Your 5 favorite "Comeback" albums

[Dream Team]

"Comeback" can mean anything you want - back to an old sound, return of old singer, whatever.

1. Death Magnetic - needs no explanation
2. A Dramatic Turn of Events - a controversial choice maybe but for me it was the return to their classic sound after years of too many Portnoyisms
3. Brave New World - Bruce and Adrian are back and although there are still some unfortunate remnants of the 90s things are looking up
4. Blood of the Nations - the return of Accept firing on all cylinders
5. Queensryche (2013) -back to the classic sound after years of dicking around

[twosuitsluke]

In Flames latest because it’s actually listenable.

[Grappler]

1.  Iron Maiden - Brave New World.  Still my favorite of the reunion records and Bruce sounds so strong and amazing.  Every song is killer.

2.  Iced Earth - Dystopia.  Furious album following two dull concept albums about the Something Wicked story.  Matt Barlow's departure is softened by introducing Stu Block wailing away and singing his ass off.

3.  Savatage - Poets and Madmen.  I love Zak, but get bored with DWD and Wake of Magellan's plodding rock operas.  Poets features Jon Oliva returning to the main vocalist slot and some heavy, rocking songs. 

4.  Anthrax - We've Come For You All.   Monster album after the clunker that is Volume 8.

5.  Testament - The Gathering.  Low is a great record, Demonic starts strong but fades quickly.  The Gathering is full-on awesome from start to finish.  Amazing songs, amazing lineup with Digiorgio and Lombardo, and unrelenting heaviness. 

[soupytwist]

5 (That haven't been mentioned yet).

Permanent Vacation - Aerosmith.
Ariel - Kate Bush.
The Rising - Springsteen.
American Idiot - Green Day.
Trash - Alice Cooper.

[romdrums]

Genesis- A Trick of the Tail. Proves they're just fine without Peter Gabriel.

Marillion- Marbles. Anoraknophobia was a step in the right direction after their years in the wilderness between Afraid of Sunlight and marillion.com, but Marbles was a brilliant record all the way through.

Yes- 90125. No Steve Howe? No problem!

Porcupine Tree- Closure/Continuation. Brilliant summation of everything that is great about the band. The Incident was decent, but flawed.  C+C sees them return triumphant.

IQ- Ever. The band was in a weird way after replacement singer Paul Menel and original bassist Tim Esau left at the end of the 80s. Peter Nicholls comes back on vocals and they bring in John Jowitt on bass and craft a Neo-prog classic.

Honorable mentions:
DT- Distance Over Time
Frost*- Falling Satellites
Iron Maiden - Brave New World
Alice In Chains - Black Gives Way to Blue
Metallica - And Justice For All

[twosuitsluke]

Metallica - And Justice For All

I can only assume you mean comeback from the tragedy of losing Cliff. Otherwise you misunderstood the assignment.

[SoundscapeMN]

John Arch - A Twist of Fate
Kaddisfly - Horses Galloping on Sailboats
The Tea Party - The Ocean at the End
Gospel - The Loser
Hotel of the Laughing Tree - Faraway Friends

[lonestar]

Came in to specifically mention Ever by IQ as well...not that Are You Sitting Comfortably was bad, but the electro-pop prog turn the band took without Peter just was such a step down from The Wake, and to return with Ever, arguably their best album, was an absolute treat.


ADTOE totally belongs here, BC&SL is amazing, but to lose someone who is a founding member and a backbone for the band, to return with such an amazing album is definitely worthy of mention.


And it's not out yet, but definitely make room on this list for Tesseract's War of Being.

[romdrums]

Metallica - And Justice For All

I can only assume you mean comeback from the tragedy of losing Cliff. Otherwise you misunderstood the assignment.

That is what I meant, yes.

[Stadler]

Genesis- A Trick of the Tail. Proves they're just fine without Peter Gabriel.

Marillion- Marbles. Anoraknophobia was a step in the right direction after their years in the wilderness between Afraid of Sunlight and marillion.com, but Marbles was a brilliant record all the way through.

Yes- 90125. No Steve Howe? No problem!

You just swiped three of my five!   

I might put on:

Deep Purple - Burn
Deep Purple - Purpendicular
Scorpions - Lovedrive

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Hard to come up with good non-metal examples of this for some reason. 

Amorphis - Eclipse - after probably their weakest album, they come back with a new vocalist and the template for their new and enduring sound. 

Carcass - Surgical Steel - a decade and a half absence after a more controversial death 'n' roll experiment and they bring back a more fierce approach again. 

