Eddie Floyd, "My Girl"
The soul artists of the 60s and 70s went ahead and just covered each other, including even covering truly huge songs. Songs don't really get bigger than "My Girl", but that didn't stop Eddie Floyd here, who was no slouch himself. The comparable situation just doesn't seem to happen much with rock, certainly not with the same frequency.
Royal Headache, "Wouldn't You Know"
Pretty straight ahead rock out of Australia, a recommendation from an internet friend, and a fun album. I know nothing about them other than the fact that they're from Australia, though. Sorry!
The Dead Science, "Clemency"
A truly strange record. The vocal delivery is so over the top and theatrical, and the musical portion helps reinforce that. Big time theater kid energy on it! But it's also kind of refreshing to hear a record that's really going for it like this, and so I enjoy it occasionally as a change of pace. Nothing else really like it in my collection. I just have this record from them, I don't know if the rest of their discography is as unhinged.
Knocked Loose, "Belleville"
On the border of hardcore and metalcore, Knocked Loose sound probably most to me like early metalcore, I suppose. I picked up this record after reading positive reviews of it as a hardcore record, but to my ears, it doesn't read very hardcore. So, not my favorite record, as I'm not really a metalcore guy.
The Meters, "Ease Back"
I've praised A Message From The Meters before, the singles collection covering a whole ton of their 7" singles, but for those who haven't heard it (or read that praise): it might be my single favorite funk release. It's not coherent the way other albums are, but it's very hard to argue with 40 tracks of the Meters at the top of their form.