OK, everyone that has said Mars Volta so far... I hadn't heard them so I located the music and spent the past 40 minutes or so listening and ummm...

I'm guessing none of you are any older than 25 and missed the whole prog-rock boom of the 70's that inevitably collpased under its own virtuosity-to-a-fault weight. At first, I was thinking it was kinda cool, but teetering on being too pretentious for its own good but about 5 songs in, I realized it was a schtick. They're just piling sounds on top of each other and hoping it sounds ok. And those sounds... it's anything goes as long as it's not "how everyone else does it." But, in trying SO hard not to be a formula, they have their own formula... hi, here's the riff. STOP! ooooh, spacey reverb (cue pyro in 3...2...1...). riff again! (so you don't think we completely lost track of where we were) noodle, noodle, noodle. fade into dub effects, reversed bongos, phased synths, twiddle, twiddle, twiddle back down to quiet then start the process all over again.

Imagine EVERY hardcore band you can think of whipping through ELP's "Karn Evil 9" all at the same time. Without practice.

Looks like Rick Rubin produced this - doesn't have his stamp on it to my ears, though. It really sounds like they were going for something that they didn't quite hit. And don't get me wrong, it sounds like they really were passionate about making this music... they just didn't convey that passion very well.

Anyway, since I hadn't heard of them before this thread... thought I'd share the review here. ;)

Godspeed You! Black Emperor......... most original sounding band ever. Even the name is unique as they come. anywhere from 7 - 15 members.... just... .hear their stuff. I recommend the song 'east hastings'

Meshuggah - I've never heard anything like them, at least (go listen to 'Future Breed Machine' and 'Soul Burn', you'll see what I mean)
Opeth - From a lyrical standpoint, I find them amazing (only band I've ever needed an English-English dictionary to understand, and English is their second language!)

sleater-kinney.
no one quite like them.

also rasputina. hard rock girls with cellos!

Ever since I've started trying out some independent bands, I've been running into plenty of highly original work by people I have never heard of (no surprize here). At this point, I can probably name a pageful of band names that I think are artsy, totally different from anything else I've ever heard, but still extremely listenable. I'll start with a couple for now...

- Stendhal: a mix of classic rock and crazy yet beautiful noise. Fast paced at times, like Mars Volta (though without the piercing voice), and dark and brooding at others. And then they start with the noise... whoa. Only problem is that they are not catchy at all. Oh how I wish I could hum their stuff on the train, but its humanly impossible...

- Pineal Ventana: fast-paced tribal punkish sound, with psychotic vocals. Very spontaneous, and often disturbing, but oh so much fun to listen to. :D

Emperor

Talk Talk

(Late Talk Talk, after Colour of Spring)

Morphine definately deserves a place in this category. Drums, two-string slide bass, and bari/tenor sax.

Tool
Godspeed You! Black Emperor
Converge
The Locusts
Pink Floyd
Dredg
Meshuggah
RATM

Sorry to be language police, but this thread has gone on too long without someone noting: "most unique" is not gramatically correct. Something is either unique or it is not; you can't put a modifier to it.

Anyway, I'll suggest Blue Man Group as unique, for their sound based on melodic percussion.

I was just scanning but I believe I saw someone mention Boy Sets Fire.... I don't find them unique at all, as a matter of fact, them and Stretch Arm Strong are complete knockoffs of one another.

As for another unique one, I'll agree with Opeth, really the only Death Metal band to do the other kinds of stuff they've been doing and also Porcupine Tree, very hard to find any other bands that sound like them.

others....

Massive Attack
Turbonegro (maybe not soundwise but the whole 'thing' they do is THEIRS and ONLY theirs)
Dead Kennedys
Bad Brains
Dillinger Escape Plan (there's nothing even REMOTELY similar to the way they play out there..... some botched imitations but nothing similar.)
Glassjaw (the way their sound is thick and layered is really rather unique)
Snapcase (for lyrical content)
Slayer (however oft imitated, never equaled)

Tool

30 Seconds to Mars is pretty unigue too

FROM JUSTIN TO KELLY

BEST....MOVIE....EVER....

Nightwish is quite unique.

I'll have to disagree there, they're just your average Finnish power metal band with some rather operatic female vocals...

wow.... i can't believe i wasn't the only person to say godspeed..... booya!

Radiohead. Straight up, no question

Morphine is awesome.

And to whoever said meshuggah, they are not original at all and they are one of the worst bands i have ever heard. They definitely also put on the worst live show i have ever seen.

"And to whoever said meshuggah, they are not original at all and they are one of the worst bands i have ever heard. They definitely also put on the worst live show i have ever seen."

I won't bother commenting your last two points, but what other bands do you know that sound like them?

The white stripes sound pretty original to me

Ohgr and My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult.

I agree with a lot of those that were already mentioned, especially TOOL.

but wtf. how come no one mentioned RUSH? i think they are pretty dam original. their instrumentals are awesome and I can't think of anyone who would come close to their sound.

i also think that AC/DC is pretty unique. anyone disagrees?

haha yes, the only band that i think comes close is in fact called botch ;)

tool

pink floyde

sigur ros

from autumn to ashes

trans am

primus

oysterhead

mars volta

Frank Zappa - Rock Xylophone. There are so many other things that set Zappa apart from everyone else, but it all comes down to the Xylophone work on Apostrophe and Overnite. No one else does that. Ever.