Celtic Frost - Monotheist - years of less than successful experimentation, and they return with a monster album, their best yet, and arguably final, depending up how you count Ain and separating Triptykon as its own band. 

Fear Factory - Mechanize - the return of their original guitarist/songwriter, plus Hoglan on drums produces magic. 

Soilwork - The Living Infinite - arguably their best album, and a double one at that, it ironically took purging both original iconic guitarists for a fresh restart to breathe new life into them. 

[TAC]

4. Blood of the Nations - the return of Accept firing on all cylinders

I like this pick. Kicked off a whole new era for the band.

4.  Anthrax - We've Come For You All.   Monster album after the clunker that is Volume 8. 

I don't know how I feel about this pick. I mean, it was also the nail in Anthrax's coffin at the same time. Hard for a band's last album to be a comeback, no? You may feel like it's a big improvement over Volume 8, but that's more a matter of taste.
I will say that it seemed like it took forever for it to come out.

Permanent Vacation - Aerosmith.

Trash - Alice Cooper.

Interesting picks. I know they each had hits on them but...why wouldn't you consider Done With Mirrors and Constrictor each's comeback albums?

[Dream Team]

Should have had A Different Kind of Truth in there somewhere but I guess it’s #6.

[HOF]

I’d put Vapor Trails on the list, sonic warts and all.

[King Postwhore]

Tim, Done With Mirrors sold 500,000.

Permanent Vacation sold 5 million. It also felt like they were more visible on MTV with PV.

[TAC]

Tim, Done With Mirrors sold 500,000.

Permanent Vacation sold 5 million. It also felt like they were more visible on MTV with PV.

No, I know. I understand the choice of Permanent Vacation.

[Dave_Manchester]

Not mentioned:

Say You Will by Fleetwood Mac
Chinese Democracy by Guns n Roses
Alleluiah Don't Bend Ascend by Godspeed You Black Emperor (comeback in that it came after a 10 year hiatus)

[HOF]

Oh, Journey’s Trial By Fire might be at the top of my list.

[T-ski]

Oh, Journey’s Trial By Fire might be at the top of my list.

Just about to post this, although there is a bit too much filler on it.

[ozzy554]

Some great choices on here. Some I'd like to add.

Deep Purple - Perfect Strangers. MKII Purple reunites and puts out one really good album before things started to fall apart again. I like House of Blue Light but you can just tell the infighting had restarted.

Lizzy Borden - Appointment with Death. Lizzy's second comeback album after the death of guitarist Alex Nelson in 2004. Great modern sounding production with some of my favorite songs from the band. Took WAY too long to follow up on and unfortunately that follow up was My Midnight Things. While I like some songs on there the production sounds like it's unfinished. Especially compared to AWD. The less said about his newest single Death of Me the better.

Diamond Head - Diamond Head. New vocalist Rasmus Bom Andersen was the shot in the arm the band really needed. Really solid album which lead to The Coffin Train which I really love.

Scorpions - Unbreakable. After spending most of the 90s experiment with their sound this one was a return to form. They've released mostly solid stuff since with my personal favorite being Humanity: Hour 1

Dio - Magica. While I like some of his 90s songs the albums were much more hit and miss. Magica felt like a big return. Killing the Dragon & Master of the moon are fun too. Especially Master which I feel is a bit underrated. Sadly we never got the Magica 2&3 that he wanted to do.

[HOF]

Oh, Journey’s Trial By Fire might be at the top of my list.

Just about to post this, although there is a bit too much filler on it.

It could have been trimmed a bit, but there only a couple tracks I don’t care for on it.

[Sacul]

David Bowie Blackstar
After many years of confusion and trying many different things, with varying degrees of success, he came roaring back, with a wonderful swan song of a record. So delicate, heartfelt, yet bold and experimental.

Mike Oldfield Return to Ommadawn
Another sort of swan song, since it seems Mike hasn't released anything since, and I don't feel he has to. Wasn't too big on most of his releases post-Amarok, but this one was so beautiful.

Porcupine Tree Closure / Continuation
I'm still not that big on The Incident apart from a few songs, so this was very pleasing. It's not among their very best albums, but it's way better than what I had expected.

Anathema We're Here Because We're Here
More of a comeback in the sense that they hadn't released an album in many years at that point, and it was a bit of a turning point for them in terms of style and sound. Wished they would come back, again now

Portishead Third
10 years after the release of their previous record, and this was a weeeeeird one, but so fucking good. So dark, and emotional, and experimental. Sadly it's been even longer since this album came out, and I crave for more.

