I'm on the fence myself. The music on The Return is really, really cool. The vocals don't speak to me much.
GREATEST METAL ALBUM CUP - Winner: Iron Maiden - Seventh Son of a Seventh Son!
- Thread starter LooseCannon
- Start date
Magnus
Pica Serdica
They're supposed to shriek at you, not speak to you.
And you've gotten to the crux of the issue.
KidInTheDark666
What's yours is mine and what's mine is mine too
No love for Audioslave?
Magnus
Pica Serdica
Not the best wording, context considered.
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
Lampwick 43
Barstool Warrior
Audioslave is a fantastic album that has everything. Great songwriting. Great performances. All out rockers that are pure Rage Against the Machine. The unmistakable flare of Tom Morell. Truly great ballads in I Am the Highway and Like A Stone. Fucking Chris Cornell at the top of his game. This is an album that just never gets old or dull no matter how many times you listen to it.
MindRuler
Ancient Mariner
Jer
A window to the west, a blazing star above
As far as black metal goes, this Murg album is fine. The vocalist stinks, of course, but he’s on the less annoying end of the black metal spectrum. Maybe the most irritating thing about the album is the never-ending fast strumming of the guitars, which just turns into this boring, droning echo chamber of samey distortion. Primordial did a lot of the same sort of thing, but at least they made it more interesting. So, not bad for black metal I guess, but it can’t hold a candle to a strong, underrated Priest album. Sorry, @Perun, but I’m going with @Night Prowler ’s nominee here. Winner: Judas Priest
Hadn’t heard this Audioslave album before, and while it’s not totally up my alley, I do think I find it more appealing than either Soundgarden or Rage Against The Machine. Morello’s fat grooves benefit from having a strong melodic vocal to play against, and Cornell gets more room to breathe and shine when singing on top of more straightforward music. It didn’t wow me, but I did find it consistently enjoyable and should probably listen to it some more. Compare this to Rainbow’s debut, which feels tired by comparison, has beaten multiple albums it had no business beating, and has really overstayed its welcome in my opinion, and it becomes clear that @Lampwick 43 ’s choice should win the day here. Winner: Audioslave
Match 27, a.k.a. the Masochism Express. This Bathory album sounds like it was recorded in a slightly more luxurious public bathroom than their previous album in the GMAC, and the vocalist also sounds less constipated, though he still sounds terrible. I was preparing to slit my wrists about halfway through the second track, when suddenly the guitars got more interesting and kicked into a Killing Is My Business / Kill ‘Em All sort of vibe, which was a pleasant surprise. While the music would still devolve into murky cacophony on a semi-regular basis, these more interesting guitar parts kept showing up too, and that helped this album hold my interest a lot more than the average black metal record. Did I enjoy it? No, probably not. But I did respect it to some degree. On the other hand we have the steaming pile known as Virtual XI, the worst studio album in the Maiden catalog and the only studio album of theirs that I would call an outright bad album. I’m not sure whether I can say that the Bathory album is better than the Maiden album on the merits, but the choice here is between an album that clearly exceeded my very low expectations vs. an album that fell far below my very high expectations. Plus, c’mon @Niall Kielt, we all know Virtual XI has no business making anyone’s top 25 metal album list unless they’ve only ever listened to 24 other metal albums. And I feel dirty having had to vote for this turd last time, so screw it — it’s time to take a principled stand against Maiden bias and throw @Dityn DJ James a bone. Winner: Bathory
This Deep Purple album is OK. The singing’s great and the musical interludes are cool, but the songs themselves aren’t all that memorable to me, and the whole thing has sort of a tired “dad rock” feel to it. I tend to have this sort of ambivalence about a lot of hard rock that predates 1975 or so, as it doesn’t really push my buttons the way that later hard rock and metal does. When I start hearing Allman Brothers style guitar harmonies and 70s organ and flaccid melodic lines I just think about how much better Boston’s take on those sounds would be in only a couple more years, and then I wonder why I’m not just listening to Boston instead. Compare this to the Mekong Delta album, which has more breadth and depth, more interesting songwriting, and an album-long concept that works brilliantly when you listen to the whole thing from start to finish. And the Mekong Delta album is an actual metal album, and this is the Greatest Metal Album Cup, after all. So, sorry @matic22, but I am unsurprisingly sticking with my own nominee here. Winner: Mekong Delta
