King's X -
Gretchen Goes to Nebraska - Their best, I think. I just found out from AMG that the singer, Doug Pinnick, is 54 years old now. My day is ruined.
The rest of these are guitar-geek albums.
Dave Beegle -
A Year Closer - he's my old guitar teacher, and a world-class player, so you should support him too

This album is acoustic, mostly flamenco.
Testament -
The Gathering - It's metal, could you tell? Dave Lombardo is the shiznit on drums. Metallica made the big time and these guys didn't. T'ain't fair.
Dream Theater - [i]6 Degrees of Inner Turbulence[/] - John Petrucci is my favorite guitar player of all time, rockwise. This album's another epic prog-rock mastubatory 3 hour thing. I love those.