Pink Lemonade by Closure In Moscow is fantastic. It tells the story of The Fool, who is attempting to find enlightenment through hedonism and drug use. It’s got wizards, time/dimensional travel, talking dinosaurs, multidimensional super computer gods, existential anguish, and a ton of insanely cool riffs. It sounds a fair bit like a more upbeat Mars Volta album. I can’t recommend it enough.

If you’re more metallically inclined, I have a few more recommendations:

Kezia, by Protest the Hero is a brilliant prog metal concept album that covers the execution by firing squad of a woman (Kezia), from three perspectives: the priest in the prison where she’s kept, one of the guards that makes up the firing squad, and Kezia herself. It’s full of complex imagery, and a tremendous album overall.

Apex, by Unleash the Archers is an epic power metal concept album about an immortal being, awakened for the ?th time by an evil queen. Some great Iron Maiden-esque vocals, and ripping instrumentals.

You also can’t go wrong with literally any Between The Buried And Me album from Colors onward (Colors, The Great Misdirect, The Parallax Hypersleep Dialogues, Parallax II: Future Sequence, Coma Ecliptic, Automata parts I and II, and Colors 2). Some of theme albums and characters are connected through three or more albums, and both the stories and music are unbelievably complex, by a band at the peak of their craft that also manage to consistently improve.

Check out Doll Skin, Stand Atlantic, and Closure in Moscow

“Mist”, by Protest the Hero’s kind of meta, as it’s about the band’s experience playing in Newfoundland. Also “The Reign of Unending Terror” is about their shared love of Propagandhi, and how much they’ve influenced PtH.

I’d also add Trophy Eyes - “You Can Count on Me”