Hadn’t heard this Audioslave album before, and while it’s not totally up my alley, I do think I find it more appealing than either Soundgarden or Rage Against The Machine. Morello’s fat grooves benefit from having a strong melodic vocal to play against, and Cornell gets more room to breathe and shine when singing on top of more straightforward music. It didn’t wow me, but I did find it consistently enjoyable and should probably listen to it some more. Compare this to Rainbow’s debut, which feels tired by comparison, has beaten multiple albums it had no business beating, and has really overstayed its welcome in my opinion, and it becomes clear that @Lampwick 43 ’s choice should win the day here. Winner: Audioslave
Match 27, a.k.a. the Masochism Express. This Bathory album sounds like it was recorded in a slightly more luxurious public bathroom than their previous album in the GMAC, and the vocalist also sounds less constipated, though he still sounds terrible. I was preparing to slit my wrists about halfway through the second track, when suddenly the guitars got more interesting and kicked into a Killing Is My Business / Kill ‘Em All sort of vibe, which was a pleasant surprise. While the music would still devolve into murky cacophony on a semi-regular basis, these more interesting guitar parts kept showing up too, and that helped this album hold my interest a lot more than the average black metal record. Did I enjoy it? No, probably not. But I did respect it to some degree. On the other hand we have the steaming pile known as Virtual XI, the worst studio album in the Maiden catalog and the only studio album of theirs that I would call an outright bad album. I’m not sure whether I can say that the Bathory album is better than the Maiden album on the merits, but the choice here is between an album that clearly exceeded my very low expectations vs. an album that fell far below my very high expectations. Plus, c’mon @Niall Kielt, we all know Virtual XI has no business making anyone’s top 25 metal album list unless they’ve only ever listened to 24 other metal albums. And I feel dirty having had to vote for this turd last time, so screw it — it’s time to take a principled stand against Maiden bias and throw @Dityn DJ James a bone. Winner: Bathory
This Deep Purple album is OK. The singing’s great and the musical interludes are cool, but the songs themselves aren’t all that memorable to me, and the whole thing has sort of a tired “dad rock” feel to it. I tend to have this sort of ambivalence about a lot of hard rock that predates 1975 or so, as it doesn’t really push my buttons the way that later hard rock and metal does. When I start hearing Allman Brothers style guitar harmonies and 70s organ and flaccid melodic lines I just think about how much better Boston’s take on those sounds would be in only a couple more years, and then I wonder why I’m not just listening to Boston instead. Compare this to the Mekong Delta album, which has more breadth and depth, more interesting songwriting, and an album-long concept that works brilliantly when you listen to the whole thing from start to finish. And the Mekong Delta album is an actual metal album, and this is the Greatest Metal Album Cup, after all. So, sorry @matic22, but I am unsurprisingly sticking with my own nominee here. Winner: Mekong Delta
srfc
Ancient Mariner
Murg - Not for me
Judas Priest - opinion given before, Future of Mankind is great, one of my favourite priest tracks, the body of it is very Maiden-y especially the solos, and the great riff for the outro
Judas Priest with the win
Audioslave - An album I have. I expected a lot from this record and was ultimately disappointed. I'm a fan of Rage and always admired Cornell's vocals so it seemed like a marriage made in heaven. But ultimately it's only solid rather than great.
Rainbow - opinion given before.
Rainbow with the win
Bathory - Good riff but bad sound, vocal awful
Iron Maiden - opinion given before, DLTTEOAS is the worst song by Maiden
Iron Maiden with the win
Deep Purple - An album that I don't have and am unfamiliar with, but like everyone else I presume, am well aware of the all time classic title track
Mekong Delta - Ironically, a quite blackmore-y sounding intro, vocal kind of Queensryche/Mike Pattony not bad at all but the music and arrangement of prog metal is something that irritates the fuck out of me, I can't see how not having hooks and head nodding grooves is supposed to be progressive.
