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

This might be the round that required the least amount of listening for me thus far.

Arch Enemy - Burning Bridges vs. AC/DC - Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap

This Arch Enemy album seems much more palatable from their other album that made an appearance in previous rounds, still not really doing it for me though - it's a rare occasion that a melodeath album does. Not the strongest album from AC/DC, but it's more entertaining than its opponent.

Insomnium - Winter's Gate vs. Death - The Sound of Perseverance

Battle of melodeath and techdeath. Death is one of my more revered bands and while this album is not among my favorites from them, it's still a remarkable album of the genre. Insomnium is okay, but I'm not connecting with the sense of epic that it strives for.

Jason Becker - Perpetual Burn vs. Megadeth - Killing Is My Business...and Business Is Good!

Megadeth's debut isn't great, but it's a fully fleshed out and enjoyable thrash album with signs of things to come. I've heard Perpetual Burn in its entirety previously and as admirable as Jason Becker's skills and knack for melody are, the neo-classical shred style does very little for me.

Possessed - Seven Churches vs. Van Halen - Van Halen II

Van Halen II is a very "ehhh" album for me. I find the music on Seven Churches a bit overrated due to its immense influence as a proto-death metal album but it does have some good riffing on it and the sound simply appeals to me more than Van Halen's does.
 
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The Flash said:
This might be the round that required the least amount of listening for me thus far.
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Same for me, this round is easy. Arch Enemy isn't awful, but the swagger of Bon Scott takes the win. Death arguably invented death metal, then went prog, and this is much better than Insomnium, which may not have ever existed but for Death. Megadeth rocks, Becker doesn't. And Van Halen II, though not my favorite album of theirs and really isn't "metal" at all, is still much better than Possessed, in my view, even though the latter is (I think) considered a death metal classic.
 
LooseCannon said:
Here we go with a fresh run of competitors. This will be the last league drawn entirely from list participants. League 14 has some list participants, but also has albums from @The Flash, @Travis The Dragon, @Perun, @Perun, @Dr. Eddies Wingman, @Forostar, and more!
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I'm really looking forward to it. The next few upcoming leagues are when this game is likely to be the most exciting; The early rounds involve weeding out a lot of duds, the late rounds will be filled with the super popular albums the we are all familiar with already, but once we get to the user nominated albums that only 1-2 people nominated in total should be the best opportunity for some really cool discoveries.
 
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MindRuler said:
Insomnium puts alot of melody in its black metal and although I'm usually not into this kind of metal, some of the parts are enyoable (ending of Winter's Gate part II or Winter's Gate part VI for instance are beautiful!) They even have some prog elements. Pleasant surprise!
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Insomnium is melodeath, not black metal.
 
The Flash said:
This might be the round that required the least amount of listening for me thus far.
Click to expand...

This is the first round I could vote without listening to any of the albums.

AC/DC Dirty Deeds was one of the first if not first album that got me into heavier music. I was like 8 when I heard it coming from the back of the elementary school bus.

Death was a pretty easy choice for me. [That was a weird sentence to write.]

Killing is My Business easily over third-tier 80s guitar hero wankery.

My least favorite DLR-era VH falls to Possessed.
 
The Arch Enemy album has decent music, but bad vocals. Not as bad as the pure death vocals from the female singers, but still bad. And that cover of Aces High on the deluxe edition of the album is trash. Meanwhile AC/DC offers up a solid album with a few classics. I know which one I’d rather listen to again. Winner: AC/DC

Insomnium had some pretty cool music, but the ridiculous bass drum antics and the predictably shit vocals brought it down a few pegs. The spoken word sections were slightly better, but not by much. As before, the Death album has mostly great music and bad but not godawful vocals, so it continues its unlikely streak on my ballot. Winner: Death

Hadn’t heard the Jason Becker album before, and I wasn’t expecting so much neoclassical influence. It’s like Yngwie Malmsteen with more self control and better riffing instincts. A little wanky in places, but really high quality stuff. Meanwhile, Megadeth’s first album is pretty raw, with a number of stronger tracks and a few misfires. On overall quality I’ve got to give this one to Becker. Winner: Jason Becker

This Possessed album is kind of a mess. The vocals are out of time with the guitars, and the musical approach is like a less coherent low-rent mash-up of Megadeth’s and Metallica’s first albums. Van Halen II takes this by default for being competent. Winner: Van Halen
 
I didn't quite like Seven Churches at all when I heard it. It took me awhile to understand it, but I now believe it to be one of the greatest early death metal albums (amongst the likes of Celtic Frost/Hellhammer, Death Strike, and Mantas/Death, that is saying something). While I don't always agree with the notion that just because an album was the first to do something, that that makes it the best, but that's kinda the case with Seven Churches. For 1985, there's just not a single band that was doing it quite like Possessed was. Sure, you can draw similarities between the aforementioned bands or albums like Endless Pain or The Return...... but there's a distinct bleakness to Seven Churches. There's a youthful, carnal, and winding nature to the guitar riffs and it truly sounds like Larry LaLonde was doing something with heavy metal guitars that hadn't been heard before.

