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

Let There Be Rock is the best Bon-era AC/DC album, therefore the best AC/DC album overall. I like Annihilator and all, but considering my progressive Daddening in general, I can't but vote for the more Boomer choice. Doesn't really matter which version, though I like the Australian version more (never was a fan of Problem Child even on its proper album and Crabsody is kinda endearingly weird and distasteful).

Not voting in the second pairing - I want both bands gone in about the same amount.

LedZep's IV is a cool album, but a very uneven one. Levee, Black Dog, Evermore are all great, but Stairway is overplayed, Rock 'n' Roll is way too generic, Hop and 4 Sticks even more so (almost mind-numbing in their monotony) and Going to California is very overlong. And I got kinda fed-up with their acoustic shtick after the previous album. That Blind Guardian album might not be precisely better per se, but I guess I like it more, nowadays.

As for the fourth pair, yeah, me voting for Pearl Jam. As if that would ever happen. Avantasia is a magnificent, catchy cheese, the beautiful Euro-power-metal approach that gives me pleasure anytime.
 
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Avenged Sevenfold - City of Evil (2005)

How it got here

List entries: Rolling Stone 100
Maidenfans Nominators: @KidInTheDark666
League 5 - Match 25vs.
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Immortal - At the Heart of Winter (1999)

How it got here

List entries: n/a
Maidenfans Nominators: @Dityn DJ James, @Saapanael, @Whooten
Previous Rounds:
League 6: Defeated Entombed - Left Hand Path 19-8.
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Sabaton - The Art of War (2008)

How it got here

List entries: Metalstorm 70
Maidenfans Nominators: @Ariana, @Collin, @Dr. Eddie’s Wingman, @KidInTheDark666, @LooseCannon, @Saapanael, @Travis The Dragon
League 5 - Match 26vs.
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Gamma Ray - Land of the Free (1995)

How it got here

List entries: n/a
Maidenfans Nominators: @Forostar, @Jer
Previous Rounds:
League 6: Defeated Rainbow - Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow 16-15.
 
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Iron Maiden - The X Factor (1995)

How it got here

List entries: n/a
Maidenfans Nominators: @Ariana, @Diesel 11, @Forostar, @Perun, @Saapanael
League 5 - Match 27vs.
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Judas Priest - Firepower (2018)

How it got here

List entries: n/a
Maidenfans Nominators: @Collin, @Kalata
Previous Rounds:
League 6: Defeated Alice in Chains - Facelift 23-8.
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KISS - Destroyer (2001)

How it got here

List entries: Metal Rules 78
Maidenfans Nominators: @Dityn DJ James
League 5 - Match 28vs.
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Dream Theater - Black Clouds and Silver Linings (2009)

How it got here

List entries: n/a
Maidenfans Nominators: @Midnight, @Saapanael, @The Dissident
Previous Rounds:
League 6: Defeated Deep Purple - Burn 17-14.
 
I hate Avenged Sevenfold's singer so much (except for on Waking The Fallen) that I will actually vote for drunk Abbath and his silly black metal. Immortal

Sabaton
have the superior album. Sabaton bias.

FIREPOWER is an incredible album. It's not a "hidden gem". It's not a "you have to listen to it 1000 times to get it" album. It's not an album that only the most hardcore of fans will love. The X Factor is all of those things. Firepower is amazing from start to finish and even more amazing from a band five decades in. If this loses to fucking Steve Harris' sonic abortion and Blaze singing out of key, I swear to Dio that
I will keep voting but be really, really butt-hurt about it

I mean damn, son, why do you gotta keep making me vote for Black Clouds & Silver Linings? I really, truly don't like this album very much, but holy frakking Dio is it light years better than a single second of a KISS album.
 
Nominee snuck up on me again. Already shared some thoughts on Gamma Ray’s Land Of The Free, and while I’ll give the Sabaton album a fair airing, I’m doubtful it will be good enough to make me vote against my own nominee. Land Of The Free is a seminal power metal album for good reason, and it has a lot of the finesse that I have yet to hear from Sabaton, or from many power metal bands in general.
 
Okay, wrong choice of words... of course I do appreciate it, just like I appreciate the senile aunt with face red from way too much brandy pinching my cheeks and repeating what a strapping young lad I am... it's still family, right, and she's somewhat adorable and endearing and means well and I almost kinda see in her the young, attractive girl she used to be in the days of her youth...
 
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