Leonard Cohen - "Avalanche"

I love all of it, but I particularly like how there's no real finality to it. When he says "it is your flesh that I wear," his phrasing, whether intentionally or not, does not sound like it should be for the closing line. It's a gripping effect in what's already one of the most arresting songs ever written.

There's so much more going on in their songs than first meets the eye (ear?).

Streetlight Manifesto - Everything Goes Numb

I love this! Sort of. Make all the ska jokes you want (my favorite is the Onion headline: "Ska band outnumbers audience") but EGN is a musical rip current, just bursting at the seams with manic energy, hooks, and hairpin changes in tempo. It's exhilarating and overwhelming. And that's the problem: after about fifteen minutes, it starts to become tiresome. It doesn't help that there's as much sameness between the songs as there is variation within them. The first three tracks form an outrageous pop masterpiece, and the rest might be just as good — on their own — but I really need to find the right way to listen. It'll make a great running album if nothing else.

(While less kinetic, sequel Somewhere in the Between is paced a lot better.)

Thin Lizzy.

I crapped bricks the first time I heard Live and Dangerous, it's definitely one of my favorites

Check out Gris's Il etait une foret, most of Shining's discography (especially III, IV and V), Austere and Lyrinx's split Only the Wind Remembers / Ending the Circle of Life, Coldworld's Melacholie², Darkspace's Dark Space III (I'm not a huge fan, but it's pretty damn depressive), Nae'blis's Sketches of Reality, Sun of the Sleepless's Tausend Kalte Winter (only an EP), Walknut's Graveforests and their Shadows, Forgotten Tomb's Songs to Leave and Springtime Depression, Nyktalgia's Nyktalgia, Silencer's Death - Pierce Me and Weakling's Dead as Dreams.

If you want ABM recommendations or links to the mentioned albums, let me know.