The Greatest Metal Song Cup - Part II, Round 4, Matches 82-87

What is your favourite song in each match? Vote in all six matchups!

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  • Total voters
    8
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Wow, another really weak round. At least it was easy.

Match #1
I don't like either of these, but on principle I can't vote for Kiss. So Iggy it is!

Match #2
Bolt Thrower is meh while the Bloodbath track has Akerfeldt. Easy choice.

Match #3
Easy vote for Dan Swano over Borknagar. More melodic and interesting.

Match #4
Easily White Zombie. Rob isn't really my thing, but nothing I've heard from him has me running away (like whatever that Bring Me the Horizon song did).

Match #5
Another case of I don't like either so I'm voting for the least sucky. Breaking Benjamin it is, if only because I just can't stand Avenged Sevenfold's vocals. Ugh.

Match #6
Neither of these songs are bad, but the Alter Bridge one is weightier and more impactful.

Hopefully next round will have some songs I look forward to listening to.
 
Well, whoever posts next can pick the winner of
Breaking Benjamin vs. Avenged Sevenfold

Alter Bridge vs Faith No More
 
KISS has been found and destroyed by Iggy and the Stooges, it seems. Meanwhile, Bolt Thrower isn't dead, but they still buried Bloodbath. Dan Swanö has added a new reality: victory over Borknagar. White Zombie dethrones Bring Me the Horizon, and Breaking Benjamin breaks Avenged Sevenfold's little piece of heaven. It's a surprise! Faith No More is dead as Alter Bridge squeaks through.




Part I, Round 31, Matches 181-186


Play In Round
Match 181
Still Life Division​
Armored Saint - Warzone
vs.
Black Sabbath - Zero the Hero​
@MrKnickerbocker
Nominators
Popoff 500​
Youtube | Spotify | Amazon
Links

Play In Round
Match 182
Still Life Division​
Demolition Hammer - Skull Fracturing Nightmare
vs.
Kreator - Endorama​
@DJ James
Nominators
Youtube | Spotify | Amazon
Links

Play In Round
Match 183
Still Life Division​
Death - Scavenger of Human Sorrow
vs.
Cannibal Corpse - They Deserve To Die​
@KidInTheDark666
Nominators
Best Music Art 100​
Youtube | Spotify | Amazon
Links

Play In Round
Match 184
Alexander the Great Division​
Mastodon - Divinations
vs.
Dream Theater - The Spirit Carries On​
@Spambot
Nominators
Youtube | Spotify | Amazon
Links

Play In Round
Match 185
Alexander the Great Division​
Holocaust - Death or Glory
vs.
Holocaust - Heavy Metal Mania (Single Version)​
Popoff 500
Nominators
Youtube | Spotify | Amazon
Links

Play In Round
Match 186
Alexander the Great Division​
Wind Rose - Together We Rise
vs.
Kamelot - Wander​
@LooseCannon
Nominators
Youtube | Spotify | Amazon
Links
 
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One I nominated is up in this one. Wind Rose isn't a particularly good band, another Italian power metal band with a silly hook (this time they're dwarves!), yet I find myself enjoying them. They have a little more of that Italian twang live, but I picked this song because it just feels massive. They build so well to a big chorus and it shows off all that's fun about cheesy power metal. It has a challenge against Kamelot, a band I like (at least this era this song is from). Still, I hope you consider it carefully.
 
I never been into Kamelot (idk why, Nightwish vibes), but this is one beautiful ballad. Thanks for the nomination, @JudasMyGuide .

I think this song is from their best album, right? Edit: just listened to the album, very good stuff.
 
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I never been into Kamelot (idk why, Nightwish vibes), but this is one beautiful ballad. Thanks for the nomination, @JudasMyGuide .

I think this song is from their best album, right?

I think so, either this one or the previous (Karma) - which me and my family (wifey plays Kamelot often to kids, since they really love the band) have been playing quite a lot recently. Epica (mostly) has the highest highs, Karma is possibly the more consistent one, anyway, either of these two. I started with this album, for what it's worth, and it made me a fan ever since.*

From the next album onwards, they switched their style quite a bit (despite the next album being the contination of the concept of this one); I actually like most of their discography very much (except the first two and now the latest album), but for the power metal beauty, these two are unsurpassable.

