Albums that surprised you, By being good!

Here's some albums I was always told were either 'Crap', 'Weak', 'Not true to the band' etc. But when I finally decided to listen, Thought they were quite good (Sometimes even excellent)

I'll start with the obvious -

• 90125
• ...And Then There Were Three
• Tormato
• Drama (Absolutely no excuse with this one)
• Duke (Though ATTWT I find the better of the two)
• In the Wake of Poseidon
• Islands

That's all I can think of for now, But after listening to these albums I begin to wonder, 'Hmmm, Well if I was told that these were all bad maybe then that 80s Genesis isn't so bad, Maybe Talk and Big Generator are good albums, Maybe 80s Crimson is great, And maybe even ELP's late 70s records are good'

Anybody got any more to add? On their own personal experience.

Well, Me thinks I haven't come across a lot of them... I tend to be quite positive with my prog

I heard quite a lot of bad things bout Coheed and Cambria... The vocals still scare me, but Good Apollo... is still a very good and very progressive (original) work!

A lot of people tend to dislike Camel... And I like 'em very much!

• Magellan - Hour of Restoration (1991)
• Shadow Gallery - Shadow Gallery (1992)
• Dream Theater - When Dream & Day Unite (1989)
• Symphony X - Symphony X (1994)

All of the albums above are prog-metal debuts that either get 3, 2 or even 1 star reviews (but they also get 4 and 5 star reviews too. Very rare though..)

I find them all very good, especially WD&DU and Hour of Restoration, and they all gave me quite a surprise!