Best back to back albums

[nick_z]

Marillion was mentioned, but mine would be Misplaced Childhood/Clutching at Straws

Yep, that was my runner-up back to back 

[TAC]

Marillion was mentioned, but mine would be Misplaced Childhood/Clutching at Straws

The only Marillion album I like is Script For A Jester's Tear..

AC/DC

Back in Black
For Those About to Rock

If we’re talking AC/DC, Let There Be Rock/Powerage would be my sublime 1-2 punch. 

Let There Be Rock is my favorite AC/DC album, so I would be on board with this.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

I consider Enemies a bit lower in this run (even with the remix). But, yes, as you said it's a pretty impressive run of albums.

My only issue with it is that it's so short compared to their others.  Song for song it matches them for me. 

Still have to give All Ends a proper shot (I don't think their debut is available on streaming platforms)

Yeah, it's not.  All the songs are on Youtube, but you might have to hunt for them individually, and some of the best songs are bonus tracks that are annoyingly hard to find for some reason.  If you're really interested I can send you links or even MP3s. 

[TAC]

Helloween-Keepers Pts 1 & 2
Accept-Balls To The Wall & Metal Heart
Armored Saint-Raising Fear & Symbol Of Salvation
Flotsam & Jetsam-No Place For Disgrace & When The Storm Comes Down
UFO-Force It & No Heavy Petting
Thin Lizzy-Renegade & Thunder And Lightning
Black Sabbath-Sabbath Bloody Sabbath & Sabotage

Dream Theater - "Images and Words" and "Awake"
Rush - "Permanent Waves" and "Moving Pictures"
Iron Maiden - "The Number of the Beast" and "Piece of Mind"
Fates Warning - "Parallels" and "Inside Out"
Ozzy Osbourne - "Blizzard of Ozz" and "Diary of a Madman"

Excellent picks.

[jammindude]

Oooooooo Fates Warning!!

Awaken the Guardian/No Exit AND APSOG/Disconnected

Steven Wilson - Raven/HCE

[King Postwhore]

Tim love your Black Sabbath picks.

[nick_z]

Helloween-Keepers Pts 1 & 2
Accept-Balls To The Wall & Metal Heart
Armored Saint-Raising Fear & Symbol Of Salvation
Flotsam & Jetsam-No Place For Disgrace & When The Storm Comes Down
UFO-Force It & No Heavy Petting
Thin Lizzy-Renegade & Thunder And Lightning
Black Sabbath-Sabbath Bloody Sabbath & Sabotage

No Restless and Wild for Accept, huh? It's my favorite album of theirs. And more recently I rediscovered how great Breaker is...maybe not quite as "developed" as other, later records, but I love it. So much so that I could go for Breaker & Restless and Wild.

As for Sabbath - my favorite is probably Paranoid, but SBS & Sabotage is a good pick as a back-to-back.

Flotsam & Jetsam - I don't have a super-deep knowledge of their discography, but no debut? I thought that's widely considered a classic?

[TAC]

No Restless and Wild for Accept, huh? It's my favorite album of theirs. And more recently I rediscovered how great Breaker is...maybe not quite as "developed" as other, later records, but I love it. So much so that I could go for Breaker & Restless and Wild.

Breaker is sneaky excellent. Any Accept pairing will have Metal Heart. It's not only my favorite album of theirs, but it's one of my all time favorite albums by anyone. So it comes down to Balls and Russian Roulette. I love both of them, but Balls wins by a hair. Er.. 

Flotsam & Jetsam - I don't have a super-deep knowledge of their discography, but no debut? I thought that's widely considered a classic?

I freaking love Flotsam & Jetsam, and those 2 are easily my two favorite albums by them. I'd probably rank the debut right behind them. It's a great album, but maybe a tad overrated by the Jason Newsted factor.

[nick_z]

U2 had a great 3 album run there.

For U2, I'd go with The Joshua Tree and Achtung Baby (not considering Rattle and Hum an album proper) but yeah, that's a good run for sure...

[TAC]

U2 had a great 3 album run there.

Wrong thread fool.

[King Postwhore]

U2 had a great 3 album run there.

Wrong thread fool.

Metalhead concussion.

