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

Unlike many fans (and as I commented here before) there's something in the last two Nevermore albums that really turns me off. It seems that everything they're doing there as already been done by the band before but in a way more spontaneous and efficient way. It seems to a certain degree that the main focus here is on the technical aspect and riff heaviness instead of song composing. It sounds like it's all based in a sonic loss of purpose... I really don't know how to explain it but those two records simply don't appeal to me. And hen compared with its predecessor (the amazing Enemies Of Reality) those aspects are even more noticeable. Then we have an all time classic in Physical Graffiti and either being metal or (as I said once again) merely an uncle of the genre, my vote goes to Zeppelin.

The we have another Tony MacAlpine album. A cool display of guitar mastery and that's it. Cool for one listen and a couple of reruns on some highlights and that's all. Already gave my 2 cents the Rainbow debut and although it's far from being a classic I have to give it my vote.

Vektor is a band I have kind of a beef with. Not that I have any kind of problem with what and how they play. Quite the opposite. These guys are superb musicians. And beforehand let me tell you that I have nothing against bands picking influences from various bands. In all honesty that's exactly the most correct method in order to reach what every band should aspire to: building an identity. And that's where Vektor wrecks my nerves. They aren't as many out there a single known band copycat. Instead they base their sound on later and more prog like Death, with some sparkles of Sadus and also some Voivod (not to mention the logo). The problem is that their riffs and passages seem like chunks that could come straight out of any album from each of the aforementioned bands such is the lack of self identity they bear. And while some people really don't know those 3 pillars Vektor anchor their sound on in excessive sonic mannerism fashion I'm sure many do and turn a blind eye to it. But hey... As someone said here at least they're not Edguy. And that's really great not being Edguy. So yeah. Vektor.

Finally an obscure early 80's heavy metal band's sophomore that proves why they never got too much exposure. While decent there's nothing really way above average going on here. And when you're up against a monster of an album such as The Headless Children the only outcome possible is my vote going to WASP.
 
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Im not dyin about either of these but Edguy is more my style. Vektor is the kind of stuff I listen to rarely and even then its mainly for curiosities sake. After a couple of songs Edguy bores me and Vektor hurts my head so my vote goes to Edguy.
 
Nevermore falls to Led Zeppelin. Nevermore is now officially eliminated from the GMAC, becoming the first band with 3 nominations to be wiped out. They'll meet Def Leppard next.
Tony MacAlpine can't shred past Rainbow. That's it for the virtuoso - but I want to note that a lot of people did enjoy his music, and encourage people to check out the guitar instrumental thread opened recently! Rainbow meets Powerwolf next.
Edguy edges out Vektor with a last minute vote from Niall Kielt. We'll see if Edguy's deep minnow run continues against System of a Down.
Warlord is decisively defeated by W.A.S.P. That's it for Warlord, so next is Enslaved.
 
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Iron Maiden - Dance of Death (2003)

How it got here

List entries: n/a
Maidenfans Nominators: @Black Wizard
League 14 - Match 29vs.
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King Diamond - Conspiracy (1989)

How it got here

List entries: Metalstorm 56
Previous Rounds:
League 16: Defeated HammerFall - Glory to the Brave 13-10.
League 15: Defeated Led Zeppelin - Led Zeppelin 13-7.
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Luca Turilli - Prophet of the Last Eclipse (2002)

How it got here

List entries: n/a
Maidenfans Nominators: @Jer
League 14 - Match 30vs.
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Coroner - Punishment For Decadence (1988)

How it got here

List entries: Metal Kingdom 60
Previous Rounds:
League 16: Defeated Suffocation - Effigy of the Forgotten 17-5.
League 15: Defeated Lacrimosa - Elodia 13-6.
 
