Aswad Stranglers Green Day Led Zep Black Sabbath The Cure T-Rex The Clash Deep Purple The Sex Pistols
The Postal Service The Strokes Sun Kil Moon/Red House Painters Tindersticks Dead Kennedys Stiff Little Fingers The Human League The Last Shadow Puppets Weather Report White Stripes
It's more the vocals that get me with them. I listen to heavy metal, I don't mind Slayer for instance as they are a lot more 'tuneful' than Cannibal Corpse! But for my money, nothing beats Rush if you like technicality and musicians testing themselves.
Even though i'm more a metal head than a rock fan, i love this song [video=youtube;5nmOMo4OPi4]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5nmOMo4OPi4[/video] I like it when bands actually use their bass, too many bands just put a cheap bass line in and it's barely noticeable. The bass is much more important than most people think. A lot of metal bands these days don't mix it in properly with their music. Metallica's justice album sounds much better with bass in it.
My only issue with slayer is that Kerry and Jeff can't write decent solo's. They all sound the same. I have to agree about the technicality of rush though. each musician can claim to be the best at their instrument (well, maybe lifeson will struggle against people like hendrix and page, but peart and lee are beasts)
My favourite Coltrane records are Impressions and A Love Supreme. Impressions because Dolphy is on arguably his best form when paired with Coltrane and ALS has pretty much everything you need to know about Coltrane really; blends both his early and late periods together in a glorious way.