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

Michael Amott nearly did as he well, he managed two consequtive rounds with two different bands
 
Dillinger is not my style at all. I tried, but no. Rage all the way. Singer still reminds me of Di'anno.

I understand Napalm Death's role in things, but I truly like that Down album.

LTE, easily. Prog snobs hail!

Neither album in the final match did much for me, but Helloween was more continually enjoyable.
 
I lasted less then ten seconds of The Dillinger Escape Plan before turning it off. Jarring riffs and atrocious vocals. Rage are pretty boring but they're a damn sight better than The Dillinger Escape Plan.

I loathe everything Napalm Death have done. They are an awful band whose so-called music has absolutely no redeeming factors. Before now I hadn't really bothered listening to Down and I'm pleasantly surprised by why I hear. I wouldn't mind hearing more of this album, but Phil Anselmo is offputting because of who he is.

This Liquid Tension Experiment song is just an extremely irritating version of some Dream Theater songs and I'm generally not keen on instrumentals. Musical wanking at its finest. Maybe if you're a musician and a Prog Nerd you'd like it, but I am neither. Virgin Steele don't seem to be anything special from this song, but I'd rather hear more of this than listen to musical wanking.

This mediocre Helloween album should never have made a Top 100 list, unless it's the Top 100 Helloween albums. However, it gets the vote over Godflesh whose song was plodding and dull with crappy vocals.
 
The Dillinger Escape Plan really lacks a soul, and Rage was pretty good.

Napalm Death does a better job than Pig Destroyer at short bursts of sound I guess. I've listened to NOLA some more, it's good. The only song I don't care for there is Hail the Leaf, and everything from Jail (or even Eyes of the South) onward is gold.

I know LTE well, this is such a great album. Acid Rain, Another Dimension, When the Water Breaks, Chewbacca... Whenever I'm on a Dream Theater binge I usually end up listening to those albums a lot. Btw, Spontaneous Combustion is another favourite album of mine but I doubt it'll make an appearance if its more beloved brother is here.

Anyways, I listened to LTE2 again just to be sure, and I'm going with Virgin Steele. This album and Sleep's Jerusalem are the two that I have no doubt should've entered in much higher leagues... It's like Ayreon, except it's not like Ayreon, it's just lengthy and great and not cheesy :)

7 Sinners is fine for what it is, but Streetcleaner is much more intriguing.
 
I tried to listen to The Dillinger Escape Plan. I've been hearing about this band for years and never really tried, but man, it's just noise. The Rolling Stone list has a lot of these weird, extreme metal experiments that just sound like barely organized noise. I'd rather listen to Sunn O))) than this. I don't love Rage. They've never clicked with me, and this album is no different, but at least it's actually music.

I didn't hate Napalm Death as much as some others, but I surely don't like it. This more extreme brand of thrash is far less enjoyable to me. I didn't love NOLA either but we're still in the 700s so what do you expect?

LTE is for prog snobs. I am not a prog snob. I do love a) music based on history/myth and b) trad/power metal. I wish Virgin Steele had a better singer, because I love some of these songs, but I just feel they're missing a virtuoso on top of them.

Godflesh - of the three bands I disliked, I liked this the most, but I don't like it enough to vote for it over an utterly bland and pointless Helloween album. I don't know how long Helloween can keep this in the game but it's gotta be better than Godflesh.
 
LooseCannon said:
That's true, it's an entirely binary existence.
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I can assure you, I am merely prog-curious. Or maybe I progged a bit in college and mostly grew out of it.

I like moderately progressive music a lot. Full-on prog can be more of an “I appreciate this artistically but I’m not sure I enjoy it” exercise, and it depends on how self-indulgent the progginess feels to me.

LTE2 felt legit to me, like actual songs and not just wanking. Some Dream Theater meets that bar. I like some 70s Genesis and Rush. I like some Mekong Delta albums (one of which I nominated for this contest). Sons Of Apollo are pretty good. I like a lot of moderately proggy power metal, too. I guess you could say I like a little challenge in the song structure without having it punch me in the face. So while I’m certainly a snob in general, I am not a prog snob.
 
Three of these matchups aren't even close in my mind. DEP - hell no. Godflesh - not as bad as DEP, but still no. Down sounds like the kind of grunge I actually listened to in the 90s, I mean it's not metal, but it sounds pretty good; surprised I wasn't more familiar with them.

The only close matchup is Liquid Tension v. Virgin Steele. I got the sense that LTE is the kind of proggy band that Virgin Steele aspired to be. Plus, I don't mind Dream Theater without the annoying vocals!
 
Calling LTE Dream Theater in disguise is understandable although slightly inaccurate. Both albums were made before Rudess joined DT and Petrucci was a last minute addition. Portnoy reluctantly brought him in after his first choices declined (he didn’t want the project to be compared to Dream Theater, go figure). Of course what ended up happening is that Rudess joined DT a year or so later and these two LTE albums formed the basis of the songwriting partnership between Petrucci and Rudess (with Portnoy acting in an arranger’s role). If anything, Dream Theater sounds like Liquid Tension Experiment, not the other way around. If you listen to the pre-Rudess albums vs anything after Scenes (which in itself is an anomaly since the bulk of that material was written before Rudess came in), you can hear the writing style changed. The instrumental sections become more virtuositic, there’s more coordination between keys and guitar, and there are more unison parts.

As for the album itself, the second LTE is the best and definitely one of my all time favorites. The album is driven by great riffs and a really nice sense of melody. Petrucci’s guitar sound is really crisp and I like Rudess on this more than any DT album. He gets some fantastic sounds.

The “wanking“ criticism is one of the more tiring terms out there, along with “repetitive” and “overrated.” It doesn’t really mean anything. Is that just a lazy way of dismissing music without vocals? Lots of music is instrumentally driven. And a lot of it, maybe even most of it, is far more technically challenging and driven than LTE. Is the instrumental section of SSOASS wanking? I’m not too concerned with people disliking it, but I do get a bit disappointed when otherwise smart and articulate members of the forum can’t find a better way of expressing their distaste for something. Not liking music without vocals (or any music for that matter) is totally valid btw. This isn’t a complaint about taste.

There are a few improvised jams on the album without Petrucci that were recorded because JP‘s wife was having a baby (When the Water Breaks is a reference to this) and those are probably my least favorite songs on the album. Some decent moments though.
 
@Mosh I think "wanking" is for when the music has no sense purpose or direction, just some guys jamming and having the audacity (in the ears of the listener that is) to release this as music, and not just instrumentals (DT is sometimes accused of this, even in songs with LaBrie...)

At least it actually means something.
Calling something "overrated", on the other hand, doesn't even say anything about the music, just that you don't like it as much as most...

Either way, I do agree that it's unfairly used to just say "this is an instrumental and I don't like it/it's too technical"... The only LTE song I'd call wankery is the one with a wankery disclaimer :D
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Mosh said:
It doesn’t really mean anything.
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I think it has far more meaning than most buzz words you see on forums. It's meaning is the musician is pleasuring himself rather than the listener with the piece of music, it's masturbatory.

Whether it's fair to use that term when describing certain artist/albums might be a different matter but I certainly think it's a highly accurate and descriptive term.
 
Yes, quite vivid and graphic even. If I see an album review with the phrase "amazing wanking" then I will be hitting that report button so hard.
 
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