Bronze it:

The Beatles

“Abbey Road” (Apple)

Compare to: The Rolling Stones, the Who, Simon & Garfunkel

The brilliance of “Abbey Road” begins before actually playing the album. It has probably the most recognizable album cover ever, which is riddled with “evidence” that fueled the “Paul is dead” rumors flying in the late ’60s.

Once past the cover and onto the actual album, the Beatles’ genius as lyricists and pioneers with musical concepts really shines through. Despite “Come Together” and “Something” being the only two No. 1 songs – a pretty low count by the Beatles’ standards – “Abbey Road” turned out to be the masterpiece the band set out to make with “The White Album.” Ironic, since most of the songs on “Abbey Road” are essentially the rejects from “The White Album” and “Let it Be” sessions.

Differing views between John Lennon and Paul McCartney about what the band’s last-recorded and second-to-last-released album should be led to a bipolar feel on the album; Side A is Lennon’s, with longer individual songs (including the two No. 1s), and Side B is the brainchild of McCartney – a 16-minute, eight-song medley.

The last song, fittingly, is “The End” (except for “Her Majesty,” a song often considered the first hidden track on an album), which featured the only Ringo Starr drum solo on the album, piercing guitar from Lennon, McCartney and George Harrison, and the quintessential Beatles lyrics, “And in the end, the love you take is equal to the love you make.”

Simply put, “Abbey Road” is the best album by the best band the world has ever seen.

– Andrew Shafer

Borrow it:

Cave In

“Perfect Pitch Black” (Hydra Head)

Compare to: Amanda Woodward, Converge, Anterrabae

Having survived an ill-fated stint on RCA records, Cave In returns to its independent label roots with “Perfect Pitch Black,” a record that can be best described as mediocre. In trying to blend the spaced out quasi-indie rock and pop sensibilities of more recent albums “Jupiter” and “Antenna” with the abrasiveness of “Until Your Heart Stops,” Cave In continually proves to be less than capable of pulling off this combination of styles.

More often than not, the album’s juxtaposition of soaring melodies and whiny clean vocals with rumbling guitars and brutal hardcore growling comes off as ridiculously contrived. Nowhere is this more obvious than on “Trepanning,” which features the band’s incongruous attempt to write a stoner-metal riff.

The song finds the band totally out of its element, and Cave In would be well-advised to leave this stuff to the pros in bands like Bongzilla and Electric Wizard.

Elsewhere, Cave In continues its struggle to mash up extreme metal and Radiohead, but the parts come off sounding like fragments of separate songs haphazardly slapped together rather than a cohesive whole.

Although it is obvious the members of Cave In possess a great deal of talent, “Perfect Pitch Black” comes off as the work of a band still searching for a sound to call its own. Hopefully, the band will be able to overcome this personality crisis and write a more coherent collection of songs the next time around.

– Joshua Haun

Borrow it:

Swords

“Metropolis”

(Arena Rock Recording Company)

Compare to: Elvis Costello, Husker Du, REM

Many artists try to come up with music that is different and innovative. It’s ironic that most of these groups end up sounding eerily similar to one another.

Swords’ newest album, “Metropolis,” is a good example of this.

The cover of the album is decorated with trippy graphics and the CD is lime green, which appears to promise a unique listening experience.

After listening to the album, however, you will be left wondering what makes this band different or better than any other.

The album is extremely repetitive, although there are a few good tracks peppered throughout. “The Mark” is one hypnotic track that is a little different from the rest, and “Family Photographs” features an interesting combination of electronics and guitar.

The layering of the music is complex and the vocals are low and soothing.

Then there are the bad tracks. The song, “Savage Republic” can best be summed up by a quote in the beginning of the song, “Hate this song, let’s do it all night long.”

It is painful to listen to the entire four minutes. “Radio, Radio” is another subpar track; it’s like the band tried to blend too many different styles and created a mess instead of a masterpiece.

The album isn’t that bad – it just appears to be lacking something, leaving the audience wanting more than the band is able to deliver.

– Ashley Garbin

Burn it:

H.I.M.

“Dark Light”

(Sire)

Compare to: Bauhaus, Sisters of Mercy, The Cure

As arguably the most popular band ever produced by Finland, H.I.M. had to meet high expectations with the release of “Dark Light.”

The band’s dark, seductive blend of goth rock (better described as “love metal”) has been embraced by Hot Topic kids and has amassed a dedicated cult following. It doesn’t really push any creative boundaries, but the band sticks with doing what it does best – captivating gothic tales of broken hearts, love and death.

Vocals are deep and dark, blending with the grinding guitars, haunting keys and rock-solid drums. “Dark Light” is balanced nicely. The disc starts out with “Vampire Heart,” flaunting 80s-style synthesizers and almost radio-friendly rock with darkly poetic lyrics.

It then leads into what is easily the most initially-compelling track on the album, “Rip Out the Wings of a Butterfly,” which flaunts haunting melodies and sounds sincere and tempting while maintaining a heavy “metal” edge.

The rest of the disk consists of mostly rock-ballads with a few softer, piano heavy songs. “Under the Rose” is another stand-out track that tells the tragic tale of a broken love.

“Dark Light” plays like poetry. Some of the lyrics are cliche, but H.I.M. makes them sound sincere enough to be original.

Songs of loneliness and longing with be relatable among many, and H.I.M. fans should be thrilled to have another rock solid disc to add to their collection.

– Dan Maclanahan

Burn it:

The Audition

“Controversy Loves Company”

(Victory)

Compare to: Anberlin, The Academy Is, June

The Audition has a knack for writing songs that build from quiet oblivion to beautiful singalongs.

The only downside to the Audition’s new disc, “Controversy Loves Company,” is that nearly every song seems to follow a similar format.

Every song begins with a soft introduction that builds into a head-banging main body.

The song then fluctuates between driving choruses and mellow verses for the remainder of the track.

The Audition is also your typical emo band in that every single song seems to be about a lost love or some other type of dating or relationship brouhaha.

The lyrics are clever in spots, though, especially on the lead-off track “Dance Halls Turn To Ghost Towns.”

The song can be taken as a song about sex and how a guy will try everything in the book to seduce a girl into getting naked.

The most solid part of the Audition is the rhythm section driven by Ryan O’Conner’s relentless but dynamically solid pounding away on the drums and Joe Lussa’s low-end bass attack.

The guitar parts are solid, but O’Conners drumming makes it sound as though he is doing his job driving the tempo like most drummers should, but some fail to do.

Fans of solid, straight-forward emo-rock will dig this one.

But people who are looking for something fresh that hasn’t been done before should stay away from this album.

– Dan Hopper