Underrated/Obscure Bands

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Mogwai.

Here's my list...

I Love You But I've Chosen Darkness
Slow Runner
Daughter Darling
Hot Monkey Love
Tism
Mancain

Brian Jonestown Massacre, the Coral, You am I, Sergeant.

The Kovenant.

They can blend metal, techno and progressive styles and make it all work. Their album Animatronic is a classic.

Regurgitator
The Mavis's
Bob Evans
Vermillion Lies
Zoe Boekbinder
Kim Boekbinder/Vermillion
Happyland
The Dissociatives
The Monkees
Thirsty Merc

And probably a whole lot more Australian bands.

Katatonia. They are a dark Metal band with lyrics that I think the majority of Aspies can relate to. I actually think the vocalist has Aspergers.......but thats just my opinion. If you're a fan of A Perfect Circle, Cold, or Breaking Benjamin then I recommend Katatonia. They're my favorite band and, for the most part, relatively unknown.

I like Opeth but I disagree that their new material is weak. Watershed is nice and freaky, the moment near the end of "Burden" where the guitars go out of tune is just what I wanted to hear from the band. Their peak for me was definitely the first two albums which had great prominent bass, counterpoint guitar melodies, and bizarre song structures (usually taken to epic proportions with 10+ minute songs). I thought the general weirdness of the early band came back in some form in Watershed; it's got me back into them.

Fans of Mindless Self Indulgence should also check out Atari Teenage Riot if they haven't already, especially the album 1995 (alternatively called Delete Yourself).

Some albums I've gotten into lately from bands/artists that perhaps deserve more credit, in a variety of genres:

Crumbsuckers - Life of Dreams (crossover thrash, for fans of D.R.I.)
Tarwater - 11/6 12/10 (indie electronic, trip hop)
"????" (a.k.a. Four Question Marks, for those who want to search for the band) - Titan (if you've heard Meshuggah, you get the idea - these guys knock the speed and insanity up a notch)
Alchemist - Jar of Kingdom (psychedelic death metal!)
Carbonized - Screaming Machines (sounds like later Black Flag playing Voivod songs!)
Faxed Head - Uncomfortable but Free (lo-fi metal with an extra studio touch - reminds me of the early Butthole Surfers, but if you ask me this is even more out there)
Watchtower - Energetic Disassembly (the first technical thrash album! Hear if you're into Voivod)
Zoogz Rift - Idiots on the Miniature Golf Course (the heir to Captain Beefheart! There's a distinct Frank Zappa flavour to this music as well.)
The Jazz Composer's Orchestra - The Jazz Composer's Orchestra (free jazz with epic "experimental big band" arrangements! Cecil Taylor Unit fans would dig)
Spontaneous Music Ensemble - Karyobin (one of the great underrated milestones of improv music)

That's all for now, I'm afraid of going overboard here.

Superchunk.

Typical indie-rock fare, but they're really really good.

For the metal fans out there:
Necrophagist- They still make my jaw drop every time.

Testament- What Metallica should be like.

Black Label Society- Vicious, flat out old-school headbangery, in an age of nu-metal and scene kids.

Nile- Egyptian style death metal. Come on, how much more interesting could you get?

Amon Amarth- Viking Style melodeath. Okay, maybe that ties with nile in an interestingness battle.

Others:

Stars of the Lid- Anesthetic in music form.

Lustmord- a horror movie in music form.

Abyssmal Sorrow- suicide in music form.

I definitely agree with the Swans, Lydia Lunch, and Front 242.

Also in that world:

Coil
Legendary Pink Dots
The Tear Garden
Current 93
amGod
Front Line Assembly
Curiosity (she's also AS)
E Nomine
Rabia Sorda
Flesh Field
32 Crash (Front 242 side project)
Vernian Process

Repeating others, and adding:
Caravan (canterbury prog. Their debut album is magnificently autistic to my ears)
The Soft Machine (canterbury prog. featuring the somewhat autistic voice of Robert Wyatt)
Camel (prog)
Magma (operaic prog from France. highly obscure. contains lyrics in an imaginary language)
Slapp Happy (operaic/cabaretic avant-pop)
White Noise (experimental electronic. Featuring the late Delia Derbyshire, whom some aspies believe was an aspie herself).

well i will post a few responses. some better than others.

this is a band that i never heard of until i came upon them by chance when i was looking for "dwarfs" on youtube.

i am astonished that i never heard this song before as it is extremely well done. his technique is brilliant. this band may have been popular in america, but it was never even released in australia, and i am not sure why. embedding is disabled, so just click on the "watch on youtube" link.
youtube is suffering an extreme lag in performance tonight for me, so it may be better to watch this later or press "pause" and let it cache fully before watching.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oqlRorsSsS0[/youtube]

i am making separate posts because i do not want to cram the songs together.

this is john butler, and he is somewhat renowned, but i think his genius is overlooked to a degree because he is not as popular as people that are no where near as talented.


[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KY9lU8cbH68[/youtube]

and here is the most amazing musician i have seen, and i never heard of him until i saw him on a documentary about autistic savants.
he composed this when he was 11, and he is about 14-15 here, but there is another video where he plays it just as well at the age of 11. i did not post a link to that video because it is part of a documentary, and the music is interrupted by commentary.

this is simply astounding, and yet there are only 744 views to this video on his page.

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8aXZkFRVdzI&feature=related[/youtube]

Sonata Arctica.

I saw them in concert a few weeks ago and they were awesome.