This thread is a joke. Clearly none of you have music taste as good as mine. Music is clearly something that can be quantified and can thusly be ranked in complete objectivity and no bias.
Class has begun:
10. The Faceless - Akeldama
LET'S BEGIN with some Technical Death Metal. From the very beginning you get hit with
An Autopsy. A quick drum fill into a fast droning melodic riff where the drummer continues to showcase his talents all leading up to a full rest phrase ending with a hilarious little ting on the bell of a cymbal. The album continues in this tone allowing their bits and pieces to shine. Another track,
Leica, catches you with a killer hook and pounds its way through, later allowing the synth to alleviate the aggression with a melody of it's own leading into a soft guitar solo. Great moments and a great album.
9. Eluveitie - Slania
Eluveitie mixes Melodic Death Metal and good old fashioned Folk music to create this gem of an album. Great songs across the board, with highlights on the aggression of
Bloodstained Ground, the driving pulse of
Calling the Rain, the sharp accentuated contrast of Death Metal and Folk Music in
Slania's Song, and the droning beauty that is the folk instrumental
Anagantios. The album has a beautiful sorrowful pang in most of the songs despite being partially Death Metal, and is my favorite album to listen to when it's raining outside. I find it to be an extremely calming experience.
Seriously I recommend
Anagantios to EVERYONE. It's so peaceful.
8. Arsis - A Celebration of Guilt
Love is the inspiration for 80% of all music (give or take), be it happy love, or heartbreak. Adele came out singing of her hurt and pain from a break up and it pulled on the heartstrings of many.
This album is NOT about pulling the heartstrings. This album is about the pure and unadulterated rage that comes when the love of your life doesn't just break your heart, but pulls it out and smashes it.
This Technical Death Metal album starts aggressive, ends aggressive, and is aggressive through the middle bits too. The general musicality is fantastic, and all the riffs are amazing, but the true bonus that puts it on the top 10 is the lyrics, which effuse a feeling of complete bitter hatred toward a single event. Every song is a highlight, so I can't post all of them, but my favorite is
Dust and Guilt.
7. Amon Amarth - Twilight of the Thunder God
Melodic Death Metal about Vikings.
IT'S CATCHY. THERE IS NO OTHER REASON IT'S UP SO HIGH. ALL RIFFS ARE GREAT AND GET STUCK IN MY HEAD.
Tattered Banners and Bloody Flags
6. Tyr - By the Light of the Northern Star
Power Metal with folky melodies (no folk instrumentation though) about Vikings.
SEE ABOVE. EXCEPT ALONG WITH CATCHY RIFFS, ALSO CHORUSES.
By The Sword In My Hand
5. Ayreon - The Human Equation
Ayreon is a Progressive Metal band that doesn't just write concept albums, but concept discography. Every one of their albums is interrelated and tells a long and elaborate story. The kicker? Each album is basically an opera featuring various vocal talents from prog rock and metal sources.
This particular album is about a man (Played by Dream Theatre's James LaBrie) who finds himself in a coma after a car crash and his battle against and reliance on all of his emotions (Mikael Akerfeldt of Opeth as Fear, Devin Townsend of Strapping Young Lad as Anger, and various others) in order to try and find a reason to wake up on each day of his coma. Along the way you discover the reason he crashed was because he found out his Wife had cheated on him with his Best Friend, and he tried to kill himself. Basically it's a One Shot in Ayreon canon, but they still connect it at the end.
Fantastic vocal performances and interesting instrumentation that all tells a story makes a really outstanding listening experience. From the haunting
Day Three: Pain, to the lighthearted
Day Eleven: Love this album just creates a truly atmospheric story.
4. The Absence - Riders of the Plague
More Melodic Death Metal. The Absence has amazing driving riffs off of a guitar tone that I just can't get enough off. Their general musicianship is fantastic, and they know how to just step on the gas pedal and never really let you go.
Riders of the Plague starts off aggressive with it's title track and proceeds to catch you song by song with amazing hooks and powerful riffs and solos. Great tracks all around, but my favorites are
Dead and Gone,
The Murder, and
World Divides.
Also it's worth noting that I don't really think of them as Melodic Death Metal, but rather Beard Metal. I mean look at these guys:
Their beards are
not to be trifled with. (This is a good time to let it be known that perfect adjective for a great beard is "Frothy".)
3. Symphony X - The Odyssey
I told myself I could only have one album from each band, and picking my favorite album from this band was tough. This Progressive Metal band puts together an absolute clinic of how to play their instrument at every single spot. The whole band is fantastic but the true highlights are Russell Allen, whose powerful vocals can either beautifully serenade you, or knock you off your feet and Michael Romeo, who is a mind-numbingly technically skilled virtuoso at guitar (How can a man with such fat fingers move them so nimbly across the frets?).
Ultimately I had to pick one album though, so I picked The Odyssey. Overall it showcases the talents of the band rather well and has a general cohesion that some of their other albums don't. The album kicks off with a Michael Romeo clinic in
Inferno (Unleash the Fire), leading into Russell Allen's showcase in the highly syncopated and odd metric
Wicked. But the real reason this album was picked above the rest, was the title track. The 25 minute long epic,
The Odyssey, is a song I could listen to for the rest of my life without it ever boring me. Telling the story of the greek myth, Symphony X musically portrays all the trials and tribulations of Odysseus and his crew, from the Cyclops to the Sirens, capped off with a brilliant chorus about the "Triumphant Champion of Ithaca". Truly an amazing song, and a perfect way to end this album.
2. Iron Maiden - Powerslave
This pick was easy for me. Iron Maiden has massive sentimental value and this album in particular has even more. I was never really a big fan of music throughout my life, and while I listened to and enjoyed various things I never really had a large interest in it. However, when I first heard
Aces High, everything changed.
Aces High was the first metal song I ever listened to, the first song on the first album I ever bought, the first song I ever learned to play on guitar.
Two Minutes to Midnight is just classic, and
Rime of the Ancient Mariner is my favorite Iron Maiden epic of all. This album opened me up to the world of metal and it's various shades and hues, and I grabbed a hold and never let go. I've listened to the album in it's entirety literally hundreds of times and it's still great to this day.
It'd honestly be my number one album if it weren't for...
1. Ensiferum - Iron
I still remember the moment I first listened to this album. It was at about 2:00 in the morning and I was reading a book late at night when I decided to start listening to this new band I had heard called Ensiferum. They were a Folk Metal band from Finland who I had only heard of due to my interest in Amon Amarth at the time.
The intro started and it set the folk theme rather quickly and forged it's way straight into the title track
Iron. From the first few bars of that song, I knew instantly that I was going to love every single second of this album and that I would forever love this band. Their mix of almost heroic folk riffs and metal is amazing and the guitar solos of Jari Maenpaa are stunning.
Sword Chant,
Into Battle, and
Lai Lai Hei along with Iron would all be on my top 20 songs list (with songs from their other albums adding in to make up half of my top 20), making this pick for top album REALLY easy. Hell, they even end with a cover of Battery, which is my all time favorite Metallica song, so just a cherry on top really on an already perfect album.
So seriously, get educated on music guys. You can't argue about cold hard facts. Class dismissed.
