Maidenfans Best Albums of the Millennium: 2005

vote for any albums that you want to move up (read the post for details)!

  • Total voters
    15
  • Poll closed .
Voting for OPETH, plus Bolt Thrower and Riverside.

Listened to both for the first time in the last day and they are both amazing albums. Those Once Loyal is an absolute powerhouse of groovy death metal and it's consistently badass (especially the bass tone and prominence).

I can't believe more people here aren't voting for Riverside. I've heard about this album for a long time and just never really got around to it, but it is mesmerizing. Truly awesome classic prog metal with just the right amount of melancholy. It's kinda like if Steven Wilson wrote a Porcupine Tree album that was much more metallic and occasionally aggressive in the vocal department. Truly a hidden gem of an album.
 
Voting Tyranny again (really hope someone checks out this album and gets blown away, it's in a league of its own), also supporting Gojira (monumental album), Bolt Thrower (monumental album), and Meshuggah (Meshuggah gang rise up).
 
Updated Power Rankings
  1. Opeth - Ghost Reveries +1
  2. Bruce Dickinson - A Tyranny of Souls -1
  3. Gojira - From Mars to Sirius =
  4. Judas Priest - Angel of Retribution =
  5. Porcupine Tree - Deadwing =
  6. Gamma Ray - Majestic =
  7. Bolt Thrower - Those Once Loyal =
  8. Strapping Young Lad - Alien +5
  9. Riverside - Second Life Syndrome +6
  10. System of a Down - Hypnotize -2
  11. Meshuggah - Catch 33 -1
  12. Arch Enemy - Doomsday Machine -3
  13. Tyranny - Tides of Awakening -2
  14. Reverend Bizarre - Crush the Insects -2
  15. Avenged Sevenfold - City of Evil -1
A lot more movement in this round and it's looking like the invisible hand of Maidenfans is starting to make the expected adjustments. For the first time this game, we have three albums jockeying for the top spot as Opeth has barely knocked Bruce into the #2 slot and is currently the king of the hill. Will it last? Gojira and Priest seem to have settled, but I see some strong support for Bolt Thrower and Gamma Ray as well, so I would say there's competition here in both directions.

Strapping Young Lad and Riverside come away as the big winners this round, it seems like the proggers have risen up! Riverside in particular is now no longer a bottom seed and in fact had the highest vote share of the bottom groupings. In its place, Avenged Sevenfold has fallen to the bottom seed where I expect it will stay. As a side note, I revisited this album today and while I do think it is an important piece of the story of Metal in the 21st century, it definitely doesn't hold up as much as anything else on this list. M. Shadows is a clear weak link on this album and the barrage of guitar harmonies is pretty fatiguing, still it's interesting to hear bands like Maiden, In Flames, and others propped up so heavily in such a mainstream America rock act.

 
Updated Power Rankings
  1. Opeth - Ghost Reveries =
  2. Porcupine Tree - Deadwing +3
  3. Bruce Dickinson - Tyranny of Souls -1
  4. Gojira - From Mars to Sirius -1
  5. Judas Priest - Angel of Retribution -1
  6. Gamma Ray - Majestic =
  7. Bolt Thrower - Those Once Loyal =
  8. Strapping Young Lad - Alien =
  9. Riverside - Second Life Syndrome =
  10. System of a Down - Hypnotize =
  11. Meshuggah - Catch 33 =
  12. Tyranny - Tides of Awakening +1
  13. Arch Enemy - Doomsday Machine -1
  14. Reverend Bizarre - Crush the Insects =
  15. Avenged Sevenfold - City of Evil =
Not a ton of movement here but a pretty big move from Porcupine Tree into the #2 slot! Didn't see that coming, but it tied with Ghost Reveries for highest vote share. I will actually be pretty shocked if Porcupine Tree bests, Bruce Dickinson, Judas Priest, and even Gojira. So far it's not shaking out how I would expect!
 
Also, Meshuggah ain't doing too well here, but someone might still like these:
My personal favourite music related channel, I found a lot of cool metal through him. Specifically for Catch 33, he made videos covering the entire album (because it's awesome?).
 
FINAL Power Rankings
  1. Opeth - Ghost Reveries +2
  2. Bruce Dickinson - Tyranny of Souls =
  3. Gojira - From Mars to Sirius +1
  4. Gamma Ray - Majestic +5
  5. Porcupine Tree - Deadwing +1
  6. Judas Priest - Angel of Retribution -5
  7. Bolt Thrower - Those Once Loyal -2
  8. Strapping Young Lad - Alien +5
  9. Riverside - Second Life Syndrome +6
  10. System of a Down - Hypnotize -3
  11. Meshuggah - Catch 33 -1
  12. Tyranny - Tides of Awakening -1
  13. Arch Enemy - Doomsday Machine -5
  14. Reverend Bizarre - Crush the Insects -2
  15. Avenged Sevenfold - City of Evil -1
Wow, this is a really exciting one. Three albums spent time in the top ranking: Angel of Retribution, Tyranny of Souls, and Ghost Reveries, but Ghost Reveries hung on pretty decisively for a couple rounds. The biggest loser in the whole round has to be Angel of Retribution. Easily the worst performance by an album that started in the top seed so far (a status it earned by being the most nominated album of the list). I am actually pretty surprised at how this happened. While this is a year of heavy hitters, some of the albums that bested Priest were ones that I didn't really see performing all that well on here. Seeing Priest get whacked by Porcupine Tree and Gamma Ray wasn't really on my bingo card, but the support for Priest just wasn't there. I thought this would become a battle between Priest and Bruce, but while Tyranny of Souls just stayed in place by the end, Priest was never even in the conversation. I think Priest has one more chance to win one of these lists, although I am now going to be really curious about how Nostradamus fares as the top seed in its year. I wouldn't be surprised to see an even larger dropoff.

The other big loser this round is Arch Enemy's Doomsday Machine. Very similar situation here where it feels like it didn't have much support at any point, I also think the album was negatively impacted by a groundswell of support for lower seeds. Which brings me to the big winners of this round, which have to be Second Life Syndrome, Alien, and Majestic. Gamma Ray is a very important band no doubt, but I have to say their appearance in the top 5 is one of the biggest upsets we've seen in the game so far. From Mars to Sirius and Those Once Loyal are two other classics that didn't seem to connect on here, although Gojira held on decently enough.

Programming note: I am going on vacation this week so 2006 won't happen until the following week. See y'all later!

Edit: In case you want a quick reference for next week's albums:
Iron Maiden - A Matter of Life and Death
Amon Amarth - With Oden on Our Side
Sabaton - Attero Dominatus
Tenacious D - The Pick of Destiny
Amorphis - Eclipse
Celtic Frost - Monotheist
Ahab - Call of the Wretched Seas
Edguy - Rocket Ride
uneXpect - In A Flesh Aquarium
Tool - 10,000 Days
Strapping Young Lad - The New Black
Mastodon - Blood Mountain
Devin Townsend - Synchestra
 
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