I’ll start first, it’s Once Sent From The Golden Hall. I’m also open to discussion about said albums!
Master of Puppets. I know it’s not a particularly daring choice, but I don’t care, it’s perfection.
Blackwater Park by Opeth
Hard to pick a single one, so I’ll just list a few ones that I keep going back to.
Dream Theater - Awake
Destiny Potato - Lun
Fear Factory - Digimortal
In Flames - ClaymanOoh! I really love clayman. Such a good album!
Too many, and not all of them are metal. But, sticking with the theme of the community…
Megadeth - Rust In Peace
Suffocation - Pierced From Within
At The Gates - Slaughter of the Soul
Gorgasm - Masticate To Dominate
Metallica - Ride The Lightning
Slayer - Decade Of Aggression
Pantera - 101 Proof
Dream Theater - Train Of Thought
Nile - Amongst The Catacombs of Nephren-Ka
Panzerchrist - Soul Collector
Morbid Angel - Altars of Madness
Dying Fetus - Stop At Nothing
Burzum - Filosofem
Sepultura - Chaos A.D.
Stop at nothing is a wild choice for dying fetus
There are more polished albums, I’ll grant you, but it was the first one I heard and still seems to be the one I constantly return to, so I figure it’s my favorite of theirs. For better or worse!
Fair point. the same goes for games and stuff: the first thing you play/consume from a franchise will always be the best :D the first song i head from DF was grotesque impalement so that ep is also my favourite
In my list I was having a hard time choosing between Awake and ToT. I also love Met.Pt.2 luke that other guy posted, but I find these two album just a notch above in terms of individual songs.
I love Awake, Images and Words, Metropolis Pt 2, and the second disc of Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence, but I really enjoy the ones where the entire album is basically a modern symphony from start to finish and ToT just hits every note for me perfectly.
It’s hard to just pick one but my favorite is probably Chaos A.D.
Where owls know my name by rivers of nihil The phanerozoics by the ocean
Death - Symbolic
Black Sabbath - Heaven And Hell
Dream Theater - Images and Words
Mastodon - Leviathan
Metallica - Ride the Lightning
Riot - Thundersteel
Symphony X - V, The New Mythology Suite
Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind
Atheist - Unquestionable Presence
Megadeth - Rust in Peace
Fuck dude, asking a group of metal heads this is like throwing the final quark into a star about to go black hole.
But!
Master of Puppets is the album that turned me into a metalhead in the first place, so it takes top spot for me. It’s pretty much the perfect metal album in every way. Heavy, fast, incredible lyrics, James at his vocal peak (imo), some of the best riffs ever, and there’s not a single wasted song on it; they’re all classics. It’s a high fucking standard to even equal.
That being said, Kataklysm dropped a new album this year that has crept right into second place for me. Jfc, Goliath is just wall-to-wall brutal, primal metal. When you consider that I am a metallica devotee that used to rank most of their albums in my top list from 1 down to five before any other band showed up, that’s pretty significant to me.
I’ve been fucking obsessed with bringer of vengeance in specific from that album. Jumping around corners and growling it at people, literally rattling windows with it, and annoying the hell out of my kid by sneaking it into their playlists like a rickroll. Did that to my wife too, but she gets mean and refuses to let me play with her boobs when I do that kind of thing.
Dream Theater - Scenes from a Memory
Opeth - Ghost Reveries
Mastodon - Leviathan Bloodbath - The Fathomless Mastery
Cynic - Traced in Air
Symphony X - Paradise Lost
Psycroptic - The Inherited Repression
That which you fall in love as a teenager, innit?
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Pretty much. Amazing how everyone’s ultimate favorites are almost always something they heard from ages 14 - 25 at a formative point in their lives. I know that’s still very much my wheelhouse of music even still today.
Heart like a grave from Insomnium. They tried to create the most melancholy melodic death metal album from Finland and succeeded. Just listen to songs like “twilight trails” or “pale morning star” (warning: it’s about suicide cause of loosing a loved person).
Heartwork by Carcass Stigmata by Arch Enemy Srontgorrth by Nagelfar Legends of Evil and Eternal Death by Hirilorn Carelian Satanist Madness by Satanic Warmaster Blackwater Park by Opeth
No particular order, depends on the day.
The perfect album is Pelagial by The Ocean. My favourite however is Ride the Lightning. And the one I’ll keep spinning until I die is Somewhere Along the Highway by Cult of Luna. But you know what? I saw the Darkness last week on their 20th anniversary of Permission to Land, and that album still has it!
This might catch laughs but…
Hatebreeder by Children of Bodom
It was the first album that made me stop, and start to love metal. An old friend, the kind of person who’s a literary character in real life, and now is incredibly still alive after being hit by a goddamn train introduced me to a new world of music with that album. He’s obviously never been the same since the train, but he’s no longer an alcoholic, and always seems happy in spite of (or because of) the severe brain damage. I think of him especially when I go back to that album, and remember laughing at how ridiculous some of it is, when you really listen. It’s nice and baroque, with some amusing bits, and fun to listen through.
I’m not quite as well versed in metal as my spouse, but I’m glad to see these lists here, so I have more to check out!
The Contortionist - Language
Between the Buried and Me - Colors
Reflections - The Color Clear
Northlane - Singularity
Monolord - Empress Rising
Don’t think I can pick a favorite of anything because my interests shift so much, but I’ve been listening to a lot of Arch Enemy and In This Moment lately. Though if I had to pick, Volturian’s Crimson is up there.
