Generally, whenever I hear 'avant-garde' in relation to Metal I just blow it off. That being stated, Sigh are completely random. There are moments in songs that come completely out of left field, and even when I tried to look at these moments as the same way a grind band uses noise, it didn't work for me.

Solefald was a more engaging listen, and not just because I spent a good twenty minutes fiddling with my EQs on account of the high-end production. The songs are less random, and the riffs are better than Sigh. A lot better. There are actually some really good riffs on this album.

Sigh - 3
Solefald - 1

Have listened to both and to be honest was expecting them to be more impressive, but I`m guessing both these albums may need several listens to really appreciate their quality. As for which I preferred it was almost on the toss of a coin but in general I preferred the feel of the Solefald album, maybe because it seemed to have less random musical diversity than the Sigh album.

Sigh- 3
Solefald- 2

Sigh win that battle 3-2. Next up courtesy of The Batlord are these three European power metal albums from the late 1990s, we`ve had a couple of power metal albums on here before but this is the first official power metal battle on here, both myself and The Batlord are probably the two biggest power metal fans of the forum.:D Again take a few lines explaining your choice.

pass me a double helping of cheese, please

already got that Blind Guardian and just downloaded that Gamma Ray (i only have Heading for Tomorrow) and Hammerfall

on a power metal kick meself

I love the Blind Guardian and Gamma Ray albums. They're amazing. On paper they're better than the Hammerfall album. Hammerfall basically takes the all the best elements of melodic metal from the past few decades and amalgamates them to make incredibly accessible power metal without any real innovation. But actually listening to Hammerfall makes all of that go away, because they're just brilliant. It's pretty much impossible to listen to a Hammerfall album without getting half the songs stuck in your head for the next month. "Legacy of Kings" (the song) has been stuck in my head for the past month at least.

Hammerfall is just a celebration of metal, that begs you to forget everything you know about "intelligent" music and just listen. The lyrics are the perfect example of this. They are not merely about swords and orcs, they are a call to arms to the defenders of true metal. Legacy of Kings is not a reference to arbitrary fantasy rulers, the kings are Iron Maiden, Judas Priest, and Dio, and their legacy is metal itself! I know this sounds like a fanboy diatribe, but I don't care. Hammerfall ****ing rule. Simple as that.

Hammerfall - 1
Blind Guardian - 0
Gamma Ray - 0

This song more or less sums up what you`re saying, its Iron Maiden and Judas Priest BUT its uniquely HammerFall.


Hammerfall - Let the Hammer Fall - YouTube

Hammerfall - 1
Blind Guardian - 0
Gamma Ray - 1

I'm not a big fan of classic heavy metal like Priest and I can only tolerate Maiden in short bursts, so that pretty much killed Hammerfall for me. It often sounded too "heavy metal" and too generic. Blind Guardian was pretty cool, but why the **** does one album need so many interludes? I think Gamma Ray easily took the cheesecake here. But again, is it a thing with power metal to include copious amounts of interludes?

HammerFall are without doubt one of my fav power metal bands and they along with Stratovarius broke the dominance of the big three German power metal bands in Europe. The Batlord has summed up the HammerFall album perfectly, so I need say no more on it. I actually think the following Gamma Ray album Somewhere in Space to be the stronger album, than the one that was selected. The Blind Guardian album though is a power metal legend and the creative highpoint of the band, a concept album based on Middle-Earth that runs for over an hour, this is European power metal at its very best and the copious interludes are essential here.:finger:

HammerFall- 1
Blind Guardian- 1
Gamma Ray- 1

Just to let you guys know, that I`m off on holidays for about 4 weeks and will only get a couple of hours internet time per week. Therefore, for the next month The Batlord will be running the thread.......I know its hard to get good help these days, but he was the best I could get at such short notice! Hopefully he shouldn`t fuck things up too much and hopefully he won`t turn this into a porn thread either.

So if you`ve got any battles, they should be sent to him over the next month. I`ve given him as well the one pending battle (RCVA) so that should be the next up in a couple of days. If nobody submits albums, The Batlord has an almost endless pit of metal albums to call upon anyway.

Finally, I want to wish all you guys that have participated on the thread a great and merry christmas.:wave:

Have a nice break Soldier, thanks for your work in this thread