[Grappler]

Hard to come up with good non-metal examples of this for some reason. 

Amorphis - Eclipse - after probably their weakest album, they come back with a new vocalist and the template for their new and enduring sound. 

Carcass - Surgical Steel - a decade and a half absence after a more controversial death 'n' roll experiment and they bring back a more fierce approach again. 

Fear Factory - Mechanize - the return of their original guitarist/songwriter, plus Hoglan on drums produces magic. 

Soilwork - The Living Infinite - arguably their best album, and a double one at that, it ironically took purging both original iconic guitarists for a fresh restart to breathe new life into them.

I'm not familiar with Celtic Frost, but these four are all great picks. 

4. Blood of the Nations - the return of Accept firing on all cylinders

I like this pick. Kicked off a whole new era for the band.

I like this one too.

4.  Anthrax - We've Come For You All.   Monster album after the clunker that is Volume 8. 

I don't know how I feel about this pick. I mean, it was also the nail in Anthrax's coffin at the same time. Hard for a band's last album to be a comeback, no? You may feel like it's a big improvement over Volume 8, but that's more a matter of taste.
I will say that it seemed like it took forever for it to come out.

I don't think the album was a nail in the coffin.  The band was kind of floundering after Volume 8, then WCFYA comes out - Safe Home was ALL OVER Chicago hard rock radio, they filmed a show at the Metro for the Music for Mass Destruction DVD and they were touring again as well. 

The nail was the band taking a tour offer from a promoter to play Among the Living in full with Joey in 2005 instead of capitalizing on any wave from WCFYA. That's what caused John Bush to leave, Joey didn't want to stay, and we then got to experience the Dan Nelson era - their debut show with him was at the Double Door in Chicago, which is a fraction the size of the Metro. 

[faizoff]

Machine Head - Through The Ashes of Empire

Excellent comeback from their weird wannabe hip hop limp bizkit korn phase.


Ugly Kid Joe - Uglier Than They Used Ta Be

First album after a long hiatus, they also had a rocking EP.  Doubt if anyone listens to them here.

[wolfking]

Machine Head - Through The Ashes of Empire

Excellent comeback from their weird wannabe hip hop limp bizkit korn phase.

I'd go one step further and list the Blackening.

Brave New World is an obvious one, even though I love the Blaze stuff.

Korn - The Nothing - After a few stinkers, they come back with something that could fit in around the Issues/Untouchable era.  Great stuff.

Halford - Resurrection - Priest were doing something different, Fight was decent without being spectacular and Rob couldn't really find his groove after testing the waters after Priest.  He came back with this blinding metal album and still one that sits in a regular rotation after all these years.

Evergrey - Hymns For the Broken.  After a couple of just solid albums, this album is top 3 Evergrey and sees the return of Henrik and Jonas which got things going again.

Children of Bodom - Hexed.  While I enjoyed I Worship Chaos, Hexed seemed the closest return to some older COB feels that we got.  Good stuff.

Edguy - Space Police.  The two before it were pretty average but this was a pleasant surprise, great album.

[twosuitsluke]

I was gonna post The Blackening by Machine Head. Through the Ashes is not a bad album by any stretch, but The Blackening was a comeback in terms of making them a huge metal band again. I’ve often said, and still stand by it, that The Blackening was the best metal album of the 00s.

@Kade, I don’t agree with Children of Bodom though. For me they never got back to where they were with Are You Dead Yet? and all the albums that came before it. Every album after AYDY? felt like a shadow of the band they were.

[Kwyjibo]

Ugly Kid Joe - Uglier Than They Used Ta Be

First album after a long hiatus, they also had a rocking EP.  Doubt if anyone listens to them here.

I listen to them. America's Least Wanted and Menace To Sobriety are stellar records.

Their new records are solid but I was hoping for something more.

[Trav86]

Dream Theater - Scenes from a Memory AND Distance Over Time
Metallica - Death Magnetic
Iron Maiden - Brave New World
Van Halen - A Different Kind of Truth
Rush - Vapor Trails

[wolfking]

I was gonna post The Blackening by Machine Head. Through the Ashes is not a bad album by any stretch, but The Blackening was a comeback in terms of making them a huge metal band again. I’ve often said, and still stand by it, that The Blackening was the best metal album of the 00s.

@Kade, I don’t agree with Children of Bodom though. For me they never got back to where they were with Are You Dead Yet? and all the albums that came before it. Every album after AYDY? felt like a shadow of the band they were.

