Maidenfans Best Albums of the Millennium: 2008 FINAL ROUND

[Sth2112]

Late in the game this time. Voted Opeth, King's X and Sabaton

 

[Mosh]

1. Sabaton - The Art of War =
2. Opeth - Watershed
3. Metallica - Death Magnetic +1
4. Judas Priest - Nostradamus -1
5. Amon Amarth - Twilight of the Thunder God =
6. Blaze Bayley - The Man Who Would Not Die +1
7. Testament - The Formation of Damnation -1
8. Gojira - The Way of All Flesh =
9. Trivium - Shogun =
10. Moonspell - Night Eternal =
11. Alestorm - Captain Morgan's Revenge =
12. Kings X - XV =
13. Iced Earth - The Crucible of Man =

Sabaton and Opeth are neck and neck with a tie for vote share - Sabaton will retain the top spot unless Opeth gains more voters. Nostradamus continues its drop down to #4 as Death Magnetic creeps up to the top three. Blaze gets another small bump as well. Everything below #7 feels more or less settled with no albums gaining any real support.

 

[MrKnickerbocker]

Skipping Watershed this time. It’s well enough rated here and there at least 3 better Opeth albums in the game.

 

[Mosh]

1. Sabaton - The Art of War =
2. Opeth - Watershed =
3. Metallica - Death Magnetic =
4. Amon Amarth - Twilight of the Thunder God +1
5. Judas Priest - Nostradamus -1
6. Blaze Bayley - The Man Who Would Not Die =
7. Trivium - Shogun +2
8. Testament - The Formation of Damnation -1
9. Gojira - The Way of All Flesh -1
10. Alestorm - Captain Morgan's Revenge +1
11. Moonspell - Night Eternal -1
12. Kings X - XV =
13. Iced Earth - The Crucible of Man =

There's enough movement here that I'm going to leave this open for one more round since I took the weekend off (2009 will start up today as well). Art of War seems to be solid in first place for now while Watershed and Death Magnetic are virtually tied. Amon Amarth and Blaze continue to creep up, while Priest continues a steady tumble. We also saw a little boost for Trivium and Alestorm as well. Still a lot of room for some interesting results here!

 

[Shmoolikipod]

The Day That Never Comes/All Nightmare Long/Cyanide is the best 3 song stretch Metallica has post black album. Cyanide in particular is very underrated I believe. DM ends kinda weakly with the last 2 tracks, but I'm happy if it ends in the top 3.

Also voting Watershed, TMMWND, Shogun, and I guess Gojira, it's not remotely close to From Mars to Sirius but still has some great songs. And Alestorm!

 

[Detective Beauregard]

The Day That Never Comes/All Nightmare Long/Cyanide is the best 3 song stretch Metallica has post black album. Cyanide in particular is very underrated I believe. DM ends kinda weakly with the last 2 tracks, but I'm happy if it ends in the top 3.

Couldn’t agree more. Big Cyanide lover here. Also a fan of Broken Beat & Scarred and Judas Kiss, and I’ll take Unforgiven III over the country second installment.

 

[Mosh]

Last call for votes!

 

[Mosh]

FINAL POWER RANKING

1. Sabaton - The Art of War +2
2. Opeth - Watershed +2
3. Metallica - Death Magnetic =
4. Amon Amarth - Twilight of the Thunder God -2
5. Blaze Bayley - The Man Who Would Not Die +6
6. Gojira - The Way of All Flesh +7
7. Judas Priest - Nostradamus -6
8. Trivium - Shogun -1
9. Testament - The Formation of Damnation -3
10. Alestorm - Captain Morgan's Revenge -1
11. Moonspell - Night Eternal -3
12. Kings X - XV -2
13. Iced Earth - The Crucible of Man -2

This ended up being a pretty interesting result. The top line story was Nostradamus having the biggest drop (-7!) of any top seeded album. Sabaton held firm once it took the top spot although Watershed came very close. Overall this is the right result IMO. Watershed is a decent but flawed album by a great band while The Art of War is a very special, genre defining album by a decent band. Twilight of the Thunder God, the other classic album here, did OK but struggled to find its way into a top spot. Metallica ended up being a bit of a juggernaut and actually came close to taking out the top 2 - it was always one vote short though. I'll be curious if this ends up being the best Metallica performance. I don't think there's much of a case for Hardwired being a better album, but it may do well just by having weaker/lesser known competition. We'll see.

The other big winners were Blaze and Gojira, who predictably shot up from bottom seeds. Blaze in particular had a really impressive showing! I kinda figured Silicon Messiah would be his only super noteworthy performance in this game, but the 6 point jump and top five finish is respectable (knocking out Judas Priest in the process). Gojira also did well, although it seems like there is a pretty low ceiling for them after Mars to Sirius.