This was difficult for me, because.... I'm not really a big metallica fan, & both bands utilized elements of the Metallica sound I don't care for. I've heard both bands before, but I've only listened to CoC's punk stuff (animosity rules), & some Iced Earth because no one will shut up about that band.

Iced Earth seem to accomplish their goal of being... umm.... something. The vocals are unique & I guess he's trying to tell a story or something. The production is pretty flat, which sucks because there are all those acoustic parts. There are some good riffs..... but I don't think I liked an entire song on this album, even if most songs had their moments.

CoC..... if this is metallica influenced, it's black album or something. Holy ****ing chug-chug-chugga riffs. Just.... ugh. So much worse than animosity.

Dark Saga - 3
Blind - 2

As far as I know only myself and Batlord go on about this band.

Glad to see that you're another one who loves my album choices. I'm sure you'll enjoy the next round as well.

So Iced Earth scrape thru 3-2. Next up they face Trivium and The Crusade, I don't much care for a lot of these metalcore bands but I think this is a really great album that sets out to sound like Metallica and does the job really well.

Iced Earth The Dark Saga 1996
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-0N8m3-TkDY...0/darksaga.jpg

Versus

Trivium The Crusade 2006

http://www.soundstagedirect.com/medi...he_crusade.jpg

I'm going with The Crusade. It was the first Trivium album I heard, and one of my favorite albums that I listened to non-stop a few years ago. They played a few songs off that album when I saw them live last year opening for DT.

Trivium - 1
Iced Earth - 0

lemme get that Trivium first

ok, heard it

Iced Earth - the riffs are great and so are the power ballads, the main problem I have with is the over-bombastic vocals which sound strained, furthermore, never liked the Spawn comics

Trivium - this is really good, the riffs are almost "martial" and militaristic, but I do have a major problem with the often generic solos, but I guess this is a new-found love of mine

The Crusade - 2
Dark Saga - 0

The Trivium album, is probably the most Metallica sounding album of the whole bunch and a great album from end to end, sure the riffs are generic but who cares when they're this good. Its also a great album becuase it does sound from the 00's rather than sounding like an 80s or 90s Metallica sounding album BUT The Dark Saga holds a special place with me and for that reason gets my vote.

The Crusade -2
The Dark Saga -1

The problem I have with The Crusade are the vocals. Great guitarist, and the riffs get my interest, but when singer opens his mouth, I tune out. He's not really a great screamer, nor is he a great singer. He's kinda a, meh. Dark Saga, isn't IE's best album, but I'm going to go with it again.

The Crusade -2
The Dark Saga -2

Trivium are godawful.

^^^ is that some sort of idiotic joke?

The Crusade - 2
The Dark Saga - 3

Did Iced Earth actually use some Macfarlane / Spawn artwork on an album cover? Oh wait why am I surprised? Comic book metal.
Both of these bands are absolutely terrible. I've listened to both of them but I can't subject myself to everything they put out, are you kidding me?

If you'll count my opinion then I give IE a negative 1 and Trivium negative 2.

Feel free to disregard my votes as a hate crime but if my opinion counts for anything the tally is

The Dark Saga: 2
The Crusade: 0

Thanks for that illustration. Now I'm thinking to myself...isn't most metal over-the-top and larger than life like a comic book? Either that or a horror show. If possible, I'd like to add +2 to Dark Saga, for bringing metal to it's obvious conclusion.

The Dark Saga: 4
The Crusade: 0

So it should be:

The Dark Saga -4
The Crusade -2

We're in negative numbers now?

:laughing:

That's what happens when you get metal elitists voting on the thread, they forget that metal can also be fun and shouldn't be taken too seriously.

Hey, I love metal that doesn't take itself too seriously, but I can't stand Trivium anymore, and Dark Saga is easily my least favorite Iced Earth album.

Trivium actually put out a pretty good recent album last year. I have a special place for them, so that's probably why I can still stand to listen to them and legitimately like them.

