Albums based on a recurring musical phrase

I've been listening to Jeff Wayne's War of the Worlds lately, and that uses a few recurring motifs throughout the whole album, to great effect. Sits in a weird space between disco and progressive rock.

The Snow Goose by camel opens and closes with the same haunting melody.

Kind of a gimme, but Howard Shore’s Lord of the Rings trilogy soundtrack is one of the shining examples of leitmotif in a modern orchestral score. I won’t go into the details because there are plenty of great analyses out there but I highly recommend that musical rabbit hole to anyone who might be even slightly interested in it.

Ninja edit: this site is quite old, but IMO it’s one of the best and most comprehensive web resources on Shore’s leitmotifs throughout the soundtrack. Pro tip: the musical note next to the headers are buttons you can press to play the given theme on each page!

Totally unrelated, but Richard Henshall’s Mu, Vol. I is a phenomenal instrumental rock/metal example of a “variations and a theme” (not to be confused with a theme and variations!). The entire EP has bits and pieces of a simple melody woven through it which finally culminates in its full statement during the last song on the album, which is also the EP’s namesake. Henshall is one of the guitarists for the progressive metal band Haken and his influence in that group is obvious, though I have to say I think I like this album as much as, if not more than a lot of Haken’s material!

Floating Points, Pharoah Sanders & The London Symphony Orchestra - Promises Somewhere between ambient, jazz, electronic, and minimalist classical. The album takes a simple motif played on synth, piano, and harpsichord and adds tenor sax and string arrangements throughout. A beautiful album that was my record of the year in 2021. Turn down the lights, put on a good pair of headphones, and give it the 45 minutes that it asks of you. Absolutely worth it.

My first thought is Set Course for Andromeda by Sithu Aye. There's a couple of recurring leitmotifs that you'll pick up on pretty easily, and the last few pieces almost have a bit of back and forth to them. There is also the Homebound album that I think is supposed to be a direct "sequel", but I'm less familiar with that one. I also recommend his Senpai I, II, and III albums, although not for this prompt.

I think I know what you mean, but if I misunderstand then I apologize for the next recommendations.

If Beale Street Could Talk by Nicholas Britell

La La Land by Justin Hurwitz and also Babylon by him to a lesser degree.

Carol by Carter Burwell.

Joker by Hildur Guonadottir.

Challengers by Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross.

Tron: Legacy by Daft Punk.

I love this too, and I have so many to recommend I feel overwhelmed! But get something out there, I'll start with Green Carnation's Light of Day, Day of Darkness. It's an album-length song (60 min) and just a wonderful journey with lots of references back to other parts in the song.

Cassandra Gemini from Fances the Mute by The Mars Volta. Whenever the song comes back from dissonant and chaotic sections it returns to variations on a similar motif. Gives it this really eerie quality where you feel like you are phasing in and out of lucidity.

Inside the Cable Temple by Omnipotent Youth Society. It’s kinda just one big vibe song, but there are definitely lots of motifs that are explored and returned to.

Nine Inch Nails did this wonderfully in the 90s, with The Downward Spiral having its core melodic theme pop up across the album in varying contexts to drive home its point, and a similar technique being used to different ends with The Fragile.

Philip Glass’ Metamorphoses is exactly what you’re looking for. Inspired by Kafka’s novel, the pieces are a constantly evolving repetition of the same theme with slight variations. You must like minimalistic style and solo piano work tho.

Bit of a curveball recommendation: the multi-volume soundtrack for the webcomic Homestuck is chock full of repeating leitmotifs and remixes/references.

An acquired taste, maybe, but the rabbit hole goes deep. Incidentally, this is the true origin of the famous Megalovania (Toby Fox is one of the biggest contributors to the soundtrack.)

For whatever reason my mind went instantly to https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kxOEOwCKWcc

Not an album in any traditional sense. It still delights me.

The Ocean - Pelagial (2013) has several reprises of a noteworthy phrase on guitar

...an obvious recommendation is canto ostinato but i suspect that's not quite what you have in mind...

...if you already have the wall in-mind, though, it's worth following through the full trilogy of the pros and cons of hitchhiking and the final cut (note the albums were produced out-of-sequence): roger waters explores melodic themes across each of his solo albums, perhaps most prominently in pros and cons, but perhaps even more intriguingly also across his corpus of work, with thematic motifs both referencing prior works and foreshadowing future works...