Listen to both albums in their entirety then choose which you like better, preferably with a review for each. And you should definitely listen to them starting at the beginning, if you'll excuse the music snobbery haha.

You're cool man, you answered me rather normally and straightforwardly.

One thing about Metal Wars is that at the very beginning it featured battles by bands that pretty much everyone already knew (Iron Maiden vs. Saxon, Possessed vs. Sepultura, Strapping Young Lad vs. Fear Factory) so people could go on at length right off the bat. It got everyone into the swing of things without too much teeth pulling. After a while the bands got more and more obscure, which was cool, since everybody was already in the habit of posting here, but eventually I guess fatigue set in and people's enthusiasm naturally started to wane so it started to slow down. Then, as is natural, old members dropped off the forum, but the battles tended to be so obscure that I'm sure a lot of newbs had no particular desire to take that much time to listen to *random album A they'd never heard of* by *random band X they'd never heard of* and then go and listen to *random album B they'd never heard of* by *random band Y they'd never heard of*. Probably why every attempt to revive it has failed, cause the oldies have moved on and are lazy and the newbs still don't care about these seemingly arbitrary battles. I might have skipped this one if I hadn't heard that Lord Mantis song in the other thread and already planned on listening to it. So it might be a good idea to lay down some bunts in between the other battles. After all, easily the most active thread in the Rock/Metal section over the last few months was the Metallica vs. Slayer one. The established members had entrenched, nuanced opinions that they liked to spout and there was always some new kid reviving it.

I was going to listen to that Lord Mantis album anyway. Might as well keep this thread alive at the same time.

I'm gonna say give this duo a week or two, then Hellcell gets to choose the next battle. Any complaints?

@Batlord

Maybe I'm the odd one, but I find it hard to get into "pop" metal (sounds bland). I find the more obscure stuff to be more appealing.
Having a predisposed opinion about a certain band doesn't really make me want to engage that much more. So yes, I'm okay with listening and forging an opinion. The only thing about a new band is if I can find a couple hours to listen.

So I listened to both. These ratings are rough estimates (close enough), I rate albums by going through all tracks, rating them individually, then averaging it out. I don't like rating entire albums or worse an entire artist. It doesn't say much because it's the tracks inside that I'm actually listening to and the bad tracks I skip along.

1.5/5 (Khanate). I couldn't get into the empty sound of the music. I have other bands that provide the same mood and atmosphere while having a sound that captivates my attention.

4/5 (Lord Mantis). It has a really nice evil sound to it, really liked the unique vocals. I really liked the rolling riffs. The melody and grit was done really tastefully. I think I discovered a new black/melodic black metal artists I really like.

Lord Mantis - 2
Khanate - 0

I do have a complain't actually. When it comes to albums I tend to cherry pick tracks and put them in a playlist for me to play, so I rarely ever listen to an album in it's entirety.
I don't feel that if I list an album of any artists would be representative of how I appreciate music.

Ok, but this thread is based around albums. If you're more into playlists maybe you could create a playlist vs. playlist thread.