Anyway, with Engine and almauro voting IE, I think the score is actually:

The Crusade - 2
The Dark Saga - 5


And I just gave the Trivium album a listen. At first it seemed like a reasonably okay Metallica facsimile... until those other vocals showed up. You know, the ones that sound like every Christian rock band of the past decade. Unfortunately this continued throughout the album, usually accompanied by suitably cheesy instrumentation. I wish they would have just stuck with the faux-Hetfield style throughout instead. Nevertheless, I did enjoy the heavier parts of The Crusade more than anything on The Dark Saga so I'm voting Trivium.

The Crusade - 3
The Dark Saga - 5

No they didn't. As flawed as they may be, Trivium desperately want to be some sort of new age prog thrash band or something, but are too scared of alienating their meathead metalcore fanbase, so now they're just going to start copying Ascendency over and over again. I had hoped that they might have some balls and break away from that and make an album that didn't make me cringe whenever I wasn't on some weird metalcore kick, but nay, they have played it safe and consigned themselves to be future Has-Beens.

To each his own. Like I said, I have a special place for them, even though I do agree with you on some points that you brought up. Unfortunately it is true that each album they release is just an Ascendency do over. I mean, for god sakes, most of their songs sound the same if you listen to the discography over and over. I don't want to admit it but being that I have no problem doing that, they are kind of the Nickelback of metalcore, just with a little more talent. I still like them though.

Glad you're enjoying the battle, tune in for the final round.

Maiden

:bonkhead: That battle happened a lifetime ago.

:thumb: Thinking outside the box, I like it.

Speaking of boxes and carrying them, you should be good Amazon material.

Oh hey, thanks!

Iced Earth continue to sneak through and beats Trivium here by 5-3, next up they face Paradise Lost and Icon.

Iced Earth The Dark Saga 1996
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-fczKulrd3u...-dark-saga.jpg

Versus

Paradise Lost Icon 1993
http://www.metalmusicarchives.com/im...-lost-icon.jpg

Every copy I'm finding of Icon is from 1993. Is this the same album?

Yeah, 2006 is a **** up.

Sorry, it should be 1993 don't know how I got that wrong.

as I've mentioned before, i've never really liked "Icon" - the production is kinda muddled (it sounds over-produced) and the riffs aren't very good

as much as I hate "Spawn", IE gets my vote this time

Dark Saga - 1
Icon - 0

I left Icon until last because its my favourite album of the four. What I find so great about it, is its energy, which is quite ironic considering that Paradise Lost are essentially a doom metal band. I mean Metallica never put this amount of energy out on one of their albums. The group actually sound like they really enjoyed recording this album rather than just trying to sound mean and agressive. Also the album at times feels like it been recorded by a non-North American band and has that as an added bonus, its always something of a novelty.

The Dark Saga -1
Icon -1

I'm voting Icon. I didn't think the songwriting as all that great, but I liked the texture and overall mood of the album a lot more than The Dark Saga. Overall my favorite album of the bunch is still the CoC one though.

The Dark Saga - 1
Icon - 2

Okay, but what do you think of the two albums we're voting on now? The war you're talking about was over a year ago.

This is going to be changed over tomorrow, any final votes before the war ends should be placed.

Excellent, I just passed this onto a colleague who was doing a little research on that.

You must have the most pointless doctorate ever.

he's probably talking about aluminium versus tin

Ok I'm calling Paradise Lost and Icon as the winner. This war seemed too tacky for some on here and for the first time in MB history, the voting actually went into negative figures:laughing: before I steadied the boat. Now I'd like to say that things are going to get better, but sadly no, because next up is this Hair Metal war by The Batlord, who everybody knows is the king of tackiness and low rent music on MB (along with Howard of course) Anyway the first two albums up are Ratt (very hair metal) and Def Leppard (far less so and just got grouped with it due to their influence on the genre)

*puts on spandex*

I've only heard one song that I didn't hate by Ratt, and it happens to be on that album ("Round and Round"). Def Leppard is a better band and Pyromania is a better album. I never grew out of "Foolin".

Def Leppard - 1
Ratt - 0