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

Ecstatic Fear’s initial impression was reminiscent of Opeth at its more delicate moments. The male vocals weren’t good, but didn’t push me out of the song. I‘m curious to see if they have any depth to their work, or if that atmospheric piece created the illusion of same.

Not sure how I missed Destruction in 1986. The musical collision between NWOBHM and thrash was interesting initially, but ultimately didn’t really go anywhere. Too bad these Guys decide to be a among the pioneers of bad singing. I‘ll go Ecstatic Fear (which is a dumb name).
 
Baron Rojo has got a real good NWOBHM groove going on and a catchy if simplistic song, with a fun guitar lead. Pretty sure I heard one of those chord patterns on a song by its competition.

Saxon is also catchy and simplistic, and that track is so repetitive. It’s also so much fun, and that crunchy rhythm guitar sound is so good. Biff’s voice isn’t for everyone, but for me it is 8 steps above the punkish Rojo vocals and cements the victory for Saxon.
 
Heaven’s Gate sounds like power metal before Disney took hold on the production. That song sounds like it should be from 1984, not 1991. I could see teenage McKindog really being into this back in the day. Listening to it now, it sounds dated but fun.

Close friend is a big fan of Edguy. He’s tried to get me into them a couple times, but they’ve never clicked. This is fine. I’m going with nostalgia here and voting for Gate. Think I’d rather listen to a second cut of theirs.
 
I have no idea why I have never taken a deep dive into Savatage’s catalogue, because everything I’ve heard from them I like. It‘s a glossier, more commercial sound than what I usually go for, but it has a lot in common with the more commercial offerings of Dio and Triumph. There is a ton of melody and the songs breath in a way power metal doesn’t. One of the better tracks I’m hearing for the first time in this game.

I shut Deicide off after about 20 seconds so I have no idea if they are better or worse than some of the other bands in this game playing similar music. But I didn’t like those 20 seconds and they had no chance of winning.
 
Ecstatic Fear - never heard of these at all and no idea of the background, sounds nice, not sure how representative it is of the rest of the album but it's not really enticing enough for me to want to check it out. Reminds me of Cruachan when the male vocals kick in.

Destruction - I'm a fan of Kreator and familiar enough with Sodom but never heard these before, even though I'm aware they are peers. I'd rather listen to this than quite a lot of the bands in the game so far, but it's really second tier stuff.

Destruction wins this, but again both bands aren't anything to write home about.

Baron Rojo - never heard these before, good NWOBHM sounding stuff, I like this, it's a shame they are up against a titan of their genre, I'll check out the whole album.

Saxon - this is too good to only be in this round. Saxon have their flaws, but Wheels of Steel is a genuine Metal classic and there is no way this should be in the preliminary rounds of this competition.

Saxon with the win.

Heaven's Gate - I think these were in an earlier round, still sounds like Queensryche but more the warning era, but the production on this has a bit more steel, bit of a Priest edge to it as well, not bad. Solo section is totally ripped from Priest:lol:

Edguy - more generic power metal

Heaven's Gate with the win in this round

Savatage - not a huge fan of Savatage, I only own (and have only heard) Gutter Ballet, but they are decent enough. Intro is ripped from UFO's Love to Love, but Maiden ripped that too for LOTF so I don't hold it against them:lol: Wiki says the singer is different to the album I have, and he doesn't seem to have the same power to me but is still decent enough.

Deicide - I had a mate who was into this back in the day, didn't like it then, don't like it now. It's mainly the vocals putting me off, as musically I find this better than a lot of the other extreme bands so far. It's actually heavy rather than using weird arrangements and production tricks that some of the other bands use to feign extremity.

Savatage with the win.
 
Boring... just boring.

Destruction's Eternal Devastation is far from being their best release (IMO their debut Sentence Of Death gets that place) but is far more appealing than the other snoozefest.

Regarding Saxon and Baron Rojo here are two bands I always thought to be overrated as hell. Thanks to both for all the years and contribution to the metal scene but their music is so predictable when compared with some of other bands during the same period. Alas.. my first tie.

