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

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Pentagram - Pentagram (Relentless) (1985)

How it got here
List entries: n/a
Maidenfans Nominators: @DJ Dityn James
League 9 - Match 21vs.
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Gojira - L’Enfant Sauvage (2012)

How it got here
List entries: n/a
Maidenfans Nominators: @phantomoftheicarus
Previous Rounds:
League 13: Defeated Thorns - Thorns 15-8.
League 12: Defeated The Business - Hardcore Hooligan 16-4.
League 11: Defeated Primus - Frizzle Fry 12-11.
League 10: Defeated Oranssi Pazuzu - Värähtelijä 16-8.
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Opeth - My Arms, Your Hearse (1998)

How it got here
List entries: n/a
Maidenfans Nominators: @The Flash
League 9 - Match 22vs.
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Joe Satriani - Surfing With the Alien (1987)

How it got here
List entries: n/a
Maidenfans Nominators: @MrKnickerbocker
Previous Rounds:
League 10: Defeated Metallica - Death Magnetic 13-12.
 
Fight_-_War_of_Words.jpg

Fight - War of Words (1993)

How it got here
List entries: n/a
Maidenfans Nominators: @Forostar
League 9 - Match 23vs.
Blind_guardian_tales.jpg

Blind Guardian - Tales From the Twilight World (1990)

How it got here
List entries: n/a
Maidenfans Nominators: @Night Prowler
Previous Rounds:
League 14: Defeated Kamelot - Karma 18-3.
League 13: Defeated Yngwie Malmsteen - Marching Out 16-9.
League 12: Defeated Suicidal Tendencies - Suicidal Tendencies 18-8.
League 11: Defeated Eis - Galeere 19-4.
League 10: Defeated Thin Lizzy - Jailbreak 13-11.
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Tiamat - Clouds (1992)

How it got here
List entries: n/a
Maidenfans Nominators: @Magnus
League 9 - Match 24vs.
The_Real_Thing_album_cover.jpg

Faith No More - The Real Thing (1989)

How it got here
List entries: DigitalDreamDoor 75
Previous Rounds:
League 17: Defeated Aria - Герой Асфальта 20-5.
League 16: Defeated Testament - Practice What You Preach 14(ET)-13.
League 15: Defeated Yngwie J. Malmsteen’s Rising Force - Rising Force 13-11.
League 14: Defeated Nevermore - Dead Heart in a Dead World 14-7.
League 13: Defeated Motörhead - Orgasmatron 14-10.
League 12: Defeated Armored Saint - Symbol of Salvation 13-8.
League 11: Defeated Fear Factory - Obsolete 15-8.
League 10: Defeated Lamb of God - Ashes of the Wake 18-7.
 
karljant said:
Curiously enough Amok is the only album I really liked from Sentenced. The previous two sound a bit like a poor man's At The Gates and all the following are really mellow boring snoozefests.
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Agree about post-Amok.
But dude, poor man's At The Gates :facepalm:
Shadows... is more death than At The Gates ever were, and North... is more black than not only At The Gates but virtually any other band balancing on the ledge, pure northern cold, hate, passion, and great musicianship.
 
North From Here is a masterpiece. Capture of Fire and Wings are two of the greatest melodeath songs ever written.
 
This Pentagram album is simplistic and lo-fi, and the songwriting is kind of bland, but it’s fine. Inoffensive, didn’t mind listening to any of it. Meanwhile, Gojira is an empty cacophony of screaming and chugging. No thanks. Sorry, @phantomoftheicarus, but this one’s an easy win for @Dityn DJ James ’s nominee. Winner: Pentagram

Here’s yet another Opeth album with great music that sounds really good in the instrumental and clean vocal parts, but is utterly ruined by glass gargling bullshit vocals through the rest of its runtime. What an incredible waste. Meanwhile, the Satriani album offers up a bunch of great music without any of the bullshit. Sorry, @The Flash, but this is also an easy win for @MrKnickerbocker ’s nominee. Winner: Joe Satriani

