Metal Reviews

Topic says it all. What are your pics? (keep it within the genres please)

Underrated:

Iron Maiden - Dance of Death

This album for me is underrated because i think it's one of the best releases maiden has ever put out. Great professional and inspired songwriting with many 'interesting' and original songs. Everyone seems to have their own favorites. Mine include Rainmaker, Dance of Death, Age of Innocence, Face In the Sand and Journeyman.

Another one I feel is unfairly treated is Helloween's Rabbit Don't Come Easy which i just feel has got a lot going for it. A few fillers but not many, a great deal of superb tunes like Open Your Life, Sun For the World, Liar, Do You Feel Good, Hell was Made In Heaven and Back Against the Wall etc.

Overrated:

Gamma Ray - Majestic

Err well i just feel this one is uninspired and unoriginal. Weak songwriting in general with not much new ideas. Some songs are obvious rip-offs like Hell is thy Home, aswell as Revelation which has a trade-mark Rhapsody chorus. Also the title track reminds me of Powerslave by maiden a bit too much.

Underrated

Sinergy - To Hell And Back, people don't even rate this a sinergy's best (fuck knows why) never mind rating it as a great pwoer metal album!!

Altaria - The Fallen Empire, my favortie of 2006 but i hear no one talk about it. Maybe if more people heard it that would change, people, find it and listen to it!!

Under - anything by Hammers of Misfortune or Lord Weird Slough Feg

Over - Everything Else

srsly, they're just better than everyone else.

I dont think theyre underrated, theyre just not well known, but the majority of people who has heard them agree that they kick ass, specially Slough Feg.

I'd like to say SA's Reckoning Night is underrated, it doesn't get the praise it deserves.
Other under-or-over-rated albums... Don't really know.

Yeah, but that's kinda the same thing as underrated. I get what you're saying as they're getting high marks from those that know them. Perhaps "most unsung" would be a better description.



Shocking.

Are you friggin kidding me? One of my favorite Gamma Ray albums.

No i'm really not. I've tried to like it but I can't. I think it's pretty uninspired for the most part. Even Kai's singing as strange as that may sound, so it's really a down to the detail thing.

I loved almost everything about that album. I thought his voice was great too. Did you like any songs from it?

Overrated

Symphony X - V The new mythology suite

it's the most excessive snooze fest i've ever heard in a while.
Nothing touches the Devine Wings of Tragedy.

Underrated -

Savatage - Poets and Madmen
Pretty much tied as my favorite Savatage album with HoTMK, every song on this album is great and then they even have 3 tracks that go beyond great and are among the top 3 Savatage songs ever (Morphine Child, Commissar, and Back To A Reason). I notice with many reviews and people Ive known who like Savatage either they think its pretty good or very boring, while I see it as a future classic.

King Diamond - The Spider's Lullabye
I was told by many people not to buy this album, or at least save it for last. Well its my second KD album and I think its fantastic.

Overrated -

Iron Maiden - A Matter of Life And Death
Its decent, I own it and can enjoy it now and then, its definately a mood album. The production (no matter how intentional it was) is friggin terrible.

Dream Theater - Scenes From A Memory
Not saying its a bad album, but I really dont understand why this is looked at as one of the better albums from the band. I always thought Images & Words, Awake, Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, and Train of Thought were better. I would have said Octavarium was too, but that album has grown abit boring over the last 2 years.

+1

Yeah The Divine Wing Of Tragedy is absolutely their best, the title track alone is just one of their best songs ever, i also found V to be really boring, The Odyssey was great though.

I absolutely agree. I waited awhile to pick this up. I finally did about 3 months ago. I listened to it during a long road trip and I felt that it was very boring. It was nothing but re-hashed prog cliches the whole way through. Nothing new or ground-breaking. I was very disappointed because everything I read about this CD was great. So, yes..it's extremely OVERRATED!

Somebody take notes! somebody actually agrees with me About V - The new mythology suite !

Usually when I say it's overated I have an army of folks arguing with me. I found that album so boring I almost skipped on purchasing Devine Wings of tragedy thank god that I didn't cause that one was awesome. And while I'm on the subject DWOT is certainly underatted IMO.

Under-rated:

..I agree in regards to Iron Maiden's "Dance of Death". I thought it was the best CD that they've recorded since "Somewhere In Time". Scion you're one of the few people that feels the same as I do about the tracks "Face In The Sand", " Age of Innocence" and "The Journeyman". They're some of my favorite Maiden songs ever. Thumbs up to you on that one.

Over-rated:

Maiden's "A Matter Of Life and Death" ....I just can not, for life of me, get into the entire CD. I like a handful of songs from this one. The decision to not master the CD kills me. It sounds very weak. The long intros make me want to throw myself from a bridge and the length of most of most of the songs just puts me to sleep. I agree with Eyesore's assesment that the majority of the longer songs could have been cut in half and they would have stood as very strong songs in a condensed version.

The closing three song has got to be the best way to end an album Dream Theater has ever found, with the exception of Space Dye Vest, that is. One Last Time, The Spirit Carries On, and Finally Free. They're all incredibly awesome. I think this is Dream Theater's best album, I love the flow of it. Then again I have a weak spot for concept albums. At the same time I think all the songs are able to stand strong on their own, many of those would easily find their place into a best of Dream Theater, if I was ever to make one, that is.

Anyways, I also think this is LaBries best vocal performance, which helps to make it the most emotionally intense album they've ever done in my opinion.


