Bands/albuns that changed your life

Iron Maiden- Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind, Powerslave
Dio- Holy Diver
Kiss- Lick it up

The albums listed above were my introduction to heavier music (I was around 7-8 yrs. old)


Megadeth- Peace Sells (my introduction to even heavier music)

Morbid Angel- Blessed are the Sick (my intro to death metal)

Opeth- My Arms, Your Hearse- started listening to Opeth right around the time this came out. It was, well...my intro to Opeth and death metal that was more melodic and progressive.
 
I guess most people name what they grew up with so here we go:

Iron Maiden - Live after Death
Metallica - Load
Sepultura - Chaos A.D.
In Flames - Colony & Clayman

Hard to feel not like I felt back then whenever I spin one of these. :)
 
Metallica Load/reload - Was the first albums i got into was about 12years old.
Pantera - Cowboys From Hell - How can you not love the intro on that album!
Dream Theater - Metropolis pt:2 - First album i heard and was big fan from that on
 
Tiamat - Wildhoney

I actually just got home from seeing Ghost live, and I put this on to wind down a bit and realized it had quite an impact on me back in '94. Back when it came out, I was still in high school and used go out on fridays cruising with my friends and jamming Wildhoney, man, it just really opened my eyes to melody and the use of atmosphere to get a point across. Supreme nostalgia.
 
Totally forgot to mention

Smashing Pumpkins - Siamese Dream

I guess it was just me being the 16 year old stoner, playing guitar in my bedroom, stoned out of my mind.....it just brings me back to those times every time I listen to it. Such an amazing album.

the MOST overrated BAND in HISTORY.

Those vocals makes me want to rip my heart out and run into a wall!
 
Metallica - 'Ride The Lightning' and yeah, the 'Black Album'
Frank Zappa - 'The Best band You Never Heard In Your Life' and pretty much everything what he did.
King Crimson - 'Red' and some others
Scarve - 'Translucence' & 'Irradiant'
 
Albums that changed my perception of how awesome music could be after I heard them.

Portishead, live at roseland ballroom / portishead

Tool, aenima / salvial / lateralus

Mars Volta, deloused in the comatorium

Candiria, 300% density

Pantera, far beyond driven / vulgar display

Nine Inch Nails, the downward spiral

Quicksand, Slip
 
Silverchair-Emotion Sickness: Grew up listening to Frogstomp and Freakshow all the time, this came out and changed a heap so I put it on the shelf for a few months, brought it back out and lost my mind. Creative, Emotional, Theatrical and really interesting lyrics.

Misery Signals-Of Malice and The Magnum Heart: Every shitty metalcore band describes their release has "heavy but melodic" and I feel like this album actually did that. Not sure I had heard such passion, emotion and energy in heavy music. You can hear it in every single thing happening.

Smashing Pumpkins-Melon Collie and the Infinite Sadness: One of those cd's I stole from my parents collection one day and felt like I'd heart it all before(obviously) But a double disc with so many damn good songs and doing everything from heavy to soft piano and acoustic with a sense of pop sensibility was just amazing.


Ocean Machine-Biomech: Teacher in training/student teacher and I became pals over heavy music and he gave me this album(along with Misery Signals) And started my huge Devin Townsend/SYL man rush. ATMOSPHERE for DAYYYYS


The End of Six Thousand Years-Isolation: NOTHING had really ever crossed my ears that somehow without being awkward managed to combine a focus on Melo/Swedish death metal, the melodic and progressive thing misery signals had with down tempo crushing riffs and slowed down ambience with a little punk hardcore thrown in as well. What a fucking band. Most underrated thing in the world.

There's other random things that influenced me musically in big ways like At The Gates , Black Dahlia Murder, Shai Hulud, etc. but listed were all the main things that gave off "Is this real life, this is cant be so good" kind of moments in life.
 
I'm gonna be lame and say Metallica-Black Album
Neurosis-Through Silver in Blood
Opeth-everything pretty much. First got into Watershed but then obsessed over their entire catalog.
Earth Crisis-Destroy the Machines. that's what got me into hardcore.
Zao-Liberate Ex Inferis
Isis-Panopticon
Paradise Lost-In Requiem.
 
joelplagues you did a quite nice description and since you like ocean machine I will check some of some albuns you mentioned, because ocean machine its also one of my favourite metal albuns.