Some albums just stick with you. They may not be your favourites of the moment but you’ll keep coming back to them.

At The Drive-In - Relationship Of Command
I’m a bit late to this record. ATDI split up in 2002 and their subsequent bands have already released records. But there’s something about this album. If Rage Against The Machine took up war and ghetto reportage and backed it with a more angsty cross between Tool and Soundgarden, you be somewhere close to the wholly other sound of this album.
Peter Gabriel - Up
If a band takes eight years to produce a new album, it will either be very very good or very very bad. Up is the former. A masterly piece of production and songsmithery, Gabriel still can’t write a song less than five minutes long but in this case it doesn't matter. He has taken eight years worth of working with the world’s music at his studios, mixed it with his own innate rhythms and words and produced a masterpiece.
Converge - Jane Doe
Where Strapping Young Lad conquer the down-tuned nu-metal and industrial bands of today, Converge do likewise for the hardcore scene. Beyond hardcore, they are their own genre. Jane Doe is a four piece frenzy of annihilation. And it is also a story. A soundtrack to destruction.
Opeth - Blackwater Park
Terrorizer ran an April Fool’s Day column a few years ago. It included Opeth announcing that they would write a naff album for 2003 because they were tired of always writing good ones. Blackwater Park sums up what makes these Scandinavians so good. Their songs flik-flak between death-like howls and almost folk-like acoustic and piano sections, but the result is so coherent, it’s almost like listening to folk-lore made music; the music is unique but it has a comfortable and familiar feel. Endless repeats will not dull this album.
Tool - Lateralus
Tool aren’t afraid to take their time with a song. If any band could be accused of furthering the prog rock cause, it would be them. But where Yes and Floyd went into musician one-up-manship, Tool present their music almost as live. It’s heavy and many-layered, the lyrics mean something but you can't be sure what and it's produced clinically — almost as if it were the control subject in a test. It’s just fascinating stuff.
Nine Inch Nails - The Fragile
Known as an industrial band, The Fragile proves NIN can be anything they want. A sprawling double album of moods that ebb and flow as sure as the tide, the grit is there but so is the salve. No emotion has been translated into music so accurately as it is here. An easy way to lose two hours very quickly.
Steve Vai - Alien Love Secrets
Where there is Satriani, there is Vai but usually he’s off looking for some eccentric angle to take. Not so here. ALS showcases him and his guitar without the Zappa veneer attached. Phenomenal, moving musicianship.
Strapping Young Lad - City
The sonic equivalent of malevolence enough to drop nuclear bombs on innocent puppies. Ferocious anger, the heaviest guitars and the best production. Result? Nothing beats it in terms of sheer power even today. Not bad for a second album.
Anthrax - Sound Of White Noise
John Bush probably had the best rock vocals of the mid 90s. Scott Ian and Charlie Benante were likewise the best rhythm section. This is the showcase of what that means.
Joe Satriani - The Extremist
A guitar god playing feel good tunes at the height of his powers. Required listening for guitar players.
Jean Michel Jarre - RendezVous
Just an amalgam of sounds and tunes that shouldn’t work but moves me to tears on occasion. Amazing live too.
Iron Maiden - Number of the Beast
The first tape traded and I immediately wanted to be Dave Murray. I’ve been playing guitar for 16 years as a result.
Jean Michel Jarre - Oxygene
A profound shock that at age 11, music could be something other than bland pop and the ghastly drivel that was the first stirrings of house music in 1987.