Best Instrumental Rock Albums?

TheCrunge

Active Member
Just curious what people think are some good mostly or all instrumental rock albums. I have Blow By Blow by Jeff Beck (on vinyl which is nice) which I really like. I also really like a lot of the Pink Floyd sings with mostly instrumentals (One of these Days, Shine On Me Crazy Diamond).
 
A couple of minutes of Beefheart's "vocals" (on Willie The Pimp) aside, I'll put forward Hot Rats by Frank Zappa.
 
I have a bunch of Yes albums (Close to the Edge, Fragile on Vinyl, Going for the One on CD) but I will have to check out Relayer. I will have to check out that Knopfler album. I really like Dire Straits (have almost all their albums on vinyl).
 
Close to the Edge, Tales from Topographic Oceans, and Relayer are the holy trio of Yes albums for me. A lot of their other stuff is great, like Yes Album, Fragile, Drama, etc. but nothing touches those three.

Not sure of a specific album, but Tangerine Dream, Jade Warrior, Gryphon, Ozric Tentacles, Popul Vuh and Neu! are some great (mostly) instrumental bands that come to mind. Godspeed You! Black Emperor is fantastic too, really epic and emotional, but I haven't heard much post-rock that I enjoyed quite as much (maybe Sigur Ros and A Silver Mt Zion).

edit: and Henry Cow! had to look at my avatar to remind me :p, but In Praise of Learning, which is probably my favorite by them, has quite a lot of Dagmar Krause's 'unique' vocals ;)
 
Ill have to look into some of these. I have the Zappa albums mentioned. Di Meola seems pretty interesting. Might have to try'n get a copy of that. I am surprised no one has mentioned Satriani. I have a few albums of his that I like too.
 
What about Santana's first album. I just jammed, or somewhat on a quad copy of Illuminations. Joe Farrell, Upon This Rock, (Never Released On CD). The Title Track Jams! You really start to get into Jazz/Rock Fusion with this one. I think you could put Miles Davis, Bitches Brew in this. How about that Jeff Beck Jan Hammer Live Album. Like three sentences of lyrics, otherwise all instrumental. And then Jeff Beck's Wired, and Blow By Blow. I will have to dig a bit through my stuff. Unless it's early blues, everything else I listen to is instrumental mostly.
 
Ill have to look into some of these. I have the Zappa albums mentioned.
Di Meola seems pretty interesting.
Might have to try'n get a copy of that. I am surprised no one has mentioned Satriani. I have a few albums of his that I like too.

I have a couple of his records and they are excellent. Anybody have Devotion by John Mclaughlin?
 
I'm partial to Julian Cope's "Rite" series of albums: Rite, Rite 2, Rite Now, and Rite Bastard.
 
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