Maybe it is just that I think "Iron Man" is one of the most overplayed songs in history and am rather sick of it... I would say "War Pigs" or "Electric Funeral".. hell even "Hand of Doom" would be a better rival to trump the songs on MoR.

But in the end, it is more the production, riffs and execution I prefer with MoR. Just has a much more interesting tone to me than Paranoid.

This was tight...so tight to decide, but at the end of the day MOR IS THE ALBUM. On no other Sabbath album do the heavy and soft songs complement each other so well. The soft songs have that distinctive early 1970s proggy feel and are then just bludgeoned into oblivion by the heavier tracks on the album. The way "Embryo" leads into "Children of the Grave" is legendary and side 2 is a killer finishing up with "Into the Void". Also nobody has mentioned the cover of MOR, had to be one of the best covers of the time with that illusional writing on a black background.

Master of Reality - 4
Paranoid - 2

In terms of heavyweight tracks, I'd say Electric Funeral and War Pigs match the strength of Into the Void and Children of the Grave. However, I find Master of Reality to have the edge in supporting cast songs as I enjoy Sweet Leaf and Lord of this World more than Hand of Doom or Fairies Wear Boots (I'm excluding Paranoid and Iron Man as I am also exhausted of those songs). Also, I like Solitude better as a ballad-y track moreso than Planet Caravan.

Master of Reality - 5
Paranoid - 2

Don't let "Iron Man"s being overplayed fool you. "Iron Man" is Black Sabbath's heaviest song. That song could be used to crush cars. Awe inspiring that it only came out in 1970.

If you haven't voted yet then do so, as this war is about to end in the next day or so unless the voting suggests otherwise. At the moment it stands.

Master of Reality - 5
Paranoid - 2

After a whopping 50 votes in total Master of Reality is crowned the best Ozzy era Black Sabbath album on MB. The final order is as follows.

Master of Reality
Paranoid
Black Sabbath
Sabbath Bloody Sabbath
Vol.4
Sabotage

Next lucky drip draw from the list has thrown up this.

21st Century Grindcore (Janszoon)

Janszoon says— Alright, here's my war. Albums are listed in battle order. Extra bonus feature for people who aren't fans of this style: all these albums are 35 minutes long or less.

Unknown Soldier says— This battle should appeal to a lot of extreme metal fans out there, but is also of great interest to me as a listener whose knowledge of grindcore is mostly limited to Napalm Death. Not only do I not know any of the albums selected, but none of the bands either!

The Albums Selected
Nasum—Helvete 2003
Leng Tch'e—Process of Elimination 2005
Regurgitate—Sickening Bliss 2006
Mumakil—Behold the Failure 2009
GridLink—Amber Gray 2008

Remember its winner stays on and take some lines as always explaining your choice.

Leng Tch'e gets my vote. Love the tone they have for their guitar and bass drums. Sounds so low, rumbly and dirty. My kinda grind

Nasum- 0
Leng Tch'e- 1

Edit: also wanted to note in a lot of the Leng Tch'e songs the lyrics have humour in the a la Another Hit Single. I think humour in grind helps seeing as the entire premise is pretty ridiculous to begin with

Helvete is good but I think Process of Elimination beats it on every front. The songwriting is sharper and more energetic. The production is vastly better. As unrelenting pointed out, the lyrics are lot more entertaining. And it's pretty hard to beat that opening sample as a way to start an album.

Nasum- 0
Leng Tch'e- 2

Yeah that beginning sample is hilarious

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...nter/EGG04.png

The fact that it pretty much matches the bass drum that comes in is especially hilarious/genius to me.

Leng Tch'e 3
Nasum 0

That's really the only Leng Tch'e album I like, but man is it good. That also happens to be my least favorite Nasum album. Sounds too polished, not grindy enough. Razorgrind ftw.

Leng Tch's is pretty solid if you ask me. But nobody asked me.

Grindcore is not really my thing in general, sure the power and aggression are there, but I just can't deal with the short songs. Hell I struggle with 2 minute songs sometimes, but with most grindcore running about a minute I really struggle. In fact the only band that ever did really short songs that I really dig were the Ramones. As for the albums I actually liked both for what they were, really thought the Nasum album was good but as said was really polished up for this type of thing. The Leng Tch'e album was more hectic (for lack of a better word) and was the better of the two.

As a footnote, was shocked to see that Nasum lost their singer in the Tsunami disaster!!!

Leng Tch'e -4
Nasum - 0

Yikes! I had no idea. :(

Its here on wiki.

Nasum - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

I have to say I'm a little surprised no one's voted for the Nasum album. I put it in the first pairing because I was under the impression it was the most well-known and well-regarded of the bunch.