* my second Kamelot nomination in this cup is indeed from the other album, but that's somewhat influenced by the fact I wanted to nominate stuff from different albums - might as well picked Center of the Universe or Farewell instead, indeed.
 
After the previous track, I almost wrote Armored Saint off, but this is much better, indeed, this album - which I tried out after Knicks prompting - is quite cool from the very first track throughout. This song is also just as guitar heavy, maybe a bit monotonous as far as the chorus is concerned, being more of a "groove" track. A banger, not a bop, if you will.

I love Sabbath as much as everyone does - more, possibly, since I like them even before they became Rainbath, but the Born Again album is really uneven. The sound, the lackadaisical approach to songwriting and melodies... Trashed, the previous song we had from this album, was funny and somewhat catchy in the worst way imaginable, ZTH is much more "serious". The Butler-Iommi groove is actually great and the song is more crushing than anything tey've done since the Ozzy years. In fact, with this type of somewhat repetitive epic, it brings forth memories of Megalomania, being an attempt to revisit that same spring. Also has more variation throughout.

A close win for Black Sabbath.

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Man, with the next match, I really don't know. I'm far from being a thrash afficionado nowadays (ask me 10 years ago, bruv), so the comparisons and preferences somewhat resemble an invocation of past fancies.
So, there's one of the "lesser" bands, Demolition Hammer, doing actually great and hectic retro thrash ... and one of my overall favourite thrash bands, Kreator, knee-deep in their darkest era, with Mille turning into a goth bird all of a sudden and delivering what sounds like an ex-thrash band doing their version of the most mysterious song on the internet twenty years before it became an internet meme. I won't deny Endorama (and the album as a whole) has a quite unique atmosphere, but I'd leave the execution to other bands.

I'll be predictable and conservative and pick the old school Demolition Hammer.

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It is true that nowadays I tend to prefer listening to Cannibal Corpse than to Death (I've heard and loved a fair share of the latter, but there's probably a limit at how much Schuldiner you might enjoy in your life), but oversaturation and changing tastes aside, we are doing "greatest metal song cup" and Death would seem a much more competent competitor than the Man with a Can, Nibal Corpse. Hi, Nibal! (sorry, I stole that joke from Mark Prindle). Though... is it so?

I admit that the last Death album is maybe a bit overtuned in its complexity - there's this jagged, neurotic element to the songwriting that always made me feel like it was a bit of the letdown after the utter perfection of Symbolic. But I get why Kid picked it.

I feel like a stupid, vulgar plebe, but I'm grooving to the CC song much more. It has a fuller sound, it's much groovier and ... "fun" in a way. Here you go, from what used to be one of this forum's resident prog afficionados. Well, I guess

dent-you-either-die-a-hero-or-you-live-long-enough-to-see-yourself-become-the-villain.gif

I feel like a bully, a biker throwing some poor bespectacled laddy in the dustbin, but all my macho instincts tell me I should vote for Cannibal Corpse, sorry, Kid.

Also, since we're talking The Wretched Spawn, Frantic Disembowelment would be an even better pick, especially against Scavenger, being one of the most tech death songs by Corpse I remember off the top of my head.

-----

Fuck, what is this next match? Not only are these songs completely incomparable, genre-wise, but both are really, really good songs from two of my most favourite bands.

Crack the Skye
is a weird album. It is definitely the one to go to if you want to see Mastodon at their most proggy, it has a unique atmosphere and I usually see it being endorsed with that old "I don't care about Mastodon/metal in the slightest, but this album is actually great". On the other hand, the atmosphere is (at least subjectively) rather oppressive, foreboding and gloomy and with most of it being written (and sung by) Brent, it overdoes it in the psychedelic and neurotic angle a bit, giving it a possible quality of the embodiment of a bad trip. I have felt both of these approaches in the album at various times and I still waver in my relationship towards it. And I say that as someonw who actually nominated one of the songs in this cup. It's a complex affair is what I'm saying.
Divinations is one of the less "oppressive" tracks (for that, see Quintessence, for example) and although I always felt it was one of the "lesser" tracks on the album, it was this summer while on holiday in Znojmo when I realised I needed to hear it as I was making a trip to the market. It finally fully clicked and I had the song on repeat for two days at least. Its catchiness is of the subtler sort, in other words, and I mean both the chorus and the bridge. Also, the banjo in the intro is a cool touch - and a fitting one, as Brent's spidery guitarwork is obviously influenced by him beginning on that instrument at first.

