Today, Toothgrinder’s sophomore album, Phantom Amour, hits stores. And while their second album is a worthy follow up to last year’s Nocturnal Masquerade, we thought it would be fun to see what the band’s favorite other sophomore albums were.
Santana, Abraxas: You can’t listen to this album front to back and not wanna get up and dance with everyone in the room.
Rage Against The Machine, Evil Empire: My next door neighbor growing up gave me this album and my parents didn’t really love the band so much. So naturally it became a favorite in my CD rotation.
Beastie Boys, Pauls Boutique: Being a drummer my whole life, hip-hop was always near and dear to my heart because of all the incredible rhythms used in the genre. With Paul’s Boutique they used samples from some of my favorite songs and bands it just worked so well. They managed to created this new sound with a bunch of recycled sounds. Also the Beastie Boys are a lifelong favorite of mine. Every album is awesome.
Green Day, Dookie: This album made me want to play fast!
Band of Horses, Cease to Begin: A perfect driving album. Full of amazing songs that make you happy, sad, and really just question life.
Children Of Bodom, Hatebreeder: I remember being introduced to COB because of the infamous “Baker 3” skateboard video where Dustin Dollin had “downfall” as his song for his respected part. Every shredder must have had their phase where they wanted that Randy Rhoads style V and shred the balls out of some neo-classical metal licks. I surely was and kind of in some way am still one of them!
Jason Goss (guitar)
Metallica, Ride The Lightning: It was a huge part of what I was listening to when I first began playing guitar, along with most of Metallica’s early discography, and it’s something I will still regularly listen to. I felt this record set the stage for what Metallica could become, from the heaviness of “Ride the Lightning” to the epic allure of “Fade to Black.”
System of a Down, Toxicity: Introduced me to the band, one of my favorite bands throughout my teenage years, and it helped transition me into becoming a metalhead at an early age.
Misery Signals, Mirrors: I loved their 1st album, Of Malice and Magnum Heart, so I was anticipating this release, but was worried as they had a new singer, Karl. The album and Karl made me love the band even more. I recall seeing them shortly after the release at The Stone Pony in our hometown of Asbury Park, NJ. They played several tracks from this record and it was amazing; I pitted hard to say the least. Misery Signals was one of my biggest influences when we started Toothgrinder.
Parkway Drive, Horizons: The energy that poured out of this record was undeniable. It was a cross between metal and just straight up anthems of my youth. Horizons is still one of the best records to throw on for long drives on tour and every track is still a marvel to see live.
Between the Buried and Me, The Silent Circus: This album was the first time I truly understood what progressive music was. It taught me that music has no boundaries. It was a very skeptical listen for me at first as it was above and beyond anything I had listened to before in terms of heaviness and obscurity, but it quickly grew into an absolute fascination of mine. It set the stage for my musical taste for the remainder of my teenage years and into my early 20’s.
Baroness, Blue Record: I’m a huge Baroness fan. I got into them with the Red Album and fell in love with how beautifully toxic John’s vocals were. Blue is my favorite record of theirs still because you get to hear good song craft starting to emerge while keeping the sludge tones alive and well.