[twosuitsluke]

We’d be remiss not to add The Dear Hunter - Act IV -> Act V

[King Postwhore]

We’d be remiss not to add The Dear Hunter - Act IV -> Act V

Excellent call

[Crow]

literally cannot answer anything other than Pain of Salvation - The Perfect Element I/Remedy Lane 'cause those are both nigh-flawless albums i love dearly to this day 

[pg1067]

I'm sure most of these have been mentioned already:

Black Sabbath - Heaven and hell and Mob Rules

Def Leppard - High 'n' Dry and Pyromania

Dio - Holy Diver and Last in Line

Dream Theater - I&W and Awake and SFAM and SDOIT

Fates Warning - Pick any two of Perfect Symmetry, Parallels, Inside Out and A Pleasant Shade of Gray

Helloween - Keeper 1 & 2

Iron Maiden - Any two of The Number of the Beast, Piece of Mind and Powerslave

Journey - Escape and Frontiers

Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance and Defenders of the Faith

Kansas - Leftoverture and Point of Know Return

Metallica - Ride the Lightning and Master of Puppets

Ozzy - Blizzard and Diary

Pat Benatar - Crimes of Passion and Precious Time

Queensryche - Any two of The Warning, Rage for Order and Operation: Mindcrime

Rainbow - Rising and Long Live Rock 'n' Roll

Rush - Any two from 2112 through Signals

Scorpions - Taken by Force and Lovedrive or Blackout and Love at First Sting

Styx - The Grand Illusion and Pieces of Eight

Triumph - Any two of Allied Forces, Never Surrender and Thunder Seven

Yes - Any two from The Yes Album through Going for the One

[TAC]

Black Sabbath - Heaven and hell and Mob Rules

Dio - Holy Diver and Last in Line

Judas Priest - Screaming for Vengeance and Defenders of the Faith

Pat Benatar - Crimes of Passion and Precious Time

Scorpions - Taken by Force and Lovedrive or Blackout and Love at First Sting

I considered both Black Sabbath and Judas Priest.

I forgot to list Dio. I meant to.

Good call on Pat Benatar, but my pairing definitely included In The Heat Of The Night.


Excellent choices for the Scorps!

[wolfking]

One popped to mind was WASP - Headless Children and Crimson Idol.

[wolfking]

Iced Earth - Something Wicked/Horror Show
Children of Bodom - Hatebreeder/Follow the Reaper
In Flames - Jester Race/Whoracle or Colony/Clayman

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Iced Earth - Something Wicked/Horror Show
In Flames - Jester Race/Whoracle or Colony/Clayman

There we go. 

[twosuitsluke]

Children of Bodom - Hatebreeder/Follow the Reaper
In Flames - Colony/Clayman

Just came here to post the two Bodom albums. Couldn’t agree more about the second two In Flames as well. Honesty though, Hatebreeder/Follow the Reaper are two of my top 25 all time metal records, and there isn’t a bad song on either album.

[pg1067]

I considered both Black Sabbath and Judas Priest.

I forgot to list Dio. I meant to.

Good call on Pat Benatar, but my pairing definitely included In The Heat Of The Night.

Excellent choices for the Scorps!

The problem with In the Heat of the Night is that it was mostly an album of cover songs (6 of the 10 songs).  If not for Animal Magnetism (which I think has a few big duds), Scorps had a run from TBF through Sting that was incredible.

[wolfking]

Children of Bodom - Hatebreeder/Follow the Reaper
In Flames - Colony/Clayman

Just came here to post the two Bodom albums. Couldn’t agree more about the second two In Flames as well. Honesty though, Hatebreeder/Follow the Reaper are two of my top 25 all time metal records, and there isn’t a bad song on either album.

I was really surprised COB hadn't been posted yet.

[TAC]

Alice Cooper- Killer & School's Out

2 of the best albums these ears have ever heard.

[nick_z]

Children of Bodom - Hatebreeder/Follow the Reaper
In Flames - Colony/Clayman

Just came here to post the two Bodom albums. Couldn’t agree more about the second two In Flames as well. Honesty though, Hatebreeder/Follow the Reaper are two of my top 25 all time metal records, and there isn’t a bad song on either album.

In Flames is The Jester Race and Whoracle for me (Colony and Clayman is a great back-to-back too, just not as iconic as the previous one for me).

As for CoB - not a huge fan, but my go-to is the one-two punch of Something Wild/Hatebreeder

[wolfking]

Children of Bodom - Hatebreeder/Follow the Reaper
In Flames - Colony/Clayman

Just came here to post the two Bodom albums. Couldn’t agree more about the second two In Flames as well. Honesty though, Hatebreeder/Follow the Reaper are two of my top 25 all time metal records, and there isn’t a bad song on either album.