This Fight album has a few cool grooves, and a number of moments that showcase Rob Halford’s vocals while they were still near their prime; but the songwriting is kind of weak, and the guitar solos are often aimless, noisy trash. The band also can’t seem to decide whether they’re trying to be grunge or nu-metal, and they meander around through different sounds without a lot of cohesion. Meanwhile, the Blind Guardian album is a little on the raw side and far from their best, but the songwriting is way better, and the style of the album is a lot more consistent. Sorry, @Forostar, but I have to go with @Night Prowler ’s choice here. Winner: Blind Guardian

This Tiamat album is a bit of a weird cookie. It’s got some cool riffage and clean bits mixed together, mostly solid songwriting, and synth accompaniment that’s sometimes good and sometimes a bit cheesy. But then comes the vocalist, who sounds like the bastard special needs child of Lemmy and Mike Muir. I would say he’s terrible, but the flood of extreme vocalists I’ve been subjected to by the GMAC has completely reset the definition of vocal badness for me, so let’s just say he’s not good. While I’m also not fond of the whiny affectation in Mike Patton’s voice on The Real Thing, I have to say that the songwriting, guitar work, and synth accompaniment are all great on this record. So once again, sorry @Magnus, but I think the list nominee is the superior one here. Winner: Faith No More
 
Glad I won you over Jer, that Pentagram album rips. Finally got the chance to see them live last year and it was insane. I met Bobby Liebling too and got to tell him how much Pentagrams music has meant to me. Excellent underground doom metal sounds with some superb 70's hard rock hooks.
 
Pentagram - I only know the song Pentagram by these, this track is basically early Sabbath worship, the line "death gives you a kiss" is practially lifted from Hand of Doom. Listenable, but I'd rather listen to the real thing.

Gojira - opinion given before

Pentagram with the win

Opeth - every song from these is the exact same, am I the only one that sees this? Heavy opening than an abrupt change after a minute, Mercyful Fate did that with Satan's Fall (and did it better) when these lads were in pampers.

Joe Satriani - opinion given before

Satch with the win

Fight - Don't have this album but am familiar with the track from Live Insurrection. It's ok

Blind Guardian - opinion given before

Fight with the win

Tiamat - Sabbathy opening, kind of a Lemmy vocal range, music not what I was expecting from the logo, this is pretty good, this track would have got my vote against probably every other in this round, except the opponent it's up against.

Faith No More - opinion given before, have we had the Morning After feature before? I don't think so, and it's great!

Faith No More with the win
 
Magnus said:
But dude, poor man's At The Gates :facepalm:
Shadows... is more death than At The Gates ever were, and North... is more black than not only At The Gates but virtually any other band balancing on the ledge, pure northern cold, hate, passion, and great musicianship.
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First let's make one thing clear: I never put into question their value as musicians. Then:
a) Really don't care how much "death" or "life", "black" or "white" or even "northern cold" or "southern warm" a band is - whatever those attributes mean it's absolutely relative.
b) I'm not saying Sentenced are WORST than At The Gates: simply that while playing Swedish Melo-Death/ Black band in their erly days Sentenced never rang with me unlike At The Gates. The "poor man's ATG" is not used to belittle Sentenced but only to point the the fact that while ATG became largely influential always playing the same genre - with minor adjustments on Terminal Spirit Disease - for multiple genres and bands (and more importantly in this matter for me personally), Sentenced kept changing their musical genre from album to album until Down. Not that's a bad thing changing your musical range and once again I don't want to sell the "ATG is better than Sentenced" pack: only to state that while both were playing similar genres, At The Gates were IMO the peak of their league in both admiration and influence Sentenced meant way less to me and that the only work that really resonated with my taste was Amok (where they detached themselves somewhat from Melo-Death shores).
c) That being said I don't need to recur to the well known Big Lebowski meme do I? ;)
 