King Crimson - This has to be the most nearly unique band, however, see below.

Primus - Would be more nearly unique than King Crimson if so much of their early stuff didn't sound like King Crimson.

Tull - If only because they're an album rock band with a lead Flutist and roots in Celtic Folk and Classical and took the first Metal Grammy away from Metallica.

Floyd - They were almost unique - people imitated them.

Talking Heads
Cake - Both Cake and Talking Heads defy categorization. On some level they are very similar to each other, but on another, not at all.

Bela Fleck & the Flecktones - Banjo as high art. Drummitar instead of a drum kit. A truly innovateive bassist, and a hyperthyroid multi-instrumentalist? Even if everything they played sounded just like the Rolling stones, their composition alone would make them unique. That their music sounds like nothing else made is a lock.

Tom Waits - Swordfishtrombones was not an album that could have been made by anyone else.

String Cheese Incident - Adequately covered above.

Alan Parsons Project - A feeling I can't pin down. Something about Eric Wolfson's voice is part of it.

They Might Be Giants - Cheerfully dour, to quote John Linnell. You don't see that vibe anywhere else.

Maynard and Tool as well as Faith No More and Soundgarden are excellent, but they are all just innovative takes on metal. That they are not unique takes nothing away from them - they are the best of the bunch - but I don't honestly believe they are seriously more distinctive than, say, Primus.

I'd have to go with the White Stripes, more specifically the De Stijl album. It is a completely amazing mix of rock, metal, blues, and western. And it just kicks ass.

It's gotta be Tchkung! and Sky Cries Mary- intense at times, melodic other times- spiritual and enlightening. They are both no longer, but they were very big on activism.
Tchkung used chainsaws and all sorts of interesting things in their songs and shows.

Five Iron Frenzy their songs are a little strange. Not to mention the people in the band are crazy.

<Neo>Whoa.</Neo>

I've just been blown away by a band I've never heard of whose CD I've tried for the first time. The band is called <b>Cortex Bomb</b> and the album is called <b>"Fist or Finger"</b>. Its a mix of metal, jazz, electronica, bluegrass, and a bunch of other seemingly random influences. The style changes every few seconds, and keeps you guessing (and grinning - some of the song names are.. out there :D) with every note.

I think that by defininition, the most unique bands are the ones that mess with instrumentation. Most bands include drums, bass, guitar, keyboard and vocals. I think the White Stripes really made a point by rocking with less instruments, and doing a pretty good job at it. Other bands that I think are pretty unique are Ben Folds Five, Bela Fleck and the Flecktones, Rasputina (if you like them, check out a band called UTAH!).

CAKE!!!??? i think they are great and sound very original to me...

tool

Radiohead

The Apex Theory
Billy Talent
The Blood Brothers
Cake
The Crystal Method
Gorillaz
Mindless Self Indulgence
Muse
A Perfect Circle
Tool
The Postal Service
A Static Lullaby
They Might Be Giants
Velvet Acid Christ

While it is impossible for any band to claim the title "Most Unique," I feel Mindless Self Indulgence easily walks home with "Most Original" and definitely "Strangest." As for best overall sound, in my opinion it's extremely close between The Apex Theory and A Perfect Circle.

it took a while for primus to get named a few times. but i would go a step further and take Claypool out of Primus and look at his solo works such as Colonel claypools bucket of bernie brains. If that album isnt unique, i dont know what is.

you could basically go around record stores and ask for the "experimental" music recommendations and fill up this list with many less popular bands/musical acts.
For the more known of people i would definately have to agree with the Zappa and Beck picks.
VAST would be a good honorable mention.
edit: i read through the posts and didnt even realize it wasa 2 year old bumped thread

I was JUST about to say MSI, but I think Primus take it away to be honest.
Props to Mars Volta, Fantomas, and definately Mr Bungle.
Also Tool is very unmistakable.

definitely agree that Dredg is one-of-a-kind. I just saw them the other night in Hollywood (I posted about it in the Dredg thread), and they blew me away.



but I have to give my vote to Fantomas...or basically anything that Mike Patton decides to touch. Bjork is also really really interesting in a way that not many acts are.

thers a band with the lead vocalist being a parrot...thats unique

have to agree w/ most bands here... although I can't really agree w/ System of A Down. yeah, they're guitars are different, but that's really about it. basicly a punk metal band... and even then they sound a lot like most other metal bands, even a lot of nu-metal bands. and basing their originality on the meaning of their lyrics doesn't work as there's been many bands over many years who used their songs to push a political agenda. And let's not forget that's one of the key things behind Rage Against the Machine's whole discogrophy. I can't think of a single song of their's that wasn't political (of course, I could be wrong. they might have acouple that wasn't).

There are some wicked suggestions in this thread.

I totally agree, with The Mars Volta, there isn't any band out there like them.

Some bands that wern't mentions would have to be:

Lightning Bolt
Hella
Horse The Band
Fall of troy
Blonde Redhead
TV on the Radio

Ulver. No one has gone from black metal to folk to triphop to electronica to ambient soundscape, except for Ulver.