Discovering metal, I really liked the first two albums.  As I discovered more metal, I didn't keep track but what I'd heard wasn't great.  The Blackening revived the band for me and made me stand up again and take notice of them.

I think with COB that's fair Luke.  I think I more meant it's just a step back in the older direction.  It's not quite up there with AYDY but a step back that way.

[WardySI]

IRON MAIDEN Brave New World
Always the first that comes to mind even though I also dug those Blaze fronted albums.

BLAZE Silicon Messiah
Maybe a weird choice but always took this as a comeback of sorts for Blaze after his outing from Maiden.  When most expected to see Blaze run with his tail between his legs, instead he came back with an album almost every bit as good as Maiden's BNW.  Complete respect \m/

BLACK SABBATH Heaven And Hell
After couple less than form releases then Ozzy's departure, all ears were wide open for this one and the rest is history

THE CULT Beyond Good And Evil
This one deserved way more IMO an excellent collection of hard rocking songs ballad perfection and that huge Bob Rock sound.  Still love this one very much, a Top3 Cult for this fan \m/

TOOL Fear Inoculum
Not really sure what else to say about this one that hasn't been said online over and over.  Excellent comeback record.


Honorable mentions...

EXTREME Six
Yes the new one.  Great stuff
 
MR BIG What If
Probably my favourite Mr Big.  Everything we loved was back and more.  Some of the best songs of their catalogue IMO and the perfect comeback!

SOUNDGARDEN King Animal
Sure it wasn't Soundgarden's best record but it fits the bill to perfection.  Bought this one several times in different formats, lovely stuff and hope we finally get to hear those unreleased demos etc sometime soon.

SPREAD EAGLE -Subway To The Stars
Thought this was a very tasteful nod and update on their 90's records.  Perhaps lacking some bite but still big on song and performances.

KINGDOM COME -In Ya Face
After the shellacking they got for their debut I think most expected or maybe hoped to see them disappear but their appropriately titled sophomore was a hell of a middle finger to the haters.  Packed with superb songs and high on energy, In Ya Face remains a fave of the Hairmetal era.

[WilliamMunny]

Oh, Journey’s Trial By Fire might be at the top of my list.

Was the first one that I thought of

[Zydar]

Kiss - Revenge

After a few lackluster "poppy" albums in the second half of the 80s they returned to a harder sound and a more focused album with Revenge in 1992.

I guess that can be said about Creatures Of The night in 1982 too, but I actually like the albums before it (Dynasty, Unmasked, and The Elder).

[faizoff]

I was gonna post The Blackening by Machine Head. Through the Ashes is not a bad album by any stretch, but The Blackening was a comeback in terms of making them a huge metal band again. I’ve often said, and still stand by it, that The Blackening was the best metal album of the 00s.

Discovering metal, I really liked the first two albums.  As I discovered more metal, I didn't keep track but what I'd heard wasn't great.  The Blackening revived the band for me and made me stand up again and take notice of them.

Yeah the one-two punch of Empire and Blackening is a stellar comeback to form for them. Though I haven't kept up with MH lately so not sure how they're fairing at the moment. Didn't even hear two or even 3 albums I think. Locust was when I last paid attention.

[twosuitsluke]

I was gonna post The Blackening by Machine Head. Through the Ashes is not a bad album by any stretch, but The Blackening was a comeback in terms of making them a huge metal band again. I’ve often said, and still stand by it, that The Blackening was the best metal album of the 00s.

Discovering metal, I really liked the first two albums.  As I discovered more metal, I didn't keep track but what I'd heard wasn't great.  The Blackening revived the band for me and made me stand up again and take notice of them.

Yeah the one-two punch of Empire and Blackening is a stellar comeback to form for them. Though I haven't kept up with MH lately so not sure how they're fairing at the moment. Didn't even hear two or even 3 albums I think. Locust was when I last paid attention.

Locust is great, it just had a tough job on it’s hands following up The Blackening. Bloodstone and Diamonds was a bit of a mixed bag, but when it was good (Now We Die, Game Over) it was incredible. Catharsis I would personally say skip, it was pretty bad. Of Kingdom and Crown in many ways feels like The Blackening 2. Not as good but still pretty damn good.

[Grappler]

Halford - Resurrection - Priest were doing something different, Fight was decent without being spectacular and Rob couldn't really find his groove after testing the waters after Priest.  He came back with this blinding metal album and still one that sits in a regular rotation after all these years.

I don't know how I forgot this one!      This is by far the biggest comeback record, especially after 2wo bombed and Rob came back to metal.  The opening title track is amazing, musically and lyrically - the Metal God being resurrected.