Leng Tch'e win by a convincing 4 votes and they now have to fend off another grindcore challenger from Sweden in the shape of Regurgitate, on the road to becoming the Grindcore champ on MB.

Leng Tch'e 1
Regurgitate 0

But there's no way in hell they can beat Gridlink.

Leng Tch'e - 2
Regurgitate - 0

Leng Tch'e had more variety to me, which is important to me in grindcore so the aural assault of blast beats and speed picking doesn't become too cumbersome. The moments on the album where a song would slow down and go into some grooves and pick up again, like on "Don't Touch My Spandex" & "Motorgrinding", were nice highlights. Also, the fact that the album embraces the over-the-top nature of grindcore as a genre and doesn't take itself too seriously made me like it all the more.

I actually enjoyed the Regurgitate album less than the Nasum one, so for that reason alone Leng Tch'e gets my vote again.

Leng Tch'e -3
Regurgitate -0

basically this

Leng Tch'e-4
Regurgitate-0

I think these two albums are actually the most similar of the bunch—similar production, similarly humorous edge—but I do agree with others that the Leng Tch'e album is a little better, largely because it's more varied.

Leng Tch'e-5
Regurgitate-0

Well Leng Tch'e seem to be sweeping all before them and win a sound 5>0, lets see how Swiss band Mumakil can do against them, a band who call their music "Blastcore" and are highly inspired by Tolkien and take their name from from the giant mammoths of LOTR.

lol. I didn't realize that's what they called themselves. I always thought that they were considered deathgrind (but who can keep up with all these silly sub-subgenres). I do like the death angle they have to their music though, I've always thought of their songs as little bit-sized pieces of death metal with a grindcore candy shell. I'm actually pretty curious to see how the voting goes on this one since a lot of our regular voters seem to be bigger fans of death metal than grindcore.

Ahhh when I listen to grindcore, I normally look for the death link to put me on familiar listening ground. The "Blastcore" terminlogy is just something I read about them on Wiki.

My big gripe about these bands, is just how much better they would be if they did far longer songs, but then that wouldn't be proper grindcore would it.

In hindsight now, I keep on thinking about the Nasum album, which means I must think its a really great album, maybe if it was up again it would get my vote this time.

That's interesting. The short running times are actually one of the things I love about grindcore. It gives grindcore albums this feeling of constant change that really keeps you on your toes and makes the music feel so much more energetic, to me at least. Not to mention a lot of these bands do more in a minute than other metal bands do in five.

Have you ever listened to the Agoraphobic Nosebleed album Agorapocalypse? If not, you might want to check it out. That's some great grindy stuff with somewhat longer songs lengths. And an awesome but all too rare thing: female grind vocals.

Added that album onto my must listen to metal list.

It's good stuff, and a pretty surprising move from a band that once fit 99 tracks on a 20 minute album.

Anyway, having mulled this battle over a bit, I think I'm ready to vote. It's a tough call because these albums are very much on equal footing for me. Maybe it's just my mood today, but I'm going to buck the trend and vote for the tasty deathy morsels of Mumakil:

Leng Tch'e - 0
Mumakil - 1

The even heavier death metal influence of Mumakil has probably influenced me here, but I did like the humour connected with the Leng Tch'e album and I thought it was slightly more varied, in all honesty its a tough call, as it has been with all these albums.

Leng Tch'e -0
Mumakil- 2

http://img.photobucket.com/albums/v1...nter/EGG04.png

Mumakil sounds more like swe-death with grindcore influences than grindcore with death metal influences to me. I also have a soft-spot for buzzsaw guitar tone so Mumakil (great ****ing name btw) gets my vote.

Leng T'che - 0
Mumakil - 3

Leng Tch'e 1
Mumakil 3

Being a fan of deathgrind, I still enjoy Leng Tch'e's sound on that album more.

Kat rules by the way. Agorapocalypse kills. Check out **** the Facts, very varied Australian grind w/ female vox.

I thought Fuck the Facts were Canadian. No?

That's, uh...what I meant....

Australian grind is cool.

How do you guys spell out the swear words like that?

like this (quote to see)

fuck the facts

I enjoyed the Mumakil album more, as I'm not a huge fan of straight grindcore

Mumakil - 4
Leng - 1

Mumakil win that round by 4-1 and are the new kids on the block. The final clash on this Grindcore fest comes in the form of Gridlink, described as a technical grindcore band from New Jersey.

Gridlink - A bazillion
Mumakil - 0

Amber Gray is one of the greatest albums I've ever heard.

What the heck, Amber Gray is only 12 minutes long?

But as much happens in those 12 minutes as usually happens in an hour on most albums.