Despite me discovering them in the height of my "prog" period (which never really left, to be honest, although it's nowadays sharing the spotlight with power metal as well), it was The Spirit Carries On that was the first song I loved, both off Scenes from a Memory and by DT in general. In fact, I think I remember playing it on air back when I was a rock radio DJ and didn't know or care much about Dream Theater yet. This gospellish, distinguished ballad, almost manipulative in its melodiousness and unabashed sentimentality, topped with one of Petrucci's most Olfieldesque solos (though I hear some Gilmour influence there as well) and... you know, the majestic rendition of the chorus in the end... it makes the song just as poignant outside the context of the album as within.

In fact it's the solo that does it for me - this is one of the solos I'm proud to know by memory in its entirety.

Fuck. Fuck it.

I can't.

DREAM THEATER.

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The two Holocaust songs are both fine, methinks, I'm not sure which I like better, so I'll vote for the one nominated by a member, instead of the one included because of some impersonal list - Heavy Metal Mania.

-----

There were two ballads I wanted to include in my nominations, one was Wander, the second - which I decided not to include, because of the limited number of possible nominations - was Strato's 4000 Rainy Nights. The former was also a song I included on a special request from my wife (though I wanted to nominate it anyway), since this was the first Kamelot song she loved... leading her into a band which she now often plays with our kids - who very much love both the Karma and Epica albums (clever lads). All the more surprising, since she usually doesn't like ballads very much.

My write-up is going to suck, because the particular charm of this song - which I also recognised immediately during the first listen - is rather undescribable. It has this je ne sais quoi that makes the chorus endearing and immensely emotional; the melody is instantly recognisable and memorable, yet not groundbreaking or anything (possibly since it mostly glides around the underlying chords, those being the somewhat rarer i-VI-iv-VII progression), Khan is still unsurpassed as a Kamelot vocalist, the solo is simplistic, but tugs at the right heartstrings, but I don't know what it is, really - the charm of the song is much greater than the sum of its parts and I don't know how to properly speak about it. Let's just say that it is a song that should have been cheesy, yet in the end is actually quite beautiful... and was my immediate go-to pick when I thought I would include any type of ballad.

Wind Rose are actually a very good band - and consistent! I'd recommend everyone to check out the Wintersaga and Stonehymn albums - and I don't say that just because I am partial to them because of a common Italian heritage. I admit that the vocals are not my favourite style in power metal - it's the "Sabaton" type, not the "Avantasia" type, is what I mean - and this song gets a bit monotonous, but it's a good one nonetheless. Doesn't bring me the emotional high its opponent does, but that was probably expected.

And I'd say by picking the ballad, I'm more respectful towards my heritage anyway.

Kamelot.
 
I like Warzone, but I'm a big Born Again fan and Zero the Hero is one of Sabbath's top tracks in my opinion.

Skull Fracturing Nightmare wasn't terrible, but Endorama really impressed me. I'm a Kreator noob but this is good stuff.

There's a handful of death metal bands that I like. Scavenger I would say is the best song from the entire subgenre. The Sound of Perseverance and Control Denied are where Chuck peaked, it's too bad it all ended so soon. Cannibal Corpse I hardly consider music.

Mastodon is one of the most overrated bands out there, I probably won't be voting for them many times in this game. The Spirit Carries On is a classic for a reason and one of the coolest live songs I've seen.

Both Holocaust songs are good, I'm voting for Death or Glory.

Wander is unfortunately one of those Kamelot songs that I don't like that much. Together We Rise is pretty stupid but way more fun.
 
Zero The Hero has a decent groove, but it’s literally one average proto-grunge riff on loop for over 7 minutes. The vocals are tuneless and sound like hair metal. It just doesn’t come together at all and is a far cry from what Black Sabbath should be. Warzone, on the other hand, has a killer riff, pummeling and consistent double bass, and a powerful groove. The song never lets up, Bush sounds great, and it’s just a hell of a good tune. Listen closely for the intricate interplay between the bass and the guitars - Joey Vera is an absolute master at following the kick drum patterns while also synching up with the riff tails. I adore the dynamics and synchronicity of Warzone. Most metal bands don’t pay this much attention to coordinating the rhythm patterns across all the instruments (including the vocals). Awesome duelling solos, too. Easy win for my nominee, of course, and Armored Saint!