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Dimmu Borgir - Eonian (2018)

How it got here

List entries: n/a
Maidenfans Nominators: @Travis The Dragon
League 14 - Match 31vs.
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Dark Angel - Darkness Descends (1986)

How it got here

List entries: Digitaldreamdoor 73
Previous Rounds:
League 17: Defeated High on Fire - Blessed Black Wings 16-8.
League 16: Defeated Deftones - White Pony 14-8.
League 15: Defeated Cryptopsy - None So Vile 17-3.
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Dark Tranquility - Damage Done (2002)

How it got here

List entries: Metal Kingdom 15
Maidenfans Nominators: n/a
League 15 - Match 32vs.
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Running Wild - Black Hand Inn (1994)

How it got here

List entries: Metalstorm 31
Previous Rounds:
League 15: Defeated Alcest - Souvenirs d’un autre monde 12-6.
 
I'm 100% ready to vote, too.

King Diamond is a classic, absolutely. Great album. But Dance of Death has my favourite song of all time on it. It would beat 99% of albums in the world and at least 90% of albums in this game for me. Iron Maiden.
I don't love Luca Turilli but I like what he's doing here way more than I like Coroner. Luca Turilli. I even spelled it right.
Dark Angel is bland. Dimmu Borgir is outside of my usual scope but this album is really cool, and I legitimately like it a lot.
Pirates over whatever Dark Tranquility is. Running Wild isn't exactly good, but it's much better for me than DT.
 
I'm expecting a deep run for all the Maiden albums due to obviously being the common denominator among everyone here. Many people, myself included, would take even the worst Maiden albums over the best albums from the majority of all the metal bands out there.

I'm predicting that no fewer than 8 Maiden albums will advance all the way to the knockout stage.
 
I'm expecting a deep run for all the Maiden albums due to obviously being the common denominator among everyone here. Many people, myself included, would take even the worst Maiden albums over the best albums from the majority of all the metal bands out there.
Quite possible. There are 15 Iron Maiden albums in the game. 3 of them are in the Premiership. 5 are in the same stream as other Iron Maiden albums, so the maximum amount that can get out of the League stage is 10. A quick scan of the league table suggests that at least 4 of those 10 will likely be eliminated by other albums in either the Championship or the Premiership. We always knew this game would be Maiden heavy at the end.
 
Iron Maiden - Might as well get this out of the way now, I'll be voting for Maiden unless it's a ridiculous match up of Virtual XI versus Master of Puppets or something, and it's not even a case of performative attention seeking, Maiden are my favourite band and they are just better than the shit you listen to, I sincerely like them more than anything else. I nominated 10 albums and am kind of annoyed that I limited it to 10 nominations, because I absolutely would also have included Dance of Death (and The Final Frontier) ahead of most of my other nominations from other bands, and certainly ahead of nominations from you.

King Diamond - opinion given before

Iron Maiden with the win.

Luca Trurilli - I'll throw jer a bone by saying it's the first song of this lad that hasn't opened with a preposterous fanfare that immediately made me switch it off, the breakdown section with the knight-rider chord progression is pretty good, even the keys are tasteful, chorus is exactly like every other power metal chorus in the world though.

Coroner - opinion given before, this track starts off a bit more NWOBHM than the others from them, verse quite sloppy though, like KIMB era Megadeth

Coroner with the win, neither great but more likely to want to listen to speed/thrashy stuff than euro-disney metal

Dimmu Borgir - bad keys, bad vocals sounds a bit like a voice over from an apocalyptic movie "in a world where water has become currency...", chorus is preposterous but I quite like the chord progression and melody I'd have got on board if it hadn't been sung by a ridiculous choir, parts of this are pretty ok

Dark Angel - opinion given before

Dark Angel with the win, same reason as Coroner winning in the last match

Dark Tranquility - bad vocals, other wise not awful, Blaze does this sort of stuff on albums like The Man Who Would Not Die, so even an average singer can make this stuff palatable to me, but the brodude growls is a line in the sand for me.

Running Wild - opinion given before, way better than 99% of Euro metal

Running Wild
with the win
 
I'm predicting that no fewer than 8 Maiden albums will advance all the way to the knockout stage.
The whole thing is a knockout format.

I was thinking that the King Diamond would stand a decent chance against 'Dance of Death' but since KD didn't exactly obliterate a Hammerfall album I may have to reassess that. We shall see.

I'm very surprised to see that Travis liked Dimmu Borgir. Very unexpected.

