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

A few of the tracks on this Running Wild album are pretty cool — “Raging Fire”, “Uaschitschun”, and “Final Gates”. I also like the neoclassical part of “Blown To Kingdom Come”, and I’m on the fence about “Calico Jack”. The rest of the songs are pretty forgettable to me. And it’s up against one of Iron Maiden’s very best albums, so, sorry Niarialla Kient, but Kaloosen DJ Jariana’s WingkidInTheFlashmatic Potoshunsrfcdent’s nominee walks away with this one. Winner: Iron Maiden

Blind Guardian is a band that’s never fully clicked with me. I like Hansi Kürsch’s unique voice, and I like their softer songs; but their heavier songwriting has often seemed disjointed to me, and the vocal choirs are really over the top, and that really thin video gamey lead guitar sound is kind of grating to me. All of that said, Nightfall In Middle-Earth is a grand refinement of their earlier sound, and if you like all of those Blind Guardianisms, and you like all the Tolkien readings and stuff going on here, then I could see why this would be considered one of their very best albums. I can respect it even if I can’t fully get into it. But Empire is also a great album, poppy elements and all, and I can fully get into that one. So, sorry BlooseWizpoton, but I’m going to go with Coylinx’s choice here. Winner: Queensrÿche

This Bathory album surprised me. The guy actually sings through the entire album. Not great singing, mind you, but certainly no worse than Dave Mustaine; and there’s no Gollum worship or tuneless thrash yelling to be found here. The production is bad, but the songwriting is actually quite good, and there are lots of neat rhythm and lead guitar bits throughout the album, as well as a cool ambiance from the queasy harmonized backing vocals that regularly appear. There’s light and shade, softness and heaviness, purity and muck. I didn’t expect to be impressed by this album, but I was. While I enjoy The Book Of Souls a lot, it’s still pretty close to the middle of the pack as far as Maiden albums go. Half of it is solidly good, and the other half is great to excellent. Overall I think the Bathory album is pretty comparable in quality, so I’m going to practice what I preach and break ties in the direction of the visiting team. Sorry, Trissrfcmatic The Looshmoocollin, but I’m affirmatively acting for Mityn DJ Jagnus’s nominee this time. Winner: Bathory

This Iseditionist Earth album wears its Metallica and Maiden influences on its sleeve, but it also works in a bit of its own identity with lots of clean parts and some more complicated and unique guitar leads. The songwriting seems better here than on the other IE albums that have appeared in the GMAC so far. The singer sounds good on the softer sections, but sounds pretty bad on the heavier parts, and the production in general is no bueno. But there’s still a lot to like here, and I can certainly think of far worse albums to listen to while raiding government buildings and trying to end western democracy. Meanwhile, this Sodom album has its charms, but it’s not really delivering at the same technical level as Benedict Schaffer’s offering. So, sorry @Magnus, but Borock Wizstard’s Jewish space lasers “Trump” passé chemical weapons from the 1970s. Winner: Iseditionist Earth
 
Is this ancient IE record getting a beating here because of.. you know? I'm not even going to listen to its opponent. Not a chance any Sodom is going to be that good. If it were, I'd heard someone rave about it like a madman out here, for years.
 
Definitely not for me - I don't care about the politics behind it. Never was a fan of IE - and I repeated it many times over - for me they are too much between thrash and power metal to have the benefits of either genre.

Also, on Metal Archives - the site is stupid (arbitrarily choosing what is and isn't metal), but the people writing reviews are actual metal fans - Stormrider is rated better by precisely 2 %. And the Sodom album has twice as many reviews at that.

As for "ancient" and/or classic - Agent Orange is older and I definitely saw it mentioned as one of the seminal thrash albums (by anyone who ever grew beyond the Big 4 and Testament) and in the metal community (at least from my experience) it's definitely much more well known and "classic" album, make of that what you will.

I like neither that much, but I go for Sodom, because I enjoy this particular album more - were it against Burnt Offerings or even Something Wicked, I might have voted for IE instead.
 
Running Wild - I bought a double album "best of" after an earlier round, solid enough stuff

Iron Maiden - opinion given before, also one of the nominators

Iron Maiden with the win

Blind Guardian - cliche-ridden euro-metal, Middle-Earth, really?

Queensryche - opinion given before

Queensryche with the win

Bathory - surprisingly good guitar tone when the riff came in, vocal decent too when it came in, when the heaviness kicks in the clipping spoils it maybe that's just a youtube thing though? I haven't been exposed to these (him?) before but it seems like Primordial just lifted their schtick from here lock, stock, and barrel.

