The Greatest Metal Concept Album Ever Tournament: Part 1
It’s March Madness, and we here at ToH have bracket fever. However, most of us metalheads are far more familiar with 20-sided dice than barbells, so rather than going ape over B-ball, we’re throwing down on some mental mathletics. We’ve scoured the hallowed halls of Valhalla to find the best and brightest concept albums in all of metaldom, but we can’t decide this alone. We need you to choose the greatest metal concept album ever. Today, the first half of the 32-competitor bracket squares off. Who will be left standing?
As you have with other brackets here at Toilet ov Hell, your job is relatively simple. Just jam some tunes, cast your vote, and get ANGERY in the comments. However, I’m going to throw an additional wrinkle at you. Rather than just choosing the album you like the most, try to pick the album whose concept best fits the music. It’s easy enough to make fun of a poor album and concept; just ask The Astonishing. It’s much harder to perfectly craft an entire record that perfectly marries a deeper theme with killer riffs. Be judicious as you cast your stones below.
The full bracket (stab to embiggen)
Mastodon’s Leviathan vs. Nevermore’s Dreaming Neon Black
Moby Dick vs. Depression after Your Lady Friend Joins a Cult
Eye of Solitude’s Canto III vs. Dream Theater’s Scenes from a Memory
Dante’s Inferno vs. Reincarnation
Protest the Hero’s Kezia vs. Blut Aus Nord’s The Work Which Transforms God
A Death Sentence vs. Metaphysical Ponderings
King Diamond’s Abigail vs. Gojira’s From Mars to Sirius
Spooky Ghosts vs. Flying Whales
Angra’s Temple of Shadows vs. Therion’s Secret of the Runes
Crusader’s Midlife Crisis vs. Odinism
Manowar’s Gods of War vs. Cult of Luna’s Vertikal
Gratuitous Odinism vs. Self-Alienation in Metropolis
The Sword’s Warp Riders vs. Nocturnus’s The Key
Sci-Fi Archery vs. Sci-Fi Occultism
Fear Factory’s Demanufacture vs. The Ocean’s Pelagial
Robot Apocalypse vs. Oceanic Psychosis
