There has been a lot of discussion about all the poor mastering done on recent rock albums (such as Zwan's album). I am curious what were the best mastered rock/alternative albums you have heard recently.

To start off, I have been impressed with the quality of Audioslave's debut album. Replaygain reports the album to be around -9.0 dB, but you can hear each instrument clearly and the album clipping so much that Musepack get internal clipping. The album is very enjoyable to listen to (for a recent rock album).

The two newest Tool albums are loud but well-done, but they're not that recent (1996 and 2000). At this point, I'm so fed up with painfully-clippy rock albums that I'd pick new bands to listen to based primarily on the quality of their album's mastering!

Is that clipping in the first few seconds of Radiohead's Ok Computer that I hear? It sounds awful, but I can't find any specific info or reviews of this album's mastering.

I'm a big fan of Audioslave, but I think the album mastering is crap. Maybe it's me, but most of the songs seemed way to compressed. I'd agree with whoever said that the tool albums are well mastered. And it's a shame about zwan's new album because they pumpkins always had pretty quiet albums.

Yeah, OK Computer sounds terrible... mind you, just about all Radiohead has bad quality, unless it's just me? It makes me feel kind of sick after a while...

Hmm, the most recent album I know that I also like the mastering of is Dreamtheater - Metropolis Pt.2, but it's a fair way from alt rock... and it's about 4 years old or so...

Well most recent Rock albums are very loud and clipping, but I've been very impressed by the raw but well mixed selftitled album of Alexisonfire.

The cello does this weird dropping in and out of the right channel which sounds kinda like sloppy engineering. But, I hear no clipping in the first few seconds and I think the general sound quality is OK on OK Computer. Although, I have heard the album on a number of systems and the sound vary's greatly.

After OK Computer the mastering has gone downhill ... I still dig the music though.



I've yet to hear a rock album this year that has been mastered well.

Wow someone resurrected an old topic.

AFI's album "Sing The Sorrow" is mastered pretty well for a recent rock album, very easy to listen to without being fatigued.

Forgot about Tool's albums, mastering and mix on those are great compared to recent rock albums.

Yeah I am pretty surprised about the Zwan album (I finally got a good listen to it the other day). The Smashing Pumpkins used to be the one band you didn't have to worry about concerning high quality recording, except with their last album MACHINA/The Machines of God. That album clips badly.

The White Stripes - Elephant and White Blood Cells are very well mastered albums. Both albums were recorded using analogue only and sound amazing against todays digital counterparts. Although I sometimes wonder whether the hiss on some of the tracks on White Blood Cells wasn't intentional.