GREATEST METAL ALBUM CUP - Winner: Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son!

Spiritual Beggars sounded really good. Muscular rhythm guitars, solid hard rock groove, melody, and I liked the organ. I hope they win so I can dig deeper into this.

Ozzy‘s album has its moments, but it’s uneven. Go Beggars.
 
Sad Legend’s unusual layering of sounds doesn’t work for me and the material is hardly revelatory. Persefone remains interesting and challenging and gets my vote.
 
Match 1:
Sentenced is… bland. Boring. Commercial, which isn’t necessarily a bad thing, but it’s seriously lacking flavour. Bewitched’s album, on the other hand, is almost the polar opposite – raw and unpolished, but they’re pretty fun and energetic, and at least sound passionate about what they’re doing. Bewitched gets my vote.


Match 2:
Anorexia Nervosa, on top of having an incredibly silly name, is basically a mess. I might have mentioned that I’m still sort of new when it comes to black metal, but I’m certain I’ve listened to numerous underproduced 90’s Norwegian albums that sounded less frantic and more focused than this. Not impressed. Despite being represented in this round by (in my opinion) one of the lesser tracks from “Hate Crew Deathroll”, Children of Bodom is still lightyears better.


Match 3:
I’m having a great time spinning Spiritual Beggars – massive grooves, colossal guitar sound and great performances all around. Definitely pleased to make their acquaintance! Ozzy is still Ozzy, for better or for worse – “No More Tears” is decent, but nowhere near his best. I prefer rocking out to some more Spiritual Beggars for sure.


Match 4:
Sad Legend manages to find a nice balance between the choral female vocals and harsher black metal screams, along with some nice riffs and surprisingly atmospheric passages. Even if it doesn’t quite hit home with me, it’s definitely interesting enough that I might give them another chance later. On the other hand, Persefone’s music continues to offer an abundance of musical twists and turns that keeps me engaged all the way through. This was closer than I expected it to be, but I’m voting for Persefone again.
 
Sentenced were okay. A bit like a lo-fi version of Amorphis. I don't find a lot of continuty in the album. Some atmospheric and moody music and other songs are a bit upbeat-sounding. Overall quite enjoyable and the style appeals to me. Prefer this style and album overall to the lo-fi old school metal/thrash style of Bewitched.

Children of Bodom have been one of my favourite contestants of the game so far with this album, and no exception here. Anorexia Nervosa are heavier going, although I don't have any problem with the style. CoB are just too catchy and much more polished.

Neither of the third pair really appeal to me. Some nice bits of guitar in Spiritual Beggars' album, but the songs are terribly samey. Going for Ozzy again for an overall more polished and better put-together selection of music.

Sad Legend have a bit of promise, but I can't get away with those floaty high vocals, and again, there's not a lot of variation in this album. I'm going to fly the flag for Persefone again, nice album.
 
Not a lot of time for a write-up, but like others, this is my introduction to Spiritual Beggars, and I like it! It wouldn't beat Blizzard or Diary, or maybe even Bark at the Moon, but it definitely beats No More Tears.

All the rest is meh. [EDIT: I take that back. Bewitched sounded pretty interesting whenever the guy wasn't "singing" -- and I use that term VERY loosely.]
 
This Sentenced album is pretty good metal with some post-punk elements, but the singer has a weird accent that makes things come off as amateurish. Way too heavy on the mids on some tracks, too. Meanwhile, Bewitched is still like a NWOBHM tribute band with worse vocals. Winner: Sentenced

Anorexia Nervosa sounds like power metal on some crazy mix of PCP and meth that brings out its secret black metal soul. It sounds like what I can only imagine a heart attack feels like. Meanwhile, Children Of Bodom offers interesting music with bad vocals, but is much more enjoyable to listen to. Winner: Children Of Bodom

Never heard of Spiritual Beggars before, but they play an appealing version of beefy, 70s-infused stoner hard rock. The music feels a bit samey after a while, but it’s consistently good and has an honest energy to it. The Ozzy album has its highlights, but is also kind of uneven, and has never been a particular favorite of mine. Let’s go with the fresher option. Winner: Spiritual Beggars

This Sad Legend album is pretty bizarre, with its distant, clean, high-pitched vocals combined with black metal shrieking, and its more thoughtful passages punctuated by distracting blast beats. Feels a bit schizophrenic and low rent. The music is consistently much better on the Persefone album, and the vocals aren’t necessarily any worse, so this one is a pretty easy choice. Winner: Persefone
 
The first match was the toughest one for me. I feel kind of the same about both albums, but I'll give the edge to Sentenced because their singer is more to my tastes. I won't be upset at all if Bewitched pulls out the win, though. They are certainly not the worst thing that has appeared in this game so far.

Children of Bodom in a very easy decision. I hope they get matched up against a much better opponent in their next round.

I already mentioned how much I'm loving the Spirutal Beggars album. I've never heard of them at all before, but they have definitely been the biggest discovery of the whole game up to this point for me. I hope they can stick around for a while.

Persefone in another relatively easy decision. While I'm still not a fan of their style of vocals, I highly enjoy the rest of the music on this album. Overall they are starting to grow on me a little bit.
 
The Flash said:
Ozzy himself is a giant, but his solo act probably isn't.
Click to expand...

I'd say other than dirty deeds done dirt cheap, it's probably the highest selling album to feature in the game so far, unless I'm forgetting something really obvious

EDIT: probably korn
 
Black Wizard said:
Ozzy's solo act would be greatly improved with a better vocalist. There are some pretty good songs and he's worked with a couple of excellent guitarists, but his shitty vocals is the weak link.
Click to expand...

That alternative scenario is impossible though, because it was Ozzy's prominence that enabled him to attract talent to work with him.
 
The Flash said:
Ozzy himself is a giant, but his solo act probably isn't.
Click to expand...
Yeah, I dunno about that. Ozzy’s solo stuff was pretty big. When I was in middle school in the early 80s, Ozzy was bigger than Dio-Sabbath. It was kind of remarkable how he turned that around, from getting fired and being written off to back on top again. Those first couple solo albums were huge—thanks in large part to the genius of Randy Rhoads. (That guitar riff in Diary of a Madman, the song...just, wow.)
 
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