After Battle 129

Considered by many to be the first heavy metal band, Black Sabbath was formed in 1968 by Tony Iommi, Ozzy Osbourne, Geezer Butler and Bill Ward. The band's original name was the Polka Tulk Blues Band (later shortened to Polka Tulk) and later on changed to Earth) before becoming Black Sabbath inspired by an Italian horror movie of the same name…

A collection of Placebo's hit singles from 1996-2004. A second disc also includes remixes of the singles 'Special K', 'Without You I'm Nothing', 'Every You Every Me', 'Protëge Moi', 'Slave To The Wage', 'Pure Morning', 'Taste In Men', 'Black-Eyed', 'English Summer Rain' and 'This Picture'.
Due to their penchant for androgynous attire/makeup and raw, punky guitar riffs, Placebo have been described by some as a glam version of Nirvana. The multinational band was formed by singer/guitarist Brian Molko (part Scottish and American descent, but raised in England) and Swedish bassist Stefan Olsdal.

With 2023's PORTALS, Melanie Martinez further fleshes out her high-concept pop, crafting an album that plays enticingly like Alice in a goth Wonderland. Arriving on the heels of a two-year hiatus, the record is the singer's first not to feature her empath "Cry Baby" persona, the focus of both 2015's Cry Baby and 2019's K-12. Thematically, PORTALS is an album about death and rebirth with songs that speak to Martinez's ongoing knack for reinventing her sci-fantasy baby girl aesthetic in ever more musically nuanced and diaristic ways. Produced with collaborator C.J. Baran, PORTALS sounds similar to her past work, a textural blend of electronic grooves and instrumentation that she smartly blends with more organic strings, woody bass, and sundry other analog instruments. Vocally, Martinez also still has her distinctively cherubic style, like an anime alien who listened to a lot of Feist and Rihanna.

Genesis proved that they could rock on Foxtrot but on its follow-up Selling England by the Pound they didn't follow this route, they returned to the English eccentricity of their first records, which wasn't so much a retreat as a consolidation of powers. For even if this eight-track album has no one song that hits as hard as "Watcher of the Skies," Genesis hasn't sacrificed the newfound immediacy of Foxtrot: they've married it to their eccentricity, finding ways to infuse it into the delicate whimsy that's been their calling card since the beginning. This, combined with many overt literary allusions – the Tolkeinisms of the title of "The Battle of Epping Forest" only being the most apparent – gives this album a storybook quality.