I can't tell you how many times the riff to the title track Seven Churches gets stuck in my head. It sounds like an early Atheist track. That's another thing, this album practically kicked off the Florida death metal scene. It was the first Florida death metal album, which is huge. Would Cannibal Corpse, Obituary, Morbid Angel, Deicide, or Malevolent Creation be here without this one album? Very hard to say.
 
Yeah, Seven Churches is a pretty great record. Some of that is due to novelty — (“the first death metal album, you say?”) — but another good chunk is due to just how fun it is, something that not all death metal can be. “The Exorcist” opens with the intro from “Tubular Bells” and then slams you down into a banger of a song. The sound is dirty, Bercera’s vocals are gritty, and really the only album that could contend against it was Reign In Blood, and that came out a year after it and was nowhere near as dark. I’d take it over Metallica’s and Megadeth’s debuts, I think it’s a way more enjoyable spin.
 
On this round, I've actually heard three of the bands. :) And even listened to one whole album before (Megadeth's)!

I've never liked AC/DC. The ball song was also thoroughly unpleasant in more ways than one, and the singing voice was annoying. Arch Enemy was a bit heavy for me, but definitely that over AC/DC.

Insomnium surprised me with the sound of the vocals, but left me a bit cold. The rhythm in the Death song was going to a lot of places, and the singer's voice was filled with pure malice. This band is not for me.

I had never heard of Jason Becker before, and the beginning of the song was very beautiful, though it got a bit worse later on. I really love Megadeth, but this album is not one of my favourites from them. It was a tough choice, but I just couldn't not vote Megadeth! :)

When I saw the album cover from Possessed, I thought it's going to be the type of music I've never listened to before. And so it was, very diabolical. Not really my thing, but funny enough, I had to vote for that to keep from voting Van Halen. I did think that it's probably a blasphemy to listen to music from a band that has a cross upside down on their album cover while drinking tea on a sunny summer's day. :) Finland would actually have better kinds of weather for this type of music on most seasons. Anyway, I had a deep dislike for Van Halen when I was a teenager, and when I saw the name of the song "Beautiful Girls," something told me the old hate probably hasn't died. I was right, the song made me sick.
 
Already shared my thoughts on the AC/DC album. As for Burning Bridges, yeah... this is probably Arch Enemy at their peak. Not that I'm a huge fan but it's cool and well composed enough to beat a kinda meh album by AC/DC.

Winter's gate is a really interesting Melodic Death metal record. Ok... it's not on the same league than Slaughter Of The Soul, The Gallery or Whoracle but features all the ingredients necessary to make a really great record when it comes to the genre. But the only thing against it it's that it is competing with Death's final record and if you seen my previous posts you'll easily understand why I'll give it my vote.

Curiously enough someone offered me this Becker vinyl a long long time ago. Jason was a jaw dropping excellent guitar player (if you're into this stuff just check Cacophony with Marty Friedman). But then again it's worth when it comes to song building what it's worth as the vast majority of guitar virtuosos' solo albums. Cool to listen to little more than one time and be amazed with some (a lot really) passages but quickly loses its charm. That alone does not diminishes the immense talent this guy shared with all of us: rest In Peace man. As I stated before Killing Is My Business, although far from the band's top tier albums, is a really exciting and a great prologue of things to come. So yeah... Megadeth.

Already gave my two cents about Van Halen's album. On The other hand, and although I'm not much of a Possessed fan, Seven Churches has a couple of cool tunes and I must give them the edge for daring to push Thrash Metal a bit further, being one of the pillars upon which Death Metal would be edified.
 
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Boy, I want to like Arch Enemy. I really do. But then the vocalists kick in, and it's just like, fuck me. I don't love this AC/DC album, but I'll pick it over Gossow. Sorry.
Insomnium is doing some really interesting work and I enjoyed the album, but I've been really enjoying Death so far. I'd have taken Insomnium over either of the previous albums, though.
Jason Becker is one of those guys I had thought you'd all go "WTF" but I haven't seen that. Still, while interesting playing, Megadave wins.
I...I'm gonna pick Possessed. I don't love Van Halen, and Possessed is far more interesting to me.
 
The Arch Enemy album was pretty solid. It kind of reminds me of In Flames. I can dig it. On the other hand, I've never been a huge fan of ACDC.

I found Insomnium's vocals to be a bit more tolerable than Death's, and the music was pretty good too, so they get the vote.

Overall I'm a bigger fan of Megadeth, but in the case of these particular albums, I'm going with Jason Becker.

And Van Halen gets the vote here based on a lucky draw.
 
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