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

The Flash said:
It's just a meme. Most people using that term don't actually think you are a boomer.
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I think a fair number of them don’t know what a boomer actually is, and the meme has superseded the actual meaning at this point.

But that’s OK, I’ll be ready with Michael Jackson and Jon Stewart popcorn gifs when the next generation starts treating millennials and zoomers like shit in about 10 years.
 
...anyhoo, my first GMAC nominee is coming up in the next round of voting, and it pulled a tough draw against Coroner, so I wanted to make my case up front before the start of voting.

I nominated Luca Turilli’s Prophet Of The Last Eclipse because it has a very unique sound, combining opera singers, choirs, spacey synthesizers, and a little bit of folk instrumentation with well polished neoclassical power metal. The songwriting has a lot of finesse and variety while maintaining a coherent overall feel; and while there are certainly some great guitar passages, the songs themselves always come first. The quality of the work is consistently great, and often excellent; and the only weaknesses are some rote delivery and vocal phrasing issues in some of the verses.

The first sample song I picked was The Age Of Mystic Ice, which is probably the best all-around song on the album, though it’s on the simpler side. It’s got some interesting rhythms, a moody verse, an ear worm of a chorus, and a nice harmonized guitar interlude. If that song doesn’t grab your interest, then let me suggest some alternate options:
Make no mistake, this is pompous neoclassical power metal space opera, so there is a certain cheese factor here — but as I said in my more detailed thoughts, it’s not a block of Velveeta, it’s a fine highbrow fondue. Let it coat your palette and then you can settle in and enjoy all its wonderful little nuances.

I’m not going to lie, the Coroner album it’s up against has some great riffs and solos, and that album is a giant love letter to mid-80s speed metal in general. Where I think Prophet Of The Last Eclipse has the edge is with its better vocals, more refined songwriting, and much more unique sound. If you like power metal at all, if you like Yngwie at all, if you like big booming classical music at all, then there’s a very good chance that you will enjoy this album if you give it a fair shot. I think it’s one of the best albums in the power metal genre, though it took me a while to warm up to it.
 
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Can't dedicate as much time to this game as I used to, but I don't want to keep skipping rounds. Have to decide on smaller samples.

Led Zeppelin - Physical Graffiti - Not my favorite from them, but it has a higher number of tracks that connect with me.
Rainbow - Ritchie Blackmore's Rainbow - Some truly great songs on this otherwise weaker album, enough to move the needle.
Vektor - Terminal Redux - Pretty exciting, rather unconventional thrash sound with the use of the F tuning. More importantly, it's not Edguy.
W.A.S.P. - The Headless Children - Not something I'll have on my playlist, but better than its opponent.
 
I'm going to start voting against any band that I don't consider to be a Metal band. There's nothing too special about this Nevermore song, but it's definitely from a Metal album. Led Zeppelin are Blues Rock. They did some harder songs but they were never a Metal band and this album shouldn't have been included in that Metalstorm list. 'This Godless Endeavor' wins by default.

As I've said before I don't give a damn about instrumental music. This Rainbow song is OK. The singer probably didn't amount to anything though. Martin Birch also produced the album so it would be disrespectful not to vote for it.

The Vektor song has good riffs but the vocals are disgusting. How did this shit get to number 9 in Metal Kingdom's list? 'Mandrake' is a pretty reasonable Edguy album and 'The Devil and the Savant' is a damn sight more enjoyable than that Vektor song.

The spoken word intro for this Warlord track just screams Spinal Tap. The song is OK, if only generic old school Heavy Metal. It should not have been number 9 on Metalstorm's list. Get your shit together, Metalstorm. The WASP song is a big step up from Warlord. Far more refined and way more attitude. I've tried getting into WASP before but not got anywhere. This song tempts me to try again.
 
Black Wizard said:
I'm going to start voting against any band that I don't consider to be a Metal band. There's nothing too special about this Nevermore song, but it's definitely from a Metal album. Led Zeppelin are Blues Rock. They did some harder songs but they were never a Metal band and this album shouldn't have been included in that Metalstorm list. 'This Godless Endeavor' wins by default.
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Led Zeppelin were one of the most important Heavy Metal bands of all time.
 