As for my Under-rated:

Dissection - Reinkaos. I believe that this is an example of how the musical legacy of a band, and the expectation of their fans, have the power to make a solid album a true shitfest in the eyes of many. I firmly believe that if this wasn't a Dissection album many more would embrace it. Or maybe it's the opposite, if it wasn't a Dissection album I wouldn't like it as much? It's a complex equation
Either way, this should never be looked upon as a potential blackmetal record. I think that is where it fails too, as this is nothing blackmetal purists should listen to. And fuck those In Flames comparisons, surely there are some major melodic-death metal touches, but in some ways I think this is more of a traditional heavy metal album. Just listen to Black Dragon dammit!


Overrated:

Iron Maiden - Brave New World. This is held as a true classic and return to form by many, but I think this is no different than the last couple of albums in the way that it's repetitive to the point of no end. It's a good album with some really good songs, like the title track and The Thin Line Between Love And Hate, but then there's the awfully overrated Dream Of Mirrors and Blood Brothers. This is the album where I find Maiden to be at their most pretentious actually, not A Matter Of Life And Death.

Raven, glad that someone agree with me about Dance of Death, and especially about those three last songs! Some of maidens best for sure

As for V: The New Mythology Suite, I like it. I don't think it's the best but it's good. Egypt, Evolution and Communion are some of my favorite tunes ever from the band, and features some almost rediculously great guitar solos. It is a somewhat problematic album though, and I feel what the problem is with it is that it takes itself too seriously, it's just too 'grand' and has too much of those orchestral sections and "segues" or whatever they're called. Absence of Light and A Fool's Paradise are pretty uninteresting tunes aswell and kind of interrupts the pace and overall feel of the album. As for it being unoriginal i kind of disagree, i haven't ever heard an album quite like this one before. I do agree that it isn't anything groundbreaking though - maybe they add a few touches of their own, but basically it's the same old ingredients they work with. Nothing very wrong with that though I think.


Yeah I like "Fight" and "How Long" a lot, and "Revelation" is kind of enjoyable aswell. I also think "Condemned to Hell" and "Spiritual Dictator" are good tunes but they're nothing special in the least, any tune from No World Order are better than them. I used to like My Temple, the riffs are great, but I feel the song is really wonky now. Blood Religion which seems popular among fans is cool but i just can't like it for the imo messy lyrics and the awkward chorus.

Wholeheartedly agree, I think Scenes is one of their worst albums, it's beyond belief how pretentious it is. Does have an amazing song though, that one being "Home".

Underrated:

Disarmonia Mundi - Fragments of D-Generation

Far and away the best Gothenburg album of all time in my book. Never really cared for the Gothenburg sound in general until I heard this one, and ever since I heard it I've been on the lookout for bands even approaching its genius, but really with no results. Second only to Hibria as for the best album of 2004.

The Dogma - Black Roses

Truly an amazing debut. Don't let the fact that they're a power metal band from Italy fool you, these guys actually bring something new and fresh to the table. It's like a symphonic power metal sound not far removed from Rhapsody or Dark Moor, but with a good portion of goth intermixed, and also featuring surprisingly heavy and riff-based guitar work reminiscent of a band like Rage. The mix just works seemlessly and the songwriting in general is just top-notch. Album of the year 2006 in my book.

Sinner - There Will Be Execution

Underrated band in general. For those who don't know, this is the other band of Mat Sinner of Primal Fear fame, but Sinner have been around far longer than them, since the early 80's in fact. The music on this 2003 release can be described as a more "groovy" and classic sounding (less power metal) version of Primal Fear, with completely different vocals that sound nothing like Rob Halford (more along the lines of Rock 'n' Rolf or Lemmy). Mat Sinner does most of the songwriting in Primal Fear too, so it's no surprise that the band Sinner is of similar quality...what's truly surprising though is that they receive nowhere near the press Primal Fear gets.

Overrated:

Into Eternity - The Scattering of Ashes

Makes my head hurt. Power, Death and Progressive metal scattered (pun intended) around with little regard to making the sounds flow together, featuring awful high-pitched clean vocals that have no bottom end to them whatsoever. And what's up those emo parts that randomly pop up? They make no sense whatsoever and having them there certainly has to make plenty a metal fan shy away? This album also showcases a great example of bad Century Media production; entirely too polished and flat, no punch to it whatsoever.

Helloween - Keeper of the Seven Keys: The Legacy

I hate to crap on Helloween, because I love most everything they've ever put out. Both the Kiske era and the Deris era hold huge places in my heart. However, this album just strikes me as painfully generic and very derivative of younger bands that were inspired by earlier Helloween in the first place. Rabbit Don't Come Easy showed signs of this, but on here it's apparent nearly all the time. Plus, the album is just ridiculously long and with tracks such as Shade in the Shadow and Get It Up that are just plain unbearable in their lack of inspiration, this thing is quite a challenge to listen through in its entirety.

Agent Steel - Order of the Illuminati

Am I the only person on the planet who thinks this is such a significant step down from Omega Conspiracy? That album was seriously one of the top five best metal comebacks in history in my book, but on this album, the riffs just don't hit me nearly as hard and the production is far too heavy on the bass which detracts a lot from the enjoyability. Granted, there are plenty of albums that are more overrated than this one, but I decided to include it for sheer controversy, or at least because I've never seen anyone agree with me on this one.