@LooseCannon you haven't updated the song for one of my picks that I sent you for the next round.
 
King Diamond has at least 3 better albums than Conspiracy. (Fatal Portrait, Abigail and Them)
Dance Of Death isn't one of my favorite Maiden albums, in fact it's one of my least.
However, when these 2 albums are put against each other, Iron Maiden wins easily.

In the previous rounds I voted twice for Coroner, mostly by default.
Luca Turilli is right up my alley, with much better vocals than Rhapsody.

While both bands aren't really my cup of earl grey, I'd rather be drinking a pint of Dark Angel than a goblet of Dimmu.

Dark Tranquillity has nice melodies but vocal wise a huge turn off, and when facing Running Wild there's really no contest.
 
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Dance of Death might be annoyingly uneven, having some of the most banal stuff they did in the reunion era, possibly ever (Wildest Dreams, Gates of Tomorrow, New Frontier) - when "Maiden filler" is talked about, this particular album comes to mind. On the other hand it also has the single best song Maiden ever did (the title track), the epitome of their style, melodicity, musical approach. It has also one of their best short, fast tracks (Rainmaker), dark and heavy epic, a precursor to BTATS and the whole AMOLAD album (Paschendale), a never-played-live energetic stomper that'd be actually great for live setting (Montségur) and some actually cool experiments, which is something rarely encountered with them (along with the underrated FOTD album or almost completeley forgotten Amigos), that is mainly the closing three tracks.
And they're not a fucking Smurf. Yeah, I admit I'd rather listen to Diamond or - even better - Mercyful Fate than their stupid wimpy worshippers Ghost, but that's not saying much.

I might like Coroner as much (or possibly more) than the next guy, but Luca Turilli is truly one of the greats (with this here album being possibly even better than anything by his "native" band and that's quite a feat). Actually, both are great at their genre (though Coroner have moved on to better and bigger things than this album here), but give me great power metal over great thrash any day.

But then again, give me great thrash over any black metal, let alone this one - Dimmu Borgir are, like, black metal for children. I don't like black metal in general all that much, I like it much more as an... "embellishment" of something else (early Opeth) or when the bands kinda leave the genre altogether (Borknagar, Enslaved, Arcturus, Ulver) Still, there are bands that are worth it (Darkthrone, Antestor), but these have to be at least, dunno, edgy. The best about DB is Shagrath guest starring on Kamelot's The Black Halo, to be honest. On the other hand Dark Angel (and especially Darkness Descends) is some of the best stuff that came out of the bloated thrash metal genre (yeah, there's definitely too many thrashers around, always were. Remember Slaughter's Strappado? Thought so. And that was one of the good albums). Their next record Leave Scars is also great, to some it might seem even better, I'm not personally sure.

I'm very particular when it comes to melodeath and DT are definitely not something I'd appreciate. Also, pirate metal! Running Wild it is.
 
I'm voting against Maiden bias, that album has no business in a metal cup and wouldn’t be included in a competition anywhere else (other than worst artwork). Send it back to the minor leagues.
This. And Conspiracy is a legitimately great album.

Voted for Coroner as it's not Luca Turilli's pompous crap (apart from two Rhapsody of Fire albums that I like).

Darkness Descends over 2018 Dimmu Borgir.

Dark Tranquillity's best album over good but ultimately unimportant Running Wild album.
 
Maiden are my favourite band and they are just better than the shit you listen to, I sincerely like them more than anything else. I nominated 10 albums and am kind of annoyed that I limited it to 10 nominations, because I absolutely would also have included Dance of Death (and The Final Frontier) ahead of most of my other nominations from other bands,
I decided not to nominate too many Iron Maiden albums to put more variety in the game, but included 'Dance of Death' since it's not too popular here and is genuinely one of my favourite Iron Maiden albums.
Im voting against Maiden bias, that album has no business in a metal cup and wouldn’t be included in a competition anywhere else (other than worst artwork). Send it back to the minor leagues.
It has more business in this tournament than anything by Pink Floyd or Led Zeppelin.

But seriously dude, go to bed! It was already breakfast here when you posted. Weetabix! :edmetal:
 
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