52. Symphony X – V: The New Mythology Suite (2000)For long I was more than satisfied with Symphony X’s ‘Paradise Lost’. I also had ‘The Odyssey’, but that one contained a couple of filler tracks and ‘The Divine Wings of Tragedy’ always left me wanting more due to the album’s relative bad production. I never checked out the band’s first two albums for a long time and for some reason I never got ‘V’ either. That turned out to be a mistake, because from the moment I finally got this album I realised that it would become my favourite Symphony X record. It's got everything I enjoyed from their previous material, but with the reltive heaviness of 'Paradise Lost', without becoming too metal. Symphony X have now lost their way to some extent (I am not a fan of their latest two albums, especially 'Iconoclast' was a huge disappointment). I think this is some sort of concept album, at least in the story on the album. There's not really any recurring themes or such, but there's a couple of filler interlude-tracks. The proper music tracks are all golden though and I'd say this album is a must for any progressive metal fan.
Recommended tracks: Communion and the Oracle, Evolution (The Grand Design), A Fool's Paradise51. Seventh Wonder – Mercy Falls (2008)After I saw Seventh Wonder live at ProgPower Europe 2011, I slowly started to discover their back catalogue. Although the band had just released ‘The Great Escape’ a year before, they played a lot of songs from their 2008 album ‘Mercy Falls’. It was through this album mainly that I discovered the band. ‘Mercy Falls’ is a concept album that tells a story of a comatose man who visits the fictional town Mercy Falls in his comatose state. Part of the album is also set in the real world, beside his hospital bed. The two stories intertwine at the end, when the reason he is actually in a coma is explained. The story is actually a little weird, and the album contains some (very bad) spoken word dialogue in some tracks, but overall the song-writing on this album is ridiculously strong. What I like about this album and about this band is that they write these wacky riffs and has the singer sing almost polymetrically over the backing. That last sentence only makes sense when you losten to the album, I guess. This is just a very strong progressive metal album that I have listened to countless times. I had to include it here.
Recommended songs: Unbreakable, Hide and Seek, A Day Away---
And that concludes the 10 albums on the edge of the top 50. The general trend with the above 10 was that they're either albums that shaped my music tastes in some way, or albums that are very good, but failed to stay with me over time. I wanted to include them for how good they are, and that's why I did,mbut now it's time to start with the real top 50.