In Flames is The Jester Race and Whoracle for me (Colony and Clayman is a great back-to-back too, just not as iconic as the previous one for me).

As for CoB - not a huge fan, but my go-to is the one-two punch of Something Wild/Hatebreeder

Something Wild is an amazing debut but never took to it like the four albums that came after it.

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Follow the Reaper and Hate Crew Deathroll are a good one-two punch.  They were important early on to me, but just didn't have the staying power that a lot of other bands did.  Something about Alexi's voice bugged me, even more than Anders Friden. 

[jammindude]

How are we on page 2 and no one has mentioned Death?

What’s more…what 2 albums do you pick? I was surprised to learn that Spiritual Healing is considered by most to be a low point because that’s one of favorites. But even so, the top 2 would probably have to be Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic. But you could almost take anything between Leprosy and The Sound of Perseverance and you wouldn’t get an argument from me. (Scream Bloody Gore is OK, but seems a little immature in retrospect. Like a bunch of 18 years olds putting “18 tons of greasy, grimy, gopher guts” to music.)

[LithoJazzoSphere]

Death is a good choice.  Years ago I would have said Symbolic and TSoP, but Human has grown a lot over the years.  It's not consecutive with either of those though. 

[nick_z]

 I heartily support the Individual Thought Patterns and Symbolic combo

My two favorite Death albums, so that’s easy

[WilliamMunny]

Iced Earth - Something Wicked/Horror Show
Children of Bodom - Hatebreeder/Follow the Reaper
In Flames - Jester Race/Whoracle or Colony/Clayman

Man, that's a incredibly solid tow-hour stretch of Iced Earth

[WilliamMunny]

Journey – Escape
Journey – Frontiers

That's up there for me...especially with Escape being a top-5 album for me.

[Stadler]

There are some albums that, for whatever reason, I think of as "pairs" even though they were released separately. 

Blizzard/Diary
Back In Black/FTATR
Heaven And Hell/Mob Rules
Misplaced Childhood/Clutching At Straws
Black Sabbath/Paranoid
Images And Words/Awake
Going For The One/Tormato
Duke/Abacab
A Trick Of The Tail/Wind And Withering


They are all good; I'm not sure I could pick "one" as the best.  Maybe Ozzy. 

[billboy73]

Lots of great ones mentioned already.  Here are a few others that came to me:

Between the Buried and Me, Colors - The Great Misdirect
Hypocrisy, Abducted - The Final Chapter
Intronaut, Prehistoricisms - Valley Of Smoke
Mastodon, Blood Mountain - Crack the Skye
Sepultura, Beneath The Remains - Arise
Smashing Pumpkins, Siamese Dream - Mellon Collie
NIN, Downward Spiral - The Fragile
Live, Throwing Copper - Secret Samadhi
The Jayhawks, Hollywood Town Hall - Tomorrow the Green Grass

[pg1067]

There are some albums that, for whatever reason, I think of as "pairs" even though they were released separately. 

Blizzard/Diary
Back In Black/FTATR
Heaven And Hell/Mob Rules
Misplaced Childhood/Clutching At Straws
Black Sabbath/Paranoid
Images And Words/Awake
Going For The One/Tormato
Duke/Abacab
A Trick Of The Tail/Wind And Withering

Except for the one on your list that I don't know, I agree.  I'd add the two Maiden albums with Di'Anno, The Number of the Beast/Piece of Mind, and Screaming for Vengeance/Defenders of the Faith to the list as well.

[Stadler]

There are some albums that, for whatever reason, I think of as "pairs" even though they were released separately. 

Blizzard/Diary
Back In Black/FTATR
Heaven And Hell/Mob Rules
Misplaced Childhood/Clutching At Straws
Black Sabbath/Paranoid
Images And Words/Awake
Going For The One/Tormato
Duke/Abacab
A Trick Of The Tail/Wind And Withering

Except for the one on your list that I don't know, I agree.  I'd add the two Maiden albums with Di'Anno, The Number of the Beast/Piece of Mind, and Screaming for Vengeance/Defenders of the Faith to the list as well.

YES!!! Three good calls, there. 

And there are plenty more:
Rising/Long Live Rock and Roll
Straight Between The Eyes/Bent Out Of Shape
Burn/Stormbringer
Rubber Soul/Revolver
Nothing Shicking/Ritual de lo Habitual
Toys In The Attic/Rocks
Creatures Of The Night/Lick It Up