karljant
Ancient Mariner
Just messing with you mate
GREATEST METAL ALBUM CUP - Winner: Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son!
- Thread starter LooseCannon
- Start date
srfc
Ancient Mariner
THE SLAYER from LA at the top of their game ripping off an unknown band out of Coventry in the UK, with little more than 2 years in the business, with a 2 records released by a 3 old microscopic (by then) Earache Records?
Sorry for the spam but:
X 2!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Wouldn't be too much different to when they ripped off A Corpse without a Soul for Captor of Sin, or to when Metallica ripped off Bleak House for Sanitarium
srfc
Ancient Mariner
Don't want to spoil it for anyone who is waiting with bated breath for my nominations
but yeah it's a pretty big album so probably definitely it was nominated by a list too.
Oh that one. That one's on three lists, it won't show up for awhile yet. Quite a high seed.Don't want to spoil it for anyone who is waiting with bated breath for my nominations
karljant
Ancient Mariner
Yeah... because by 1984 no one knew who Mercyful Fate was. Especially in the thrash metal scene.... absolutely no one. Yup ... you're right: it's exactly the same thing.
DJ James
A coma stole my name.
Pretty perfect encapsulation of my feelings lmfao.
Also, Elements shouldn't be getting thrashed like this. It's a fine power metal album, and the title track is frickin epic.
The title track to Realm of Chaos is probably the worst cut off the album. For a slice of early grimy, grind-y, unrelenting death metal, check out Through the Eye of Terror
...for in this place of darkness, Realms of Chaos overflow!
MrKnickerbocker
clap hands
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
I’m always intrigued by the idea of bands with unusual instrument line-ups, but I have yet to be impressed by a band with two bass players. Granted, the only ones I’m personally aware of are Cop Shoot Cop and now Squalus. I didn’t notice any particularly great use of dual bassists here, though you could tell there were layered parts in places. Anyway, the vocals here lean toward the low-rent screamy variety, and the music is fuzzy post-metal or something with out-of-place simplistic synth tones used all over, though it does still create nice atmosphere in places. But it’s really not my thing. And this Amorphis album also isn’t really my thing when the extreme vocals come into play, but large swaths of the album are growl-free, and these parts are pretty great. So, sorry @Whooten, but I have to go with @Night Prowler ’s nominee. Winner: Amorphis
This Stratovarius album (or albums, whatever) is pretty cheesy cookie-cutter neoclassical power metal for the most part, and the vocals are accented enough to be awkward. The ballads toward the end are particularly cringey. But when the music goes into a sweet Yngwie-esque dueling guitar and synth solo, then all is right with the world again. The Amorphis album has cool music, but the extreme vocals are all over the place on this one, and I’d rather drown in cheese than gargle glass. Sorry, @Forostar, but I have to go with @Travis The Dragon ’s choice here. Winner: Stratovarius
The vocalist for At The Gates offers up more shitty glass-gargling vocals, but he’s got a higher-pitched shrieky element to his delivery that’s extra annoying. Some of the music is cool, but lots of it is blast beaty bullshit, and the vocals are so bad that I can’t bring myself to pay very close attention to it anyway. This Opeth album also has its fair share of shitty extreme vocals, but the tracks with clean singing are brilliant, so the choice here is obvious. Sorry, @Night Prowler, but @The Flash ’s nominee takes this one easily. Winner: Opeth
This Bolt Thrower album seems more gratuitously death metally than the previous one in the GMAC, with the vocals seeming harsher and the blast beats and cut time drumming showing up a lot more often. In other words, emphasizing the worst elements of the genre from my point of view. Sorry, @karljant, but as much as I enjoy typing “Motherfucking Bolt Thrower”, in this case @Lampwick 43 ’s melodic prog album is a musical Faraday cage. Winner: Riverside
This Stratovarius album (or albums, whatever) is pretty cheesy cookie-cutter neoclassical power metal for the most part, and the vocals are accented enough to be awkward. The ballads toward the end are particularly cringey. But when the music goes into a sweet Yngwie-esque dueling guitar and synth solo, then all is right with the world again. The Amorphis album has cool music, but the extreme vocals are all over the place on this one, and I’d rather drown in cheese than gargle glass. Sorry, @Forostar, but I have to go with @Travis The Dragon ’s choice here. Winner: Stratovarius
The vocalist for At The Gates offers up more shitty glass-gargling vocals, but he’s got a higher-pitched shrieky element to his delivery that’s extra annoying. Some of the music is cool, but lots of it is blast beaty bullshit, and the vocals are so bad that I can’t bring myself to pay very close attention to it anyway. This Opeth album also has its fair share of shitty extreme vocals, but the tracks with clean singing are brilliant, so the choice here is obvious. Sorry, @Night Prowler, but @The Flash ’s nominee takes this one easily. Winner: Opeth
This Bolt Thrower album seems more gratuitously death metally than the previous one in the GMAC, with the vocals seeming harsher and the blast beats and cut time drumming showing up a lot more often. In other words, emphasizing the worst elements of the genre from my point of view. Sorry, @karljant, but as much as I enjoy typing “Motherfucking Bolt Thrower”, in this case @Lampwick 43 ’s melodic prog album is a musical Faraday cage. Winner: Riverside
Midnight
The Ever-Present "It"
I was expecting people like you to nominate Meshuggah! Oh well. At least I introduced people to a new band.