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While I think the earliest ATG releases (especially the first two full length albums) are the most interesting and at the same time, the least accessible albums, I may like the 3rd (Terminal Spirit Disease) the most as overall album because it has some very irresistible (Maidenish at times) melodies. But then Slaughter of the Soul happened. This was the most successful one with some of their most awesome tracks. This may have been at least as influential. Hard to say. One thing is sure: the band surely changed in the first 5 years of their recording history.
 
karljant said:
First let's make one thing clear: I never put into question their value as musicians. Then:
a) Really don't care how much "death" or "life", "black" or "white" or even "northern cold" or "southern warm" a band is - whatever those attributes mean it's absolutely relative.
b) I'm not saying Sentenced are WORST than At The Gates: simply that while playing Swedish Melo-Death/ Black band in their erly days Sentenced never rang with me unlike At The Gates. The "poor man's ATG" is not used to belittle Sentenced but only to point the the fact that while ATG became largely influential always playing the same genre - with minor adjustments on Terminal Spirit Disease - for multiple genres and bands (and more importantly in this matter for me personally), Sentenced kept changing their musical genre from album to album until Down. Not that's a bad thing changing your musical range and once again I don't want to sell the "ATG is better than Sentenced" pack: only to state that while both were playing similar genres, At The Gates were IMO the peak of their league in both admiration and influence Sentenced meant way less to me and that the only work that really resonated with my taste was Amok (where they detached themselves somewhat from Melo-Death shores).
c) That being said I don't need to recur to the well known Big Lebowski meme do I? ;)
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This one?
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Or that one?
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:D

I'm surprised that while our tastes seem to overlap on numerous occasions, we differ so much on Sentenced's best album.
But I got your point, cheers.
 
I really, really don't like the vocals in Pentagram and I can't help but hear them because they're so fucking loud. That said, Gojira is lame and I don't get them. Pentagram has music I prefer.

One of the weakest Opeth albums versus a Satriani classic! I don't like voting against Opeth twice in a row, but such is the draw.

In match three I'm torn between an okay album with a really bad performance from Rob Halford or a very good performance on a good album from a band with Hansi Fucking Kürsch singing. Ugh, Blind Guardian.

Man, speaking of more bad vocals...what is this Tiamat stuff? Oh, well, Tiamat never killed Armored Saint.
 
  • Haha
Reactions: Jer
srfc said:
Is he not in jail for murdering his mother or something like that?
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If memory serves his abused his elderly mother in his care. He served 2 years in prison and rehabilitated while in there. The tour I saw him on last year was his first after getting out of prison, and he had a very remorseful aura about him and didn't really speak much when he wasn't performing.
 
Great round, this one.

Pentagram are one of the pioneers of the first wave of Sabbath's doom revivalists (along with St. Vitus and Trouble) and if 70's Sabbath heavier side is your thing then you got to dig this. While I prefere Trouble from this trio and Pentagram is perhaps more derivative band of the bunch I really like some tracks from their debut: Sign Of The Wolf is simply a blaster and the sludgy pounding of All Your Sins and The Ghoul is a force to be reckoned. But overall is little more than a really enjoyable trip (pun intended) back to the 70's and I don't think it's on pair with Gojira's L'Enfant Sauvage.

My Harms Your Hearse is where Opeth start to establish the trademark that would be the core of their albums till Watershed (with the exception of Damnation, of course) and dive deeper into the conceptual album thing. And while that transformation gave us stunning albums such as Still Life and Blackwater Park, this first step is understandably weaker. Now don't get me wrong: the dudes sound sharp as always when it comes to composing and mastery of their instruments but there's something that always turns off in this album and I really don't know what it is: I find it tiring and even a bit boring. Nevertheless it features simply one of Opeth's best tracks in Demon Of The Fall but other than that it never rang with me unlike its predecessor (not to mention the two masterpieces the band would compose in the next years). So yeah... while recognizing it's a great album for many, fact is it never got my attention so I'll go again with Joe Satriani.