Deep Purple with the win
Judas Priest - opinion given before, Future of Mankind is great, one of my favourite priest tracks, the body of it is very Maiden-y especially the solos, and the great riff for the outro
Judas Priest with the win
Audioslave - An album I have. I expected a lot from this record and was ultimately disappointed. I'm a fan of Rage and always admired Cornell's vocals so it seemed like a marriage made in heaven. But ultimately it's only solid rather than great.
Rainbow - opinion given before.
Rainbow with the win
Bathory - Good riff but bad sound, vocal awful
Iron Maiden - opinion given before, DLTTEOAS is the worst song by Maiden
Iron Maiden with the win
Deep Purple - An album that I don't have and am unfamiliar with, but like everyone else I presume, am well aware of the all time classic title track
Mekong Delta - Ironically, a quite blackmore-y sounding intro, vocal kind of Queensryche/Mike Pattony not bad at all but the music and arrangement of prog metal is something that irritates the fuck out of me, I can't see how not having hooks and head nodding grooves is supposed to be progressive.
Deep Purple with the win
karljant
Ancient Mariner
Swedes NORMALLY make great metal... FTFY (if there's a place I can rely on getting a considerable % of good quality metal bands that place's Sweden... and #2 isn't even close!)
The Flash
Dennis Wilcock did 9/11
You mean Annihilator annihilates Gojira to move on.
karljant
Ancient Mariner
Murg makes me wonder how many out there still absolutely rip off what a certain band/ dude that I'm going to talk about in a no time was already playing 30 years ago (and truth be told with way more passion). This is precisely the type of BM I dislike and really tend to push me away from the whole scene. And while Nostradamus is undoubtedly a semi failed experience at least it has its moments. Judas Priest.
Speaking of which... The Return Of Darkness And Evil is a huge evolution from a more thrashy Venom like debut. And not only for the band itself but for metal in general because this is where it all starts, and truth be told Quorthon's next record (Under The Sign Of The Black Mark) is where it all ends for the countless bands that made a career merely copying these two albums. Not happy with that Quorthon also nearly defined Viking Metal with the band's following 2 records (Blood Fire Death and Hammerheart). But coming back to The Return and how along with Under The Sign it may as well be one of the more ripped off albums ever just make this experience on Youtube: set the playing velocity to 1.25 and listen to it. Yeah that's right. As for the music, apart from a couple of songs still clinging a bit to the band's debut, what you have here is absolutely ass kicking black and dirty as hell metal either by going full speed ahead (like in the title track Total Destruction, Son Of The Damned, Possessed or Reap Of Evil) or the eerie mid tempo of The Rite Of Darkness. So this is a classic album that absolutely defined a whole genre along with its successor and no matter how much I like The Clansman, Futureal or The Educated Fool, this Maiden album would never get my vote over Bathory's The Return.
Supergroups. This particular debut that resulted from the combining efforts of Cornell and what was left of RATM was quite an interesting one. I mean, I never was overly impressed by it but nevertheless it features some really cool rockers, especially Cochise, Show Me How To Live, What You Are, Like A Stone and Bring 'Em Back Alive. Did this band reinvented the wheel? Absolutely not but it's a curious mash up between some Soundgarden and RATM traits (and I also spot some 90's U2 here and there). And overall I consider it to be more solid than Rainbow's debut so yeah: Audioslave.
Burn is a classic album. Coverdale is a huge vocalist and Hughes besides being a top notch bass player also owns a powerful voice. But I don't know... being an absolute In Rock, Fireball and Machine Head fan, Purple without Ian Gillan never sounded authentic to me. Cool? Sure! Deep Purple cool? Naaaah. Still a good record but not my cup of tea. And although Wanderer At The Edge Of Time isn't also the version of Mekong Delta I prefer and sometimes gets a bit lost within itself, there are still some great moments here and there enough to give them my vote.