DJ James
A coma stole my name.
This is first time in this game's history that I've voted for all the losing picks (atleast I predict all these albums to lose). I don't have much to say about these matchups except for Realms of Chaos, as I think it is a monumental death metal album.
Whenever I hear a drummer like him I just want to sit him down for an hour and explain this: as a death metal listener and as someone who appreciates a lot that the genre has to offer, those sweet, sweet blast beats and pulverizing double bass runs aren't sweet and pulverizing by nature. They are sweet and pulverizing by way of their environment. You can have a 30+ minute death metal album where it feels like the drummer is excessively kicking your teeth in at every turn without the dude blasting the entire time. He will let the song sit, rest, and marinate (good death metal drummers can sit back and let a song do that while blasting, I think it's a complex skill) before coming in to perfectly season the delicate dish that is an effective extreme metal song with those pulverizing sections I was talking about. Just really sit there and listen to the drumming on albums like Death's Symbolic, Obituary's Cause of Death, Malevolent Creation's Retribution, or Asphyx's Incoming Death to hear what I, as an avid death metal fan, consider top tier death drumming. And just juxtapose that with Andy Whale's sup par drumming on Realms of Chaos.
As a testament to how damn good motherfucking Bolt Thrower is, the band is able to craft eternal classics of death metal despite having a limp drummer. Just give Eternal War (since Man's creation, since the dawn of time, fighting for survival is our only crime!), Through the Eye of Terror, Plague Bearer, and the stomping World Eater a listen. Tried and true death metal classics.
Yes, the drumming on this album is one of the toughest barriers to enjoying this album. The Those Once Loyal album I nominated from 2005 has an infinitely better drummer in one Martin Kearns (RIP 2015). The chemistry that Kearns shared with death metal's finest (perhaps in more ways than one) bassist Jo Bench cannot be overstated. I've long said that the chemistry that rhythm section shared on Those Once Loyal is only rivaled by Harris/McBrain on Piece of Mind. It's really something. Andy Whale, who drummed for Bolt Thrower for far too long, really does emphasize the worst of the genre. Incessant, careless, mindless blasting at all the worst times. He has no feel for dynamics.
Whenever I hear a drummer like him I just want to sit him down for an hour and explain this: as a death metal listener and as someone who appreciates a lot that the genre has to offer, those sweet, sweet blast beats and pulverizing double bass runs aren't sweet and pulverizing by nature. They are sweet and pulverizing by way of their environment. You can have a 30+ minute death metal album where it feels like the drummer is excessively kicking your teeth in at every turn without the dude blasting the entire time. He will let the song sit, rest, and marinate (good death metal drummers can sit back and let a song do that while blasting, I think it's a complex skill) before coming in to perfectly season the delicate dish that is an effective extreme metal song with those pulverizing sections I was talking about. Just really sit there and listen to the drumming on albums like Death's Symbolic, Obituary's Cause of Death, Malevolent Creation's Retribution, or Asphyx's Incoming Death to hear what I, as an avid death metal fan, consider top tier death drumming. And just juxtapose that with Andy Whale's sup par drumming on Realms of Chaos.
As a testament to how damn good motherfucking Bolt Thrower is, the band is able to craft eternal classics of death metal despite having a limp drummer. Just give Eternal War (since Man's creation, since the dawn of time, fighting for survival is our only crime!), Through the Eye of Terror, Plague Bearer, and the stomping World Eater a listen. Tried and true death metal classics.
Forostar
Ancient Mariner
So many cool riffs on this album. Very different style from later work but I really like it. Among my fav Bolt Thrower albums. All that Remains might be the best track. Gotta love how the faster riff kicks in at 0.58.--------------------------------------------------------------------------
Bolt Thrower - Realms of Chaos (Slaves to Darkness) (1989)
How it got here
List entries: n/a
Maidenfans Nominators: @karljant
Cornfed Hick
Ancient Mariner
This led me to an epiphany: is inbreeding the reason why some people like death-growl vocals? I doubt it. But it might explain the otherwise inexplicable.
The Flash
Dennis Wilcock did 9/11
It's quite explicable, some people like growls because it adds a splash of animalistic aggression to the sound. It's the human voice equivalent of a heavily distorted, low-tuned guitar tone. Not everyone enjoys the latter, either.
^This. Also, squealing high vocals sound far worse to me.