Favorite Metal album?

Yeah, I wanted to do the trilogy in one post, and then I will post on those releases in a bit. I still have yet to really sink my teeth into Elegy. I like Tuonela, but once I heard Joutsen, I fell for his vocals and Tuonela doesn't play as well for me now. That singer (on Tuonela) tends to ride a single syllable over 6-7 notes, and that gets annoying after a while. I DO like the record, but as I said to PN, it comes across as more folk rock to me (aside from the track Greed, obviously) so it sort of fell by the wayside as the other (superior) records grabbed my attention.

I don't have Elegy yet - I've just listened to some cuts here and there, and I don't feel that is a fair test of its quality.

Curious... what are your favorite sections from Eclipse? I really like the way the record flows up through The Smoke, but Same Flesh falls right on the floor for me, for some reason. *Shrugs*

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Well Perkele is a major highlight, I really like Same Flesh because I know the story and like the lyrics a lot and the solo, but there is one riff throughout the whole song so I understand why you wouldn't like it, Brother Moon is my other favorite song, I dunno I can play the whole album on guitar so yeah.

Finnish bands, actually I'll limit that down, good Finnish bands have a tenancy to have "repetitive" sections but a lot of the time I don't have a problem with it for some reason. I think it has to do with the atmosphere, and right now I'm thinking of Moonsorrow's V: Havitetty and Turisas' Varangian Way, the bands know when to keep a mood and when to progress it. Plus, their leads are unbelievably catchy in a way only Scandinavia can produce. I can provide many examples of this.

Yeah man, I hear you. I must thank you again for turning me on to what is fast becoming one of my favorite metal bands. I just can't get enough of these guys, and I am continually impressed with the material as I explore it more and more.

Perkele is SICK. The strength of this record is how it flows along so well, which you have commented on before. I have a feeling I will grow to like Eclipse just as much as SW...

I strongly recommend the other two albums I mentioned in that case. Moonsorrow sings in all Finnish but the first 5 minutes of the first song has a sample of glaciers moving. Turisas is more viking (which is odd for a Finnish band) but really epic in a smaller way than Moonsorrow. In my opinion there's not a whole lot of great bands from Finland so don't worry about endless recs. Though I can provide those given we go to Sweden and Norway...and Japan, and England, and France.

And Portugal

Excellent! I will check that stuff out!


Meanwhile, how catchy is the section in The Smoke:

"Cranes flew over to the north
As I walked on by (dry? I can't hear it well enough to make it out).
And passed through a grove
Yellow with flowers"

I can't get that out of my head!!

I saw a review that said "If you listen to Eclipse and don't come away with a chorus stuck in your head, you are one hard core mother****er."

Ha well yeah I agree. That's an interesting topic in of itself. What tool is catchiness implemented for in such an inaccessible genre? Thoughts?

Well, I tend to think it comes from the strong folk influence these guys have. I get the feeling they begin writing a lot of these tunes sitting around a fire playing acoustic. Are you asking if the catchy **** is calculated? I mean, beyond just the passion of writing the song?

As for being inaccessible, I think that is changing by the day, as more and more people give growls a chance. This is the perfect band to break misconceptions about metal with. I have already brought them out for two different people that said that "hated metal, because it's just anger and useless violence" or some other silly misconception. It's funny; when I play a few tracks and tell them, not only is this metal, it's considered Death Metal in many circles, people are just beside themselves because the tunes have such strong writing and catchy riffs/vocals.

"I had no idea"

...is the usual response.

Metal gets a bad rap, man!

No I don't think it's calculated. Being a composer myself I notice that both catchy parts and really, really bizarre time-fvcked parts come just through improv. It's like a solo over a riff that you find fits too well when you're playing, so that's where it comes from with me.

Yeah well here's my theory. Most people are dumb, don't try things out, eat the same food, etc. They don't really care about music if they don't try everything out. I find most people who hate metal have had friends who say "Dude check out this terrible band Cannibal Corpse look how gay metal is!" and then that's that. I've never met anyone who tried metal honestly and didn't get into it, but the fact is that most people don't take the time to understand the abrasiveness or anything like that. Same with when punk started. The other fact is that metal is the only genre progressing music today, and I can back that up if need be.