Edguy, Avantasia, Rhapsody... Do we have to get one of these bands each turn? Dear God... Heaven's Gate's Heavy/ Power Metal gets my vote in the round almost by default.

And to close the set two other overrated bands. Savatage are excellent musicians but their sound and voice is generic as generic can be. As for Deicide musically they're a bit more inventive and technical. And at least spearheaded a genre although Benton's voice and attitude is absolute trash. Nevertheless they get my vote for now.
 
Heaven's Gate! They were, together with German bands Helloween, Gamma Ray, Grave Digger, Running Wild, and Rage, the pioneers in German power metal, taking their influences mainly from Helloween as well as from Judas Priest.

I bought that Heaven's Gate album in the early nineties. Cool to see it pop up here!
One of the guitarists is Sascha Paeth, who has produced (and engineered) a lot of European power-, symphonic and progressive metal albums:
en.wikipedia.org

Sascha Paeth - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org en.wikipedia.org
 
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Forostar said:
Well, if it was an earlier Edguy album, I'd have probably joined you.
To be fair, Mandrake was a strong one indeed. It still came out before the silliness and Bon Jovi / hair metal elements started to creep in ("Lavatory Love Machine", "Fucking With Fire" etc.)
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Well , i habve a strong feeling people voting for their preferred bands than the actual albums they've put out.

Maiden is my favorite band, but if it would be killers vs appetite for destruction I'd take guns and Roses for sure
 
FTB said:
Well , i habve a strong feeling people voting for their preferred bands than the actual albums they've put out.

Maiden is my favorite band, but if it would be killers vs appetite for destruction I'd take guns and Roses for sure
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I don’t like GnR at all and I’d vote any of their albums over Killers.
 
I listened to the full Heavens Gate and Edguy albums and I honestly think I prefer Heavens Gate. Edguy is fine but not for me.
 
FTB said:
Well , i habve a strong feeling people voting for their preferred bands than the actual albums they've put out.
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I can't speak for everyone else, but I've been listening to several songs from each album so far to make sure the better album gets my vote each time.

I'm also trying to avoid a situation where between the posted songs, say one of the better songs of a worse album is up against one of the worse songs of a better album, and trying not to let that influence things. In other words, in Maiden terms, if Piece of Mind was against Virtual XI, but the posted songs were Quest for Fire and The Clansman. The Clansman is the better song between those two, but Piece of Mind is the better album.

That situation hasn't come up so far, but I'm sure it will at some point.
 
You can't get the same level of commitment from everyone in a game like this, it comes with the territory. I've listened to at least four tracks from each album in the rounds I've voted in so far, in order to get a decent enough samples. I actually haven't paid any attention to the sample tracks given in the introductory posts.
 
LooseCannon said:
Yep! And functionally, I don't care. This is designed to be not so very scientific. I'll listen to the sample songs and if they horrify me, I'm done. If they don't, I'll listen to more.
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There is a huge volume of music in this game and I don’t have a ton of time, so Im certainly not going to invest a ton of time in deciding which album I like less of two I dislike.
 
mckindog said:
There is a huge volume of music in this game and I don’t have a ton of time, so Im certainly not going to invest a ton of time in deciding which album I like less of two I dislike.
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Nor should you. The goal is to dip your toe in a bunch of different stuff and go with what catches you up.

Edit: Also remember that this League is heavier than all subsequent Leagues. Going forward you'll already have seen 2 albums per round, so the amount of new music eases off.
 
I really don’t care for Destruction, but I really couldn’t believe how boring the Estatic Fear song was. There’s literally nothing going on. I’ll vote Destruction just because the song is more exciting. Also, am I the only one that actually noticed the band has been introduced as Destroyer next to its video?

I’d never heard of Baron Rojo but I enjoyed their track a lot. It’s nothing groundbreaking but sounded cool, probably because of the punk elements. Saxon are bland, generic, and massively overrated, so my vote goes to Baron Rojo.

Heaven’s Gate loses to Edguy just because the latter sounds a bit more modern and I am familiar with them. I didn’t really dislike either but I wouldn’t suffer if I never heard either band for the rest of my life.

Deicide are awful. I would vote for most metal bands over them, but Savatage completely deserve the victory here.
 
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