Bacchanal

I had so many bands that I wanted to name, but while reading through this thread I found myself saying "There's one.. there's another.." until I had next to nothing left. A lot of these will probably be repeats of what's already been said, but here they are at any rate:

Crotchduster (they incorporate EVERY genre of music, and play it well)
Primus (really, anything Claypool has done)
Mod Flanders Conspiracy (even though they've broke up now)
The Dillinger Escape Plan
HORSE The Band
Cephalic Carnage (sure it's grind-core, but it sounds nothing like other grind-core bands I've heard)
Sunn O))) (though I've heard they're an Earth tribute band of sorts, I've never heard Earth)
GYBE (already mentioned a million times, but they deserve at least one more)
Tool (of course)
Queen (not mentioned nearly enough in this thread)

I know I'm forgetting some, but oh well...

Johnny Pyro

Primus. I love Les Claypool. Its like country on acid.

__________________
"From delusion lead me to truth, from darkness lead me to light, from death lead me to eternal life. - Sheriff John Wydell

muckluck

Tool, Queen, Pink Floyd, and Led Zeppelin. In that order . How could noone have mentioned Led Zeppelin? I second Dredg too.

__________________

Rawrr

Dredg, Explosions in the Sky

__________________
This revelation is the death of ignorance
tangled in a state of suffocation
slave to self righteousness
damnation is on your lips

noodle

did anyone mention GWAR and My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult? painfully silly, but unique. Bjork, of course, Afro Celt Sound System...

will i get smacked if i say Jack Johnson and Louis Armstrong? They're both so easy to pick out in a crowd. old Jack, though, not the pop-ish stuff... f-stop blues and brushfire fairytales Jack. and c'mon, it's Louis. you CAN'T copy that voice. Dr. John, the Beasties stand out--it's hard to mimic some of their sound--old Seven Nations, Flogging Molly... my brain is spinning!

Zephyr66

I second this, fantomas is one weird band, good stuff to listen to.

My second vote goes to Aarni, finnish doom metal(i guess you could call it that.) It's very ambient and atmospheric and its mostly consists of chanting and a little bit of screetching, they took Slayers "Dead skin mask" and translated it into latin and chanted it very slowly, really bizarre stuff.

and I also agree with Crotchduster, Mammal sauce is one of the best songs i've ever heard.

cellophanedeity

The Books. Accoustic organic sampling and mixing and playing. I love them. Lovelovelove.

Oh!

And TubRing. they're great too.

Pacifier

Sounds good
I have to check them out.
If you like that mixture you have to listen to "Haggard" a german band.
Haggard combines folk, classical, renaissance and medieval music with modern doom metal music. Brilliant stuff.


A unusual band ist also "Eläkeläiset " they are covering normal pop songs and play them in finnish "humppa style". wierd. Try "Paratiisihumppa (gansta's paradise)"

__________________
"It seems to me that the idea of a personal God is an anthropological concept which I cannot take seriously. I also cannot imagine some will or goal outside the human sphere. Science has been charged with undermining morality, but the charge is unjust. A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties and needs; no religious basis is necessary. Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death
— Albert Einstein

saut

Yes. Nick Drake was doing the same thing (but darker) 30 years ago.

jalora

The Frogs.

__________________
Like my diamonds? The Devil himself gave them to me...

h2ogo69

primus
mars volta
dillinger escape plan
afi
tool
Christian death

sgn43

hahahaha....those guys are hilarious. and they're pretty damn unique in that they're one of the few bands that can write a song titled "Grandma In the Corner With a Penis In Her Hand"

__________________
To be great is to be misunderstood. -Emerson

bing bing

My vote goes to Ween. "Waving my Dick in the Wind" is pure genius.

akacja

Cursive, IMO; and Tool of course

__________________
"I want something good to die for,
to make it beautiful to live"

jonjon42

Sigur Ros as mentioned earlier
Aphex Twin (even if it's only one guy)
and
The Books (I cannot describe how these guys sound)

__________________
A damn dirty hippie without the dirty part....

strange

Nitzer Ebb

cellophanedeity

Yay!! Another Books fan! You are the first I've met besides the people I've introduced them to! *dance*

FoolThemAll

I think I'd have to disagree with Godspeed You! Black Emperor. I think of Slint, Mogwai, and Do Make Say Think among others when I listen to them. Great band, though.

Out of those named so far, I'd go with They Might Be Giants. The vocals are incredibly distinctive.

I didn't see Bjork named yet. Is there another album out there that sounds like Homogenic?

__________________
I wonder if we're stuck in Rome.

Suave

Feck yes! Although I don't know about them being the most unique, they're damn good.

Bjork is definitely uh, unique though. I swear, sometimes I can't tell that she's actually doing music.

__________________
"Few people are capable of expressing with equanimity opinions which differ from the prejudices of their social environment. Most people are even incapable of forming such opinions." - Albert Einstein

"Wise men talk because they have something to say; fools, because they have to say something." - Plato

muckluck

Shit! I just remembered, I forgot to mention Rage Against the Machine. Noone has even come close to sounding like them. The Deftones too! Are they both considered "ne-metal" because I think it would be insulting to compare them to the likes of Slipknot and other nu-metal bands.

__________________

zetg

Comus is one of the strangest bands ever.

mystmarimatt

A Simple Plan. They're soooooo amazingly good. OMG.

__________________
Words of Wisdom:

If you could really get to know someone and know that they weren't lying to you, then you would know the world was real. Because you could agree on things, you could compare notes. That must be why people get married or make Art. So they'll be able to really know something and not go insane.

mystmarimatt

Who? What? Sarcasm?