Demolition Hammer is typical thrashy noise. There’s some cool riffs and instrumental sections during the non-blast/D beat sections. It’s decently proggy for what it is. Vocals are bad, surprise surprise. Endorama is instrumentally pedestrian, but catchier and more melodic so I’ll give this to Kreator.

Death sounds like someone taking a razor blade to a book about time signatures and cohesive transitions while shrieking into the wind. Cannibal Corpse sound like a bunch of cavemen tossing slabs of meat into a wall. Death, though utterly incoherent, at least has supremely difficult riffing.

Divinations, like most Mastodon, does absolutely nothing for me. There is not one single moment of the song that is memorable to me. The Spirit Carries On, though admittedly quite saccharine, is a beautiful ballad centrepiece to one of Dream Theater’s greatest works. It’s a catchy, gorgeous song with an amazing guitar solo and surprisingly emotive vocals from James LaBrie. The way it crescendos is so epic.

Never heard Holocaust before but this is good stuff! I gotta listen to this whole album. Both of these songs are some really solid NWOBHM. It’s a very easy choice for me, though, as Death or Glory is both more dynamic and not a heavy metal song about being a heavy metal song (god I hate that).

Wind Rose are good fun and have a cute gimmick. Together We Rise would be fun to jump along to at a gig, I imagine, as a band of dwarves urge you on. But it’s simply no match for an expert level Kamelot ballad with Roy Khan in his prime. Wander is a top tier lesson in emotion from start to finish. Just a gorgeous song.
 
Exactly, the type of death metal that I like is what elitists don't call death metal. Genres are weird sometimes.

Nah, don't worry, it takes a special breed of OG TR00 KVLTer to not consider (even latter-era) Death death metal - also because then you could throw out most of tech death, like Neuraxis or even Psycroptic, I guess.

There are such people, to be sure, but those are the same who say that early Opeth are not death metal and whatever else as well ... by which point I usually wonder if there's this Matryoshka succession of a Kvlt within a Kvlt, where, like, "Suffocation stopped being tr00 death metal after the first demo ... or after the first EP at the latest" and "Necrophagia were never death metal to begin with, it's just dirtier thrash. Well, same goes for Cannibal Corpse debut" and so on.

Although it's not to the degree of black metal fandom, at least as far as I've had the misfortune to encounter ("Mayhem only exist before Maniac left! Dead was already too mainstream!").
 
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Armored Saint. I almost fell asleep to Zero the Hero.

Demolition Hammer sounds like a mix of Slayer and Necroticism Carcass. Decent all in all. Endorama is more rocking. Like the vocal style. Going with Endorama - Slayer adjacent thrash isn't my thing.

Death kept dialing the complexity up and up and up, and then a little bit down, then up again and it exploded in their face. Okay my face. TSoP and its ridiculous bass interludes took it too far. At least we got The Fragile Art of Existence where the sound fit a lot more. Scavenger is the best song on TSoP as it retains more of the Death I love than the other tracks, but I just can't rate it highly. They Deserve to Die is brutal and headbanging and that's enough to win here.

Can't not want to try and replicate the screams on Divinations. Great song from Mastodon's finest album. The Spirit Carries Home is a prog metal anthem. I'm not fanboyish about it like some but it's still a win in every aspect. Clearly inspired by Brain Damage/Eclipse which is one of my favourite (pair of) songs too. Dream Theater

Both Holocaust songs are good. I'm voting for the one that didn't make me put away the headphones when it began.

Yay it's the Cheesevivor band! I'm grinning like an idiot listening to this. Thought it would be easier after getting a bit into power metal. Wander is simplistic and quite beautiful. Is it the better song? I don't know. I'll be honest, I kinda just feel bad about Cold Runs the River; I was convinced it's going to win. Listened to it like three times Thrice today and it slaps. Don't regret voting for Swano though. Anyway, what I'm get at is, I'm going to put Wind Rose on a trial by cheese as a counterweight to letting the previous round affecting my judgement.

It's time to Worship the Warship.
 
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