Best Metal Album, Round 1: Nightfall vs Winter's Gate

[babyBlueSedan]

Round 1 Matchup:

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Nightfall by Candlemass

(nominated by NoisyBeast)

vs.

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Winter's Gate by Insomnium

(nominated by Graeme2)



<Poll will close in one week>
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And it's hard to be a human being. And it's harder as anything else.

[mickilennial]

One of the most iconic doom metal albums ever recorded versus second wave melodic death at arguably its finest. Another difficult choice even without going into it— but ultimately I love Candlemass at their worst better than I do with Insomnium at their best so ultimately this is a pretty simple vote for me.

[Exist-en-ciel]

The importance of Winter's Gate in my own musical culture is great. No album of metal (of any kind) had previously managed to achieve such a high level of appreciation in me. The love I have for this album over the last two months has allowed me to free myself from the prejudices and resistances I still had towards metal music in general, and in the wake of this tournament, gaven me the enthusiasm of plunging seriously myself into metal music.

Without taking anything away from the qualities of Nightfall, Winter's Gate is currently an (almost) unrivaled metal album for me.

[Graeme2]

Yeah winters gate has been an important album to me this year too in what has turned out to be a year of metal discovery. I did enjoy candlemass but the vocal was kind of off putting at first, though once you get used to it you realise it does fit the music. Though by the end it did grate a bit. There was one track (5 I think) that stood out a mile and the rest wasn't as good as that. Still solid though. Overall easy pick.

[badseed]

Once again it's a classic that I've known for years against another first timer. After listening to them back to back, I think they're both great, but my love of death metal trumps my love of doom metal so shockingly I think I gotta give it to the new BEA find which will likely wind up pretty high on my 2016 list next time I update it. I'll definitely be looking into more Insomnium.

Speaking of 2016, I popped my head in the 2016 albums thread at the right time to catch RockyRaccoon recommending this. I see Graeme2 is one of only a couple to have given it any attention but it's pretty bangin post black metal...

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Home by Numenorean

[Graeme2]

[badseed]

Well I'm glad you chose the one you did. Regardless of if it makes the next round I'm still very glad I heard it and may not have otherwise.

[babyBlueSedan]

I had pretty low expectation for Nightfall, given that I listened to Epicus Doomus Metallicus a few months ago and found it largely unexciting and too melodramatic for my tastes. I was pleasantly surprised to find that I enjoyed Nightfall a lot more - the vocals still aren't my favorite and the lyrics are still a little cringe-worthy, but I think that's to be expected with this type of doom metal. I expect to come back to this one in the future.

My vote goes to Insomnium though - I love metal albums with this type of wintery feel and I'm a sucker for albums whose songs blend together. Add to that exciting metal riffs and a nice mixture of clean/growled vocals and you've got my favorite discovery from this tournament so far.
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And it's hard to be a human being. And it's harder as anything else.

[HazeyTwilight]

I didn't expect this to be such a hard choice for me. Both are great albums. Though I have to give my vote to Nightfall. Winter's Gate blew me away in the first half, but kind of lost steam during the second half.
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[RockyRaccoon]