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

Confeos said:
sounds like a mix of thrash and early death metal
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Although preserving some thrash traits and a couple other influences (that album even features piano and orchestrations) this is for the most part Death Metal as it was done in the late 80's/ early 90's. And Morbid Angel were one of the bands that defined that sound alongside Death and Possessed (their first record was originally recorded in 1986 but only released 6 years after).
 
Niall Kielt said:
Ive had a few brief periods (brief as in a couple of days) of explorin black metal and indeed, In The Nightside Eclipse is one thing that I remember. Something by Bruzum too, I think. At The Heart Of Winter by Immortal is the only one that I listened to a few times, cracking album. I have to be in the mood for the more extreme forms of metal and these moods sometimes take years to come around but I was surprised how much I liked black metal when I actually gave it a chance after years of thinking it was pure pish.
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At the Heart of Winter is one of the coolest black metal albums (pun unintended).

I voted for Korn, Death, Evanescence and Accept. I appreciate what Morbid Angel were going for and used to be a frequent listener but I didn’t remember a single song of theirs. I’m not a big fan of Accept but I couldn’t bring myself to vote for mushy early 90s production over crisp heavy metal guitars.
 
Sunn O))) is just noise. It's uninteresting noise. Without Korn I wouldn't be a heavy metal fan. Easy choice.

Sunbather was given universal acclaim when it came out. How in the hell did that happen? Death is the clear winner here.

X Japan is kinda like a Japanese Evanescence, isn't it? It's close though, and I wouldn't be surprised if X Japan came back to the forum in the form of a new Cheesevivör one day.

Accept. I can't stand Morbid Angel.
 
Sunn O))) is... something. Korn takes the vote; they're more interesting to listen to, and 2:38 in Freak On A Leash is probably my favourite part of the album.

Listening to Sunbather is like being shoved headfirst into a swimming pool. I really don't like Death, but they're still better than that.

X Japan... this album is cheesy. I like it. Evanescence have the better singer, though.

Accept is some nice straightforward heavy metal. I didn't like the blast beats, production, or vocals on the Morbid Angel album.

I might actually start listening to X Japan and Accept.
 
I didn't get a chance to listen to everything, but I got enough to make a vote I feel happy about:

Monoliths and Dimensions over Follow the Leader. I don't hate Nu Metal necessarily, some good things came out of the movement, but Korn is not one of those things. Very over-produced, bland, and boring. Sunn's brand of noise isn't particularly interesting either, but it at least makes for nice background noise and they're going for something unique. I wouldn't listen to either album out of my own will, but given the choice Sunn and it isn't even close.

Sound of Perseverance over Sunbather. I like both albums, although I have very mixed feelings on Sunbather (as illustrated earlier). The shoegaze mixed with extreme metal vocals is interesting, but I think that music is better with a lush, airier vocal style. The use of heavy drums and techniques like blastbeats is interesting and fitting though. All that being said, Sound of Perseverance is a timeless classic, and it's not even in the top three of best Death albums. A fantastic way to end their career and a cornerstone in the fusion of progressive and extreme metal. One of the first Death metal albums that really grabbed me.

Speaking of classic death metal, how is Morbid Angel losing to Accept? Accept isn't bad but come on. Blessed Are the Sick is far and away the best album in this entire game.

Also voted for Evanescence in a no contest round.
 
I saw this too late and don't really have time to listen to the albums anymore, but thankfully each of the pairings is pretty easy to me.

Korn
Death
Evanescence
Accept
 
The Flash said:
Too many voters who dislike death metal outright.
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Agreed.

They were harmed by going up against a generic metal band as well. I don't like death metal but I certainly would have prefered the morbid angel track to sunn o)), korn and deafheaven, and possibly x japan as well
 
X Japan vs Evanscene is very close. They feel similar even though they don't have very similar sounds. Fallen had (not bad) pop metal tunes, didn't really expect something else... X Japan had a great cheesy sound, but the Japanese sounded strange. But I still love their songs more so they get the vote.
My favourites were Blue Blood, Endless Rain, Kurenai, and the epic Rose of Pain.

The last match has the best albums here by far, probably better than Death's record even. Accept has a great traditional metal album (which I really needed after listening to everything but normal metal for those two days), and Morbid Angel is about equal just on another genre. I am forced to use one of my shitty reasoning cards!

You see, Blood of the Nations has a lot of great songs. But to be fair, so many separate (I was today years old when I learnt it's not "seperate") songs could get tiring. Blessed are the Sick is a much more unified experience, so it wins.
 
The Flash said:
Too many voters who dislike death metal outright.
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Yeah, sorry, glass gargling only has niche appeal. When you throw vocal melody and harmony out the window and are left with the approximation of someone vomiting into the microphone, it’s a bit of a turnoff for most people. I’m sure you think that’s incredibly narrow-minded if you’re a fan of the style, but it is what it is. I’m sure there are fans of people using farts as musical instruments, and they probably think you’re narrow minded for dismissing them too. Such is life. I need more beer.
 
Jer said:
Yeah, sorry, glass gargling only has niche appeal. When you throw vocal melody and harmony out the window and are left with the approximation of someone vomiting into the microphone, it’s a bit of a turnoff for most people. I’m sure you think that’s incredibly narrow-minded if you’re a fan of the style, but it is what it is. I’m sure there are fans of people using farts as musical instruments, and they probably think you’re narrow minded for dismissing them too. Such is life. I need more beer.
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Calm down.
 
The Flash said:
Calm down.
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Totally calm, I assure you.

I like exactly three albums with extreme vocals:
  • In Flames - The Jester Race: The Cookie Monster stuff is so low in the mix that it acts like percussion, and this is effectively an instrumental album.
  • Aegonia - The Forgotten Song: The extreme vocals are more like a husky whisper than glass gargling, and they’re balanced by a lot of melodic vocals.
  • Primal Rock Rebellion - Awoken Broken: Adrian Smith forces enough melody and harmony into the proceedings to open the door for me.
There are probably a few more lurking out there that I could enjoy. You could probably argue that some Mr. Bungle albums could make that list, for example. But in general, death vocals just don’t work for most people, and for good reason.
 
All these decisions were actually fairly easy. Voting in favor of:

Korn. They get way more hate than they deserve. I was a fan of theirs back in the day, and I have fond memories of this album in particular, along with Issues. While my tastes have definitely evolved over time, they're still enjoyable to listen to from time to time.

Death. I'm not really a fan of harsh vocals, but there's no denying that they're extremely talented musicians.

Evanescance. Fallen was another album I owned back in the day. I haven't listened to them in quite some time either, but they get the vote here due to the nostalgia factor.

Accept. They are pretty generic sounding, but that's not necessarily a bad thing. I actually wouldn't be opposed to digging deeper into them in the future.

All I'll say about the other 4 songs/albums/bands I didn't vote for is that I did not enjoy them at all.
 
League 18 - Matches 1-4 results

Korn 15 - Sunn O))) 14 | In the closest battle, the nu metal titans slip through against literal noise. This doesn't bear well for Korn going forward.
Death 28 - Deafheaven 2 | This one was a blowout for the originators of death metal.
Evanescence 20 - X Japan 9 | Nothing to see here, but some people did like the X Japan cheese.
Accept 21 - Morbid Angel 10 | German thrash titans win!

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Oof. I can already tell this is going to be a trying round for those of us "Invisible Handers."

I'm going to try to commit myself to listening to 3 songs from every album from here out, But I'm not going to subject myself to the punishment if the choice will be painfully obvious based on just the posted songs.
 
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