Iron Maiden - opinion given before, also one of the nominators

Iron Maiden with the win

Iced Earth - ok sound and decent riffs but slapped together haphazardly, no convincing vibe, a few mins in and there's been hardly any vocals, it's almost like they just put a verse in for the sake of having a verse, riff from Alexander the Great appears in the middle of it.

Sodom - opinion given before

Sodom with the win
 
srfc said:
I think Agent Orange generally is raved about, no?
Click to expand...
Alright, it indeed has been talked about (I searched). Certainly could pay it a visit.

Night of the Stormrider is such a beast. Probably among the best 5 American metal albums for me.
 
Last edited:
Forostar said:
Alright, it indeed has been talked about (I searched). Certainly could pay it a visit.
Click to expand...

Didn't mean that to seem like I was questioning your opinion, Agent Orange was before my time, and Sodom generally are not in my area of knowledge, so I'm not 100% sure of how well known it is.
 
Detective Beauregard said:
Even though I voted for them here (twice), I agree. It's obvious bias, and we all know that a Maiden album is going to win this whole thing. I also don't think anything related to Maiden (e.g. Bruce's solo stuff, Blaze) should have been accepted, either.
Click to expand...
I honestly thought long and hard about this, or at least rejecting admissions of Iron Maiden albums from Maidenfans and requiring non-Maiden albums to be nominated and only going off list entries for Maiden.

But then I asked myself, how deep are the loyalties of Iron Maiden fans? Are they going to vote for Killers over something seminal, like Paranoid or Stained Class? What will happen when it's Somewhere in Time versus Master of Puppets? Or if it's Rising versus Brave New World?

I had to find out an answer to some of these questions, so I kept Maiden in this time. If I run it again in 4 years, I will probably exclude Maiden & Bruce from it. Not Blaze. Blaze isn't that popular and deserves to run.

Edit: None of the above matchups are guaranteed or set, just examples off the top of my head.
 
Forostar said:
Is this ancient IE record getting a beating here because of.. you know?
Click to expand...

No. At least not from me. Night of the Stormrider is a great album, but I would have always taken Agent Orange over it. It's one monster of a thrash classic.

And I just started hating Jon Schaffer even more. Now whenever you prefer something over Iced Earth, you have to justify it's not because of his involvement in the Capitol Riot. You have to explain that it's not #CancelSchaffer but that it's your genuine opinion and you always held it.

Fuck you, Schaffer, fuck your lunacy, fuck bringing this into it.
 
LooseCannon said:
I honestly thought long and hard about this, or at least rejecting admissions of Iron Maiden albums from Maidenfans and requiring non-Maiden albums to be nominated and only going off list entries for Maiden.

But then I asked myself, how deep are the loyalties of Iron Maiden fans? Are they going to vote for Killers over something seminal, like Paranoid or Stained Class? What will happen when it's Somewhere in Time versus Master of Puppets? Or if it's Rising versus Brave New World?

I had to find out an answer to some of these questions, so I kept Maiden in this time. If I run it again in 4 years, I will probably exclude Maiden & Bruce from it. Not Blaze. Blaze isn't that popular and deserves to run.

Edit: None of the above matchups are guaranteed or set, just examples off the top of my head.
Click to expand...

Any legitimate list of best of Heavy Metal is going to have 6 or 7 Maiden albums in the top 100. That's not bias, that's reality. 10 or 12 would be bias.

I'm as biased as they come about Maiden, I nominated the most Maiden albums, but I've voted against them a few times already, and not even when they were up against real all timers like the albums you mentioned.
 
srfc said:
Any legitimate list of best of Heavy Metal is going to have 6 or 7 Maiden albums in the top 100. That's not bias, that's reality. 10 or 12 would be bias.
Click to expand...
I don't know about that, but there are a few - Powerslave, Seventh Son of a Seventh Son, and, of course, The Number of the Beast are essentially locks. I would be sympathetic to Iron Maiden and Piece of Mind as well. We'll know what the top 100 looks like once League 3 is done - the 64 albums from Leagues 1 and 2 plus the 32 survivors of League 3 plus the 4 closest losers in League 3.
 
Forostar said:
Is this ancient IE record getting a beating here because of.. you know?
Click to expand...
II6wZzg.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top