This reminds me of something else, people always say "that screamin crap", well what about "that singing crap"? There's two vocal styles, one has no key signature, one does, they're both rhythm instruments really, one fits when it fits, the other has been around forever and is being used in the same way over and over. American Idol shows how mundane singing can be. I don't have problems with singing in of itself, but it seems like a double standard to me.

Well, I tend to agree. I feel that singers are sort of an acquired taste. You either get into their particular style and approach or you don't. I think a lot of people tend to set up a weird standard according to their favorite singer at the time.

"Ok, I like Billy Joel, so Billy Joel is an example of the best singing can be, therefore, the further we get from Billy Joel, the worse the singing is."

Something I don't understand. It IS a double standard, but that's just because that's how people are trained.

That said, I can see why some folks would just always think growls are abrasive and harsh to their ear. I tend to think abrasive and harsh fits in the style and helps to augment it if used correctly.

This must be added:

Prefer Ghost Reveries personally, plus it's the album they were touring when saw them play.

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The top 3:

1. Screaming For Vengeance - Judas Priest


2. Piece Of Mind - Iron Maiden


3. Don't Break The Oath - Mercyful Fate


You can tell i prefer high-pitched singing to growling.

Preferences of vocal styles don't do much for me; as long as it fits, then there's no problem

Show 'em how to do it Bon!

Just noticed this thread now.

So, since I like posting fav. lists, I will post some of my favorite metal albums (I noticed that Death/Black metal is today probably more popular in the Northern Hemisphere than Classical/Speed metal, at least in the internet), all still restricted to the triad: Heavy/Power/Thrash. The most obvious classics are already well represented (Iron Maiden, Metallica, Black Sabbath), so I will include only albums that are not extremely famous:

House of Atreus (act 1) - Virgin Steele


House of Atreus (act 2) - Virgin Steele


They even managed to convince a German theater to play this 3 hour long metal opera for some time.

Also from 1999, another masterpiece from Iron Savior, one of the best Teutonic power metal bands ever (I like that they are way heavier than the usual power metal while preserving that cheesy epicness of power metal, the lyrics of this particular album are so cheesy that they could supply all the world with calcium):

Unification - Iron Savior


I would also include their first EP among my favorites EP's:



The band's leader is a great fan of science fiction literature so their lyrics are mostly about the theme of a giant sentient starship named Iron Savior. How geeky you can get?

And talking about Teutonic power metal, I would include Blind Guardian album among my top albums from the genre:

Somewhere Far Beyond - Blind Guardian


And finally, the grandfathers of Teutonic power metal, Helloween and their best album (in fact, my favorite music album of all time thanks to it's amazing combination of aggression and melody, it is actually a masterpiece of Speed Metal and not a properly Power metal album):

Walls of Jericho - Helloween


I also would add my favorite Black Sabbath, Tyr, their Viking Metal Album:

Tyr - Black Sabbath


And to finish with power metal (some albums by Black Sabbath can be regarded as power metal) I would add the cheesiest power metal of all time, Kamelot:



Judas Priest best album is perhaps their live album, Unleashed in the East:

Unleashed in the East - Judas Priest


In terms of thrash my favorite albums are from Slayer and Kreator:

Terrible Certainty - Kreator


Pleasure to Kill - Kreator


Show no Mercy - Slayer

that one didn't work, hopefully, this one does

Probably Highway To Hell (above). Stained Class by J.P, and The Killing Kind by Overkill would be my favs.

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“If the doors of perception were cleansed every thing would appear to man as it is, Infinite. For man has closed himself up, till he sees all things thro' narrow chinks of his cavern.” BLAKE.

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It might sound like a cliche, but I don't care. My favorite metal album has to be Master of Puppets by Metallica.

Oh yeah, Stained Class, truly a groundbreaking album, a masterpiece of heavy metal and one of Priest's top 5 best albums (the other 4 are Painkiller, Sad Wings of Destiny, Sin after Sin and Unleashed in the East). It was the heaviest album ever made in 1978. Specially if you listen to the songs played live with modern amp technology and production: