Again, it's not much, I feel it's a solid bit of variety.

Circuit'72 - Riow Arai

Having discovered Arai through Front Mission Alternative, I looked into his work further and found he usually did breakbeat style albums. This one tends have a more jazzy/diverse sound than his other work I have. Some tracks are repetitive, but the beat tends to be addicting. May I add this album is completely instrumental.

Le Romantisme Espagnol - Bruno Jacques Pelletier

Here's an interesting one, this is an album dedicated to popular spanish songs played on a classical guitar by a well-known Canadian classical guitarist. Many classic Spanish composers are represented in the forms of tangos, valses and so on. It's actually pretty interesting to hear despite having no fammiliarity with these composers. Again, the album is 100% instrumental.

Metal Works '73-'93 - Judas Priest

Whew ! A 2-disc set containg many classic Priest songs from the late '70s to the early '90s. Opened me up to Rob Halford's stylings which is incredible. I'd have to say that "Exciter", "Hell Bent for Leather", "Metal Meltdown", "Screaming for Vengeance" and "Freewheel Burning" are my top favorite tracks on this set. Great music to get me pumped up for anything !

Mind Edit - Riow Arai

Here's the other non-vgm album by Arai in my collection, this one is crazy ! Beat after beat, sliced up and loud. This is closer to the style found in Front Mission Alternative. Totally instrumental once again.

Musique Ancienne - Bruno Jacques Pelletier

Here's another classical guitar album, but this one really fits with the theme. Various classical works from 16th-18th century composers like JS Bach and John Dowland to name a couple, played with the guitarist's custom made 10-string classical guitar ! Instrumental bliss if you ask me.

Piece of Mind - Iron Maiden

It's really hard to comment on this one since pretty much everyone knows it inside out ! Bruce Dickinson has a unique vocal style all to himself. Best tracks that hit all the right notes (hah) are "Where Eagles Dare", "The Trooper", "Quest for Fire", "Sun and Steel" and "To Tame a Land".

Third Stage - Boston

I'm pretty sure no one saw this coming, to be honest I picked this up on a whim just because the cover looked awesome. I'm not sure what they do with the guitars on this album, but they have a very "clean" sound to them and even twist the sound to create some effects that would usually require a synthesizer. The device used is a guitar processor called the "Rockman" (Hah). And the vocal work ? I had never heard of Brad Delp before I got this album... let's just say his voice sounds "natural". "Amanda", "We're Ready", "Cool The Engines", "To be a Man" and "Hollyann" are all major highlights here.

Van Halen II - Van Halen

I had heard of the guitarist Eddie Van Halen quite a while back but never took the time to look into the music. Shame on me ! He and David Lee Roth really light up a storm here ! I can't pick any favorites here since it's all really, really solid to me. So glad I gave it a chance !

So there we are. It's only 8 albums, but there is plenty of variety as mentionned earlier.

Toughts/Comments ?

Try the first Boston album if you liked Third Stage. It has a lot of their big hits on it. Pretty much every album by the band has that same insanely clean production. One of those few rock bands with the ability to please mostly everybody.

I actually just scored a Piece of Mind picture vinyl recently. I splurged on it cuz, you know, Maiden just rules. Their whole 80's output is must-have stuff. I admit, I've been gravitating towards "Somewhere in Time" recently. Always kind of been the black sheep of the golden years, but the songs grew on me.

Love Van Halen II, but Van Halen I is my favorite by far. Besides Diver Down, any of the DLR albums are must-haves.