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

Nevermore was...fine? They sounded polished and musical, inoffensive and faceless.

Little of that (except musical) applies to Faith No More, which is really firing on all cylinders, adventurous, edgy, atmospheric, inconoclastic - even as the overall quality of the albums continues to elevate, this one is clearly a step above. Not sure why the album started in the league it did, but it can survive bigger ponds than this.
 
Thorns are pretty terrible. I should have expected this since Magnus nominated it, although I'm sure the feeling is mutual with some of my nominations. To be fair, it's not unbearable and the Kyuss song is really, really boring. It takes so long for anything to happen and it turns out they're just this Stoner or whatever style that I've never liked. Thorns get my vote, but I don't want to vote for this album again.

The vocals for this Diabolic Masquerade song are absolutely awful. I expected better of you Saap. :nonono: Musically it's pretty decent but it can't recover from these revolting vocals. Diabolical by name, diabolical by nature. There's nothing special about Virgin Steele but it's still infinitely better than its opponent so 'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Part I' gets my vote by default. The woman on the album cover also has a good ass.

Blind Guardian are one of my favourite bands so I'd vote for any of their albums against a Kamelot album. I'm not a big fan of 'Tales From The Twlight World' but there are a handful of classic Blind Guardian songs there i.e. 'The Last Candle', 'Lost in the Twilight Hall, 'Welcome to Dying' and 'Lord of the Rings'. I don't care for the rest of the album but those four songs are enough to beat Kamelot, who are pretty good but this song doesn't do anything for me.

I've heard a bit of Nevermore before. They're OK and this song is reasonable without motivating me to listen to any more of the album. However, I will vote for 'Dead Heart in a Dead World' because I don't have any interest in Faith No More and I'm bitter about 'The Real Thing' knocking out 'Practice What You Preach'.
 
Hahaa, I'm going to start reviewing this round by listening to Norwegian Black Metal at 7.57 AM on Saturday morning! My neighbours will be so delighted! :p

Edit: Perfect time to listen such music anyway. But might be even better if it was November and I had been up all night drinking. (Which I actually have never done.)

Edit 2: When I watched the Thorns video on Youtube, there was a heartburn med ad before it, and then energizing vitamin B supplement ad after it. Maybe the algorithm knows what it's doing.
 
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I couldn't really get into Thorns, but they had surprisingly little cookie monsters. Kyuss is stoner rock according to Wikipedia, and I haven't quite figured out yet what that is. The example song sounded quite psychedelic, and there were stagnant bits, but it wasn't unpleasant as a whole, so I chose that.

Diabolical Masquerade
was surprisingly good. It had many different kinds of ingredients, and sounded like quality stuff. Cookie monsters maybe didn't fit the music so well in my opinion. Virgin Steele left me a bit cold.

Blind Guardian was another pleasant surprise, I liked the fantasy elements and the story in the lyrics. Kamelot's lyrics were nothing special, but the singer had a very nice voice.

The Nevermore song was quite beautiful, although it got a bit boring after a while. The lyrics weren't very special here either. I've liked Faith No More a lot for a long time, so I was pretty sure I'd choose that, unless it was facing something really special. There's something about their sound I really like, it sort of vacillates in a pleasant way. The performance had inner energy, which is also important to me, when it comes to hard and heavy music. I couldn't get a grasp on the lyrics on the first listen, should pay more attention to really figure out what they're really about (stupid rhyme there).

I noticed that my choices may not be entirely equal, because sometimes I watch lyrics videos on Youtube, and sometimes not.
 
Sir Galahad, @MrKnickerbocker , the Kamelot needs you! I am utterly alone against these numbers. We are losing, it is our last stand. Make haste and come at once, I beg of thee! Let's fall together, in this glorious battle at the twilight of our time.
 
'The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Part I' gets my vote by default. The woman on the album cover also has a good ass.
:oops:
Although the rules do allow to use any criteria to choose who to vote. Maybe I should start voting based on backsides too. There aren't those in the cover of all the albums, so should probably check gig videos to get a glimpse of the performers' bums.
 
Hey, it's not butts, but the Kamelot cover chicks are cute! Even this one here on Karma. It's definitely not supposed to be Elizabeth Bathory at all! Sure not! And even if it was, would you want all those young maidens to die in vain? No, you should at least appreciate the result. Otherwise you're even worse than she is!

...
Well, at least I tried... :(
 
Sir Galahad, @MrKnickerbocker , the Kamelot needs you! I am utterly alone against these numbers. We are losing, it is our last stand. Make haste and come at once, I beg of thee! Let's fall together, in this glorious battle at the twilight of our time.
tenor.gif
 
I don't know that I like Thorns, but I find them interesting. This is in opposition to Kyuss, who I find competent but bland. I'll pick Thorns in hope of keeping a band with something interesting around.

Diabolical Masquerade is, sure, it's again interesting, but I actually really like this Virgin Steele album a lot.

Karma is one of the best Kamelot albums, but even an early and rough Blind Guardian album shows who is the true master of power metal.

I don't really care, so, sure, Faith No More I guess.
 
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