Best Metal Song Tournament (Round 4)

Are you enjoying my style of putting songs against each other?


  • Total voters
    7
''Beast In The Light'' and ''Nosferatu'' are some of the few songs I wish were Bruce solo/Maiden songs. What a songs, instant classics for me.

Roadrunner's ''In The Fire'' is very solid (riffing, tempo, vocals, and especially instrumental section). Pure King Diamond vibe.

Kamelot's Karma is one of their best, that nostalgic chorus.


Bloodbound's Nosferatu intro feels very Maiden or Blaze to me, and I liked it very much.
Definitely a mix of the Blaze and Reunion eras, which is cool.
 
3 Tribuzy - Beast In The Light +1
0 Roadrunner United - In The Fire

3 Death - Crystal Mountain +1
0 Revocation - Dismantle The Dictator

2 Kamelot - Karma +1
1 Bloodbound - Nosferatu

2 Arcane - Promise (Part 2) + 1
1 Mastodon - Hearts Alive

Tribuzy......is fine? The music sounds pretty flat and the recording is incredibly dry and cheap-sounding (especially the drums - which sound programmed). It's weird to hear Bruce singing on something this amateur. He sounds great in the verses, but the other singer is very annoying and the chorus reaches into Bruce's shrieking/strained zone that I hate. The songwriting itself is solid enough, I suppose. Good solos. Horrible transition after the solos, though. In The Fire has a better recording and tighter guitar playing thanks to Matt Heafy, but King's terrible, amateurish vocals ruin everything as usual. I said what I said.

Death's Crystal Mountain is typical Death: amazing instrumentation and insane riffing, wild structural shifts, and awful, awful harsh vocals. Revocation benefit from a more modern production, though the song itself is just metal cliches piled on top of each other (chug + atonal notes combined together over double bass and screaming). Nothing worth listening to here for me. Chuck wins for the riffs.

Nosferatu shows up in all of these games and I really do enjoy it. It's like a more melodic Iced Earth track meets Judas Priest with a healthy slab of power metal energy - a truly enjoyable song. But Karma is the Kamelot song. It's an absolute classic with some of the best songwriting, vocals, and melodies ever used in the genre. The blending of magical atmosphere, vocal and instrumental dynamics, Khan's beautiful performance, the subtle piano layers of swirling, swelling keyboard lines...it's an absolute tour de force.

The riffs and instrumental sections on Hearts Alive are absolutely stellar. Killer proggy, heavy stuff! Troy's early vocals are such a challenge, though. Thank goodness he got better over time. I'm also not sure the song justifies its length. On the flip side, the vocals on this Arcane song are absolutely gorgeous. It's a much softer, more proggy in the Porcupine Tree/Haken vein, but from a pure enjoyment perspective this is more for me. Great dynamics, very emotive, and absorbing in a way that early Mastodon can not achieve. Hearing this makes me want to check out this album! Good tune.
 
But Karma is the Kamelot song. It's an absolute classic with some of the best songwriting, vocals, and melodies ever used in the genre. The blending of magical atmosphere, vocal and instrumental dynamics, Khan's beautiful performance, the subtle piano layers of swirling, swelling keyboard lines...it's an absolute tour de force.
I couldn´t agree more!
The Fourth Legacy was allready a great one but Karma remains the pinnacle of Kamelot IMO.
Perfect album from start to finish and the title track is their ultimate song.
 
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I couldn´t agree more!
The Fourth Legacy was allready a great one but Karma remains the pinnacle of Kamelot IMO.
Perfect album from start to finish and the title track is their ultimate song.
Fourth Legacy through The Black Halo is an incredible run of albums. All of them are fantastic in their own right.
 
4 Tribuzy - Beast In The Light +1
0 Roadrunner United - In The Fire

4 Death - Crystal Mountain +1
0 Revocation - Dismantle The Dictator

2 Kamelot - Karma
2 Bloodbound - Nosferatu +1

2 Arcane - Promise (Part 2)
2 Mastodon - Hearts Alive +1

Heh, this is the first round where I'm familiar with at least one track per matchup.

Huh. I've never actually listened to the studio version of Beast In The Light. It's pretty rough. Folks should listen to the live version with Bruce and Roy Z (also to their version of Tears Of The Dragon, which is probably the definitive version for me). It's so much better than this, which is kinda difficult to listen to at points. In The Fire has great performances on the instruments, but the vocals let down the song. King Diamond can be hit or miss, and this was definitely a miss. There are plenty of songs where I enjoy his vocals, here they are completely devoid of power though. All the falsetto parts simply sound like guide vocals for a demo, not like the final takes for a finished product. A shame.

Crystal Mountain is a legendary song, for good reason. I got very close to including it in my top 10 as well, but I decided against it to go for a couple of wildcards instead. Dismantle The Dictator has some pretty cool riffs. Also props for keeping the bass audible and not simply rumbling beneath everything as is all too common in the (sub-)genre. Still, going against Crystal Mountain is almost unfair and I have to award it the win.

Karma is a pretty great song, but it desperately needed a very different production. Its power and epicness don't shine through the way they're supposed to, and the keyboards in particular sound tacked on, despite being fundamental to their songwriting. Nosferatu on the other hand is pure Maiden worship. One could criticize them for lacking originality, but it's done so goddamn well that I can't help loving it.

Never heard of Arcane before and it's a bummer that they're disbanded. This song impressed me and I'll definitely check out their albums. Amazing song. Despite that I have to acknowledge my bias and go with Hearts Alive. I simply adore that song. It's not as polished and has its rough edges, but it's an amazing journey. I was completely floored when I first heard it.
 
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