War Of Words was Halford's first release after leaving Priest but if it's true he was no longer part of the band, fact is the opposite wasn't quite the case. As matter of fact half of the album is really Priest like (and good Priest) with the only difference being the lack of the great soloing of KK and Glenn. For starts the man recruited none other than Scott Travis for the drums. Then listen to the opener Into The Pit... that thing reeks of Painkiller. And in a good way since it's a nasty track! Nailed To The Gun is a bad ass tune as well and once again with lots of Priest running through it's veins (although it has a more modern vibe to it). And man... the riffs sound killer and Halford's voice is immaculate. And to be honest those aren't isolated cases: the title track is also a 90's version of his former band's heavier midtempo metal anthems and For All Eternity has that Beyond The Realms Of Death feel to it (not that it's that good - not even close - but still relly enjoyable). These 4 songs are IMO the best out of the pack and really sound killer. Also bearing a bit of his past references but this time with a way more ammount of groove in it we have Immortal Sin that is quite forgettable. Then there's Little Crazy, a bluesy catchy tune and also a couple of songs that seem like what if Priest and Danzig had a baby in Life In Black and Laid To Rest (not bad but nothing too exciting). The remainder is where Halford tries to go Pantera all the way and the songs sound quite off to be honest. Nevertheless the great stuff really overshadows these misses, making War Of Words an overall great record... Great enough to make me vote for Fight instead of another good album in Blind Guardian's Tales.

Clouds... YES! Although not my favorite album by the band this is a close contender. In A Dream's heavy marked melodies with some arabesque sparkles here and there opens this gem in a real high note followed by the more death doomy title track (one of my least favorite tracks here but still really enjoyable) till we stumble into what I consider to be the best song Into The Pandemonium's era Celtic Frost never wrote in Smell Of Incense. A Caress Of Stars is pure beauty, like if Pink Floyd went doom metal years before that was a thing. Curiously enough I never fancied what is the most well known track from clouds (The Sleeping Beauty) but it doesn't matter since Forever Burning Flames throws again into that T. G. Warrior style meets Goth metal in a masterful way. Scapegoat is one of the first tracks featuring Symphonic Death Metal I can remember of and man it still features that Pink Floyd undertone that would prove to be ever growing in the band's following two albums. To close this amazing work one can not expect nothing else than a jaw dropping song like the immersive and intense out of body experience that is Undressed. So basically Clouds is nothing short of a behemoth of a record by a band that completely lost its way after A Deeper Kind Of Slumber. And even though The Real Thing is also amazing in its own genre I'll give the edge to Tiamat on this one.
 
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My nominee, Mekong Delta’s Wanderer On The Edge Of Time, is back in the next round. The sample song this time is “The Apocalypt - World In Shards (La Maison Dieu) // Movement 3”, which is a thrashier track that’s still proggy and melodic. My earlier comments on the album are available here.

This time it’s up against Porcupine Tree’s Deadwing, which is proggy alt-rock with some heavier guitar passages. I actually like Deadwing and think it’s a strong album, but I still prefer the Mekong Delta album for a few reasons. First, despite its stylistic detours, the Mekong Delta album is clearly a metal album at its core, while the Porcupine Tree album is not. Both albums scratch that proggy itch effectively, but Wanderer is the only one that’s going to kick your ass at the same time. I also prefer how Mekong Delta weaves odd rhythms and off-kilter melodies throughout the music in a cohesive way, even as they twist through different genres. And perhaps most importantly, since this is the Greatest Metal Album Cup, the fact that Wanderer On The Edge Of Time is clearly put together as one album-length progression of music, rather than a loose collection of songs, elevates it as a contender.

I still strongly recommend that you listen to the record from start to finish if you have time, because the sample tracks alone can’t give you a representative picture of the whole album, and some of the best moments are tied to unexpected track transitions.
 
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