I say "new" because it's new to me... but.

Spock's Beard - Snow = crazily good album.

Dream Theater - Scenes from a Memory = also crazily good.

Riverside - Second Life Syndrome = also crazily good.

Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime = also crazily good.

I'd be more in depth, but it's 3 in the morning and I've only listened to them once or twice each and I'm really tired and I don't have my own computer at the moment.

But I thought I'd share the goodness with you.

Okay, having digested the albums a lot more (and now having my own computer back), I can go a bit more in depth about each album.

Coincidentally, there's a common theme among all four albums -- some girl screws with some guy's head and this leads to bad things (on Dream Theater's album, the main character has recurring nightmares about a girl who was caught in a love triangle and murdered; on Snow, a girl makes the main guy go nuts for the last quarter of the album after being rejected harshly; on Operation: Mindcrime, the love interest gets murdered and the main character Nikki doesn't believe in love; and in Riverside, some unnamed girl is the focus of pretty much all the songs).

My favorite album of the bunch (having listened to all four of them quite a bit) would have to be Dream Theater's. There's really only one bad song on the album (the first track doesn't really do much and I tend to skip it...) and the rest are all excellent. The second track (the overture) is amazing in the musical ground it covers in three minutes and thirty seconds, and the third track is one of my favorites. The second instrumental (six minutes long) is among my favorite songs of all time. GO LISTEN TO THIS ALBUM RIGHT NOW GO.

Second favorite of the batch would probably be Queensryche's (that's a bitch to spell) Operation: Mindcrime. The bass is noteworthy for its overal excellence, and there's no track that slouches. Plus, the narrative in the album is pretty awesome (detailing a botched overthrow of the government, of sorts).

It's a tough call choosing between Spock's Beard's Snow and Riverside's Second Life Syndrome. I really, really like Snow, but some of the tracks go on for too long, and there's probably few too many tracks all together (there's 26 tracks total). The first couple of listens are enthralling, but the more you listen to the album, the more you feel like skipping over some of the songs. Still, there are a few gems on the album (Long Time Suffering, Welcome to NYC, Freak Boy, Reflection, and Devil's Got My Throat come to mind). The Riverside album is pretty solid through and through, but isn't outstanding like Operation Mindcrime or Scenes from a Memory (but is still very much worth purchasing/listening to).

Oh, and I'd also reccomend Enchant's Blink of an Eye and Redemption's Fullness of Time.