__________________
Words of Wisdom:

If you could really get to know someone and know that they weren't lying to you, then you would know the world was real. Because you could agree on things, you could compare notes. That must be why people get married or make Art. So they'll be able to really know something and not go insane.

Tophat665

OK,
First, let me be pedantic. Unique means one of a kind, so it is not possible of there to be degrees of unique. A band is either unique, or they are not. If you want to modify it, then you have to go with "truly unique", "Almost unique", or "most nearly unique". //pedantic (It's a pet peeve)

That said, it is my unpleasant duty to disagree with Sion. Yes was never Unique. Awesome, but not unique. They were in many was similar to ELP, and have other things in common with, say, Alan Parson's Project. Also, recently, Spock's Beard, Gordian Knot, and Porcupine tree are quite like them.

I also disagee that Ben Folds is unique. He's very well executed pop music with borderline novelty lyrics. Sort of like Bruce Hornsby meets the original Spike Jones.

I would have to agree that the combination of operatic scale, pyschedelia, and pyschological darkness in Pink Floyd (particularly from Animals on) is truly unique.

Cake is nearly unique, but are, in some ways similar to Talking Heads, anher nearly unique band.

Now They Might Be Giants is absolutely unique. Nothing even close.

Early Primus shares certain characteristics with the latter part of the first incarnation of King Crimson (Compare Lark's Tongues in Aspic part III with Southbound Pachyderm). Since then, they have diverged into territory strictly there own.

Tool, I would say, is unique to music in the same sort of perversely icky way that Robert Mappelthorp is to photography, only Tool has talent.

There are also some bands that are unique in really difficult to define ways. Blue Öyster Cult, for insance, is musically pretty straightforward blues based rock & roll; Buck Dharma has a unique sound, and is a guitar genius, but the same could be said of lots of guitarists without necessarily making their band unique. What makes BÖC unique is the juxtaposition of very straightforward rock & roll with a nearly science-fiction lyric sensibility. Hawkwind has a similar sensibility, but a different - more psychadelic - approach to muic. (Obligatory for me to mention BÖC.)

In a similar vein, Phish combined jazz based rock with, not to put too fine a point on it, utter nonsense, and then salted their albums with bluegrass. I can't think of another band who's lyrics are so utterly nonsensical, yet strangely compelling.

Speaking of bluegrass, Bela Fleck and the Fleck Tones: Banjo Jazz. Unique in my experience.

Jethro Tull also is interesting. At the very least they are unique in winning the first every heavy metal grammy. Other bands, Traffic for one, have used the flute, but no on other than Ian Anderson has ever played the Power flute. There is an early classical feel to much of their music, and a sort of almost pastoral feel to some of their work (Heavy Horses in particular). All this from a band who's first album was straight unadulterated blues.

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

lorod

Beat me to saying Meshuggah, can't believe it took 4 pages. I don't really like them, but they are as unique as they come.

Also listen to pain of salvation, their music is truley unique. I recommened the perfect element or BE.

anti fishstick

the swans, the frogs, guster, mars volta.

__________________
And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.
~Anais Nin

Tophat665

I can't believe I forgot Frank Zappa!

__________________
Light a man a fire, and he will be warm while it burns.
Set a man on fire, and he will be warm for the rest of his life.

optik_nerve

Lets here something like the album Belief. Nothing compares.

Glad you're a fan.

Jack Ruby

Devin Townsend. Oh yeah.

__________________
You don't know what you don't know.

chelsea_9

back in the day: the beatles/jimi hendrix/count basie

now-a-days: tv on the radio/beck/cLOUDDEAD

Johnny Pyro

Mr. Bungle.

Mike pattons band.(Faith no more lead singer)

Really weird good stuff. Check it out, its worth it.

__________________
"From delusion lead me to truth, from darkness lead me to light, from death lead me to eternal life. - Sheriff John Wydell

woody18228

Coheed & Cambria are a unique band
So are The Mars Volta (which someone said)

C&C tell a sci-fi story throughout their albums....very complex/progressive the more and more you learn about it.

killeena

I have to put a vote down for Opeth. I was thinking about this the other day, that nobody could ever pull off "trying" to sound similar to them. They are truly unique.

Also, Mindless Self Indulgence is very unique. I think that is a band that most people either love or hate though.

I also thing Dog Fashion Disco is very unique. Even though they can be compared to Mr. Bungle in ways, I think they are incredibly unique.

Oh yea, and of course Mr. Bungle.

__________________
Freedom would be not to choose between black and white but to abjure such prescribed choices. - Theodor Adorno

Draconis

I like to think my stuff is pretty unique.
My music

__________________
STEVE MCKENNA!

oldbob

Another vote for the Books - I haven't been able to stop listening to their new one since it came out. And another one for Sonic Youth. Also, I like that Tchkung! was mentioned (although they're maybe a wee bit derivative of Crash Worship).
As far as unmentioned unique sounds go, Current 93 was unique for a while. And while loungey torch music isn't exactly an untilled field, I haven't run across many people who sound like Antony of Antony & the Johnsons.

__________________
children who refuse to brush will have inordinately bad breath.

Stiltzkin

Hell YEAH! I'm weird though, in that I think ATDI actually kicked more ass than TMV. Also, just for no reason, I always like to mention that they're from my home town (represent!).

I listened to some Rokoth samples on http://www.cdnow.com/, and they put me in mind of some of Yngwie Malmsteen's stuff. I can't honestly say I was blown away though.

Waldgeist717

Agalloch, there sound is something I never heard of but you can still hear the influence of some things in there music.

badwill

Fever Ray.