Don’t know how obscure you all would consider it, but I highly recommend to my fellow headbangers - and everyone else, of course 
:
Tool
“Undertow” (1993…I think.)
The whole album is bitchin’.
Odyshape is a really cool record; I never got into the original Kurt Cobain name-checking punky violin Raincoats, but then I progressed to Odyshape. I love when bands go weird.
So–I’m not the only one who bought that record! (Or CD.) Great choice.
Anthems In Eden is also very fine. British folk with (slightly) Renaissance instrumental backing. My LP was destroyed & I was quite happy when it appeared on CD.
Another vote for Willis Alan Ramsey’s first (& for so many years only) record. For anyone who likes singer/songwriters. And he can actually sing better than many of them.
And for Forever Changes…
(Need to check out my LP collection. However, some of the obscure ones are obscure for a reason.)
Robert Gordon with Link Wray (Private Stock 1977)
I saw Link Wray do a surfer guitar show in 2003, two years before he died. He was in his 70s and he had a blond bimbo playing tambourine. He confided in me that he had her in the band “as a way to get into her pants”. hehe. The album has Robert Gordon’s hit, My gal is red hot, your gal aint doodly squat. A great album.
Indeed you’re not. I’ve told my Compleat Dancing Master story here before–that it had been a huge favorite of mine since the mid '70s, but when it came out on CD a few years ago I discovered that the LP I’d been listening to all those years (even getting it autographed by John Kirkpatrick) had the wrong music on side two! It was actually side one of The Compleat Dancing Master backed with side two of the very similar Ashley Hutchings project Rattlebone and Ploughjack.
Exquisite.
“How The Other Half Lives” by The Crybabies.
I heard their cover of “Man With Money” on the Underground Garage, and bought the CD.
One of the few CD’s that I’ve listened to from start to finish, and enjoyed every single track.
I’ve done a few of these “obscure” threads before, and I hope I don’t repeat myself.
Lowell George - Thanks I’ll Eat It Here
Cephus and Wiggins - Guitar Man
On the subject of folk and folk-rock, Bob Pegg is one of the most woefully neglected artists ever, first as a member of Mr Fox, Then with Nick Strutt both unplugged and with an electric band (The Shipbuilder is one of the best concept albums ever) - all of his post-Mr Fox stuff finally re-released - and, most recently, solo. The man deserves some recognition (and a new album would be nice, too!).
Clinic - Internal Wrangler - Can’t describe them, but freakin’ awesome
K-Os - Joyful Rebellion - My favorite hip-hop album
I call them “the band that Radiohead should be, making the albums that Radiohead should be making at this point in their career.” Internal Wrangler is already a classic, and they haven’t topped it since.
The Swollen Monkeys, Afterbirth of the Cool. If you just really need to hear how insane a horn band can get.