second, unless the actual concept here is “wretched song-order placement”.
Grade: B+
Lateralus (2001)
Lurking at that point between B and A, I’m torn. Some of the songs are hooky, well sung, and well written. Some others merely have mild atmospheric charm. In the end, the good songs just aren’t quite good enough to push them over the edge and into a stellar grade. Nice try, though.
(“Schism”, “Reflection”)
Grade: B+
10,000 Days (2006)
It all sort of blends together and it all sort of sounds the same. A bit boring after two good albums, both of which had the advantage of much better gloomy riff/vocal noise. This may well be the end.
Grade: D+