Speaking of which... The Return Of Darkness And Evil is a huge evolution from a more thrashy Venom like debut. And not only for the band itself but for metal in general because this is where it all starts, and truth be told Quorthon's next record (Under The Sign Of The Black Mark) is where it all ends for the countless bands that made a career merely copying these two albums. Not happy with that Quorthon also nearly defined Viking Metal with the band's following 2 records (Blood Fire Death and Hammerheart). But coming back to The Return and how along with Under The Sign it may as well be one of the more ripped off albums ever just make this experience on Youtube: set the playing velocity to 1.25 and listen to it. Yeah that's right. As for the music, apart from a couple of songs still clinging a bit to the band's debut, what you have here is absolutely ass kicking black and dirty as hell metal either by going full speed ahead (like in the title track Total Destruction, Son Of The Damned, Possessed or Reap Of Evil) or the eerie mid tempo of The Rite Of Darkness. So this is a classic album that absolutely defined a whole genre along with its successor and no matter how much I like The Clansman, Futureal or The Educated Fool, this Maiden album would never get my vote over Bathory's The Return.
Supergroups. This particular debut that resulted from the combining efforts of Cornell and what was left of RATM was quite an interesting one. I mean, I never was overly impressed by it but nevertheless it features some really cool rockers, especially Cochise, Show Me How To Live, What You Are, Like A Stone and Bring 'Em Back Alive. Did this band reinvented the wheel? Absolutely not but it's a curious mash up between some Soundgarden and RATM traits (and I also spot some 90's U2 here and there). And overall I consider it to be more solid than Rainbow's debut so yeah: Audioslave.
Burn is a classic album. Coverdale is a huge vocalist and Hughes besides being a top notch bass player also owns a powerful voice. But I don't know... being an absolute In Rock, Fireball and Machine Head fan, Purple without Ian Gillan never sounded authentic to me. Cool? Sure! Deep Purple cool? Naaaah. Still a good record but not my cup of tea. And although Wanderer At The Edge Of Time isn't also the version of Mekong Delta I prefer and sometimes gets a bit lost within itself, there are still some great moments here and there enough to give them my vote.
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karljant
Ancient Mariner
I would add Carnival Diablos... But I concur their first two records are their best.
MindRuler
Ancient Mariner
I used to love that record but it didn´t age very well. There´s a great Satrianish instrumental on it though.
DJ James
A coma stole my name.
The Return is almost entirely responsible for the shape of extreme metal as we know it. And nothing was not only as extreme but as effective as The Return of the Darkness and Evil was in 1985. Sure, since the early 80's bands like Venom and Hellhammer had enough teenage angst to fill atleast three John Hughes movies, but Bathory was the first band the elevate it past teenagers wanting to spread filth and macabre pleasures through heavy music, Bathory (Quorthon) came out of the gate doing everything those bands wanted to do and more.
Which is crazy to think, because those bands (and more like Vulcano, Mantas, Bulldozer, and Sabbat (JPN)) were already super extreme. But Bathory took everything to a whole new level. There's first 3 albums give me chills when I go back to listen to them, and I wasn't even around in the 80's. The Return is probably the most evil sounding album I have ever heard. And the drum sound on there is so, so killer.
It's pretty telling that extreme metal hasn't really evolved past this and the chorus riff from Die By the Sword by Slayer. Sure you can speed it up a bit, add in pinch harmonics, maybe a shitty breakdown or two, but what would that accomplish? Bathory reached the Apex of extreme metal in 1985, and no band or person for that matter has come close to topping what The Return offers.
Which is crazy to think, because those bands (and more like Vulcano, Mantas, Bulldozer, and Sabbat (JPN)) were already super extreme. But Bathory took everything to a whole new level. There's first 3 albums give me chills when I go back to listen to them, and I wasn't even around in the 80's. The Return is probably the most evil sounding album I have ever heard. And the drum sound on there is so, so killer.
It's pretty telling that extreme metal hasn't really evolved past this and the chorus riff from Die By the Sword by Slayer. Sure you can speed it up a bit, add in pinch harmonics, maybe a shitty breakdown or two, but what would that accomplish? Bathory reached the Apex of extreme metal in 1985, and no band or person for that matter has come close to topping what The Return offers.
Diesel 11
As you scream into the web of silence...
I thought this was pretty interesting. What would you say could be done to further evolve the extreme metal sound to head into something beyond Bathory?