While I agree that for most of their output they never really challenged the blues rock paradigm, I insist there are single songs by LedZep that are, for all intents and purposes, possible to be considered metal, if we broaden the term a bit. Especially stuff like Achilles Last Stand, No Quarter or Kashmir. Hey, if Motorhead are considered metal...

Now TGE is one of the "better than Dead Heart" Nevermore albums, but Graffiti is possibly the greatest and - despite the fact it's a double and pretty stylistically broad - one of the most cohesive and consistently great Zeppelin albums. The second record starts dragging a bit near the end (at least until the kick-ass closer Sick Again), but in general, it's absolutely awesome. Kashmir, In My Time of Dying, In the Light, Ten Years Gone... it's all great. Whether they're melancholically nostalgic (In the Light, Ten Years Gone) or uncharacteristically whimsical (Down by the Seaside), whether they state their message with repetitiveness (IMToD) or brevity (Bron-Yr-Aur), it all kinda works. And I'm not a huge fan of Zeppelin anymore, as I've stated many times before.

I'm almost tempted to give the pity vote to MacAlpine, 'cause I genuinely love that album, but I admit that while Blackmore did most his supreme stuff with Purple and I'm not such a great fan of Mr. Laryngitis Himself, they both do a stellar job on the Rainbow Debut. Man on the Silver Mountain might be the pinnacle of Dio's career and the rest of the album in general is just so damned catchy and well-written.

I kinda like Edguy, possibly surprisingly considering his vocals and the general annoying clownish atmosphere and overall feel this is not a band you can take seriously ... like be a fan of ... but I managed to enjoy on some level most of their albums nonetheless. However, Vektor are intriguing, challenging, cerebral, energetic... and although may be perceived as epigons of Voivod, they are actually not that much and even if they were, it's not like it's a bad thing.

As for the last pair - dunno, would you rather get syphilis or cholera? I voted for the "-"
 
Honestly, Nevermore leaves me very bleh. I don't love Led Zeppelin much but I'll vote for them.
Rainbow due to unabashed Dio bias.
Edguy is more fine vocally, Vektor is more interesting on riffs. Vocals are garbage though.
Warlord but I'm fine either way.
 
Nevermore going 0-3. Farce

JudasMyGuide said:
As for the last pair - dunno, would you rather get syphilis or cholera?
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:D
Basically. I didn't think it can get more bland than Wasp. At least they somehow sound professional about it...

Also want to credit this round's guitar album... It was actually very good, but it still gets a little old after 20 minutes of constant shredding...
 
JudasMyGuide said:
I insist there are single songs by LedZep that are, for all intents and purposes, possible to be considered metal, if we broaden the term a bit. Especially stuff like Achilles Last Stand, No Quarter or Kashmir.
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You forgot Communication Breakdown (cited as one of the first proto hardcore/ punk themes along with MC5 and The Stooges) and the only Zepp song I consider to be undeniably metal: Immigrant Song. Other than that Zepp is not only just a rock band. They're probably THE rock band. Their influences stem from rock n' roll, jazz, blues and folk but they put some extra oomph on everything. If people want to call 'em "hard rock" ok... I simply prefer solely Rock because they're so all over the place. Besides the aforementioned genres that influenced the band these dudes influenced heavy metal, punk rock and even gave a spin on Reggae on the superb tribute to the homeland itself with D'yer Mak'er. The only band I can recall off that is such a globetrotter of Rock (while remaining true rock all the way) is The Cult.

So yeah... IMO Zepp's not a metal band nor the grandfather of it but sure is a relatively known uncle. And I can surely accept bands as Nirvana, Zeppelin, The Cult and Deep Purple on this game. I mean... I wouldn't nominate them (just because I don't consider them to be metal otherwise Zepp and The Cult would surely be on the list) but if thy wind up it's ok for me. Now... a completely different case is Pink Floyd's Wish You Were Here. It has ZERO to do with metal. And ironically enough it is easily one of my top 25 albums of all time. So it's a bit strange discussing if Zeppelin should be considered "eligible" to the game when there are examples that are way more far fetched out there.
 
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