26. Circus Maximus – The 1st Chapter (2005)It took a while for me to get into this album. My introduction to CM was Isolate and well, more on that later. People rag on CM for being Dream Theater clones, and they are heavily influenced, but I wouldn’t call them clones. DT aren’t the only ones allowed to make catchy prog metal. The album starts with Sin, a heavy as fuck metal tune about that darn devil taking a poor fellows’ soul. Singer Michael Eriksen shows you what he’ll be doing for the rest of the album, putting every other metal vocalist to shame. Caught In A Web, um I mean Alive… But seriously, the intro keys barely sound like CIAW so that’s a huge stretch. Anyway, Alive is more of a love song about rainbows and shit. Totally gay am I right? No, I’m wrong. Shut up. Glory Of The Empire, a song about Gladiator is a 10 minute mini epic full of catchy melodies. The Dance of… Biosfear is a crazy instrumental with some killer shredding going on. Really cool stuff. Why Am I Here is another heavy as fuck song, The Prophecy is more prog, and the 19 minute title track is a big Symphony X rip off. Ok ok, it’s not. Some of the keys are. Does this bother me? Nope. Circus Maximus mixes styles from DT, Queensryche and Symphony X to make one hell of a good prog metal album and The 1st Chapter is an exceptional debut from the guys. Oh, I almost forgot Imperial Destruction, the last song. It’s cool too.
Recommended tracks: Sin, Alive, Biosfear, Glory Of The Empire, Why Am I Here
25. Iron Maiden – Somewhere In Time (1986)This is the first Maiden album I fell in love with. It’s heavy, fast paced, gallopy, melodic, heavy, intense, metal and heavy. It’s even heavy. Powerslave was decent but had a few too many songs I didn’t care for, so it was nice that they came back with a better album. Sorry Mr. Nosehair. The addition of synth doesn’t bother me as it gives the usual Maiden a different sound. Caught Somewhere In Time starts off slow, but then catches you off guard with their trademark galloping that Mr. Pears likes so much. The chorus may not be on the original side, but it’s still catchy and singalongable. New word right thurr. I love the riff in Wasted Years. One of the first things that wowed me when discovering Maiden. Great song. More brutalness in Sea Of Madness. This is a serious headbanger. Heaven Can Wait is alright. I never had a problem with it. That middle section with the “oh Oh Ohhs” is pretty epic. Loneliness Of The Longest Song Title Ever is my least favorite on the album, but it’s still good song. If you sped it up, there would be serious blast beats going on. Stranger In A Strange Land is a great rocker, I love Déjà vu, and Alexander The Great is awesome. I love the instrumental section here. All in All, this is my favorite Iron Maiden album, and I’m glad Steve Harris rejected Bruce’s ballads he was pushing cause then we wouldn’t get this great album the way it is.
Recommended tracks: Caught Somewhere In Time, Wasted Years, Sea Of Madness, Déjà vu, Alexander The Great… Whoa, I typed in Déjà vu, and it put those little dash things there for me… Moving on.
24. Into Eternity – The Scattering of Ashes (2006)The real life KrotchRaut. Or what KrotchRaut should sound like if we were any good. But seriously, I discovered Into Eternity in 2008, but thought they sounded like shit. It wasn’t until Stu Block joined Iced Earth that I decided to check them out again, and when someone posted the video to Timeless Winter, I honestly didn’t know what to think. I liked it, but yet it had those awful death growls and stuff. But they weren’t awful! They sounded good. So did the black metal vocals! There was finally a band out there that did growls that I actually like. I didn’t think it was possible. I mean, after KrotchRaut, I learned to tolerate growls more, but still thought they sounded like shit. Into Eternity just does it right. Maybe because of the use of melody, or the music, but they do it right. Stu handles the majority of vocals on this album and holy shit does he have range, being able to switch from clean singing into growls into shrieks flawlessly. Stu’s highs are insane and supposedly he’s self trained so that just makes him more badass. The production on this album is a bit on the shitty side, but Stu told me the band likes the way it sounds so I guess we’ll never get a remix, but oh well. The songs are still great, and metal as fuck.
Recommended tracks: Timeless Winter, Out, Surrounded By Night, Pain Through Breathing
HMs:
Evanescence - Fallen (2003)As I said earlier, Fallen isn't very creative guitar-wise. The riffs are all very similar, but still a great album. Amy lee sounds amazing, and the songs rock.
Queensryche - Empire (1990)This was in my top 50, but I took it off at the last minute. Plenty of great songs, but some aren't up to par. Silent Lucidity is far from overrated.
Into Eternity - Buried In Oblivion (2004)This was my favorite from IE, but there are a few songs where the melodies kind of annoy me now. After listening to TSOA again, it became my favorite. Stu sounds better, and there are better melodies overall. BiO is still badass. 3 Dimensional Aperture is my favorite song on the album.