[babyBlueSedan]

Quarterfinal Matchup:

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Seasons In The Abyss by Slayer

(nominated by Mercury)

vs.

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Kingdom Come by Sir Lord Baltimore

(nominated by StreetSpirit)


<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.

[Mercury]

Because I'm a dork I love thinking of these tournaments in very grandiose ways. And I like to compare them to actual sports tournaments.

With that in mind, I looked at all the remaining albums and where they sit in the RYM metal ranks - all sub-genres. It's clear Sir Lord Baltimore is sort of the Butler of this tournament. That was a college basketball reference for all you who don't live in the US where such things are more widely-known. To put it another way, "Kingdom Come" came into this tournament somewhat like Leicester City came into the season last year. Of the 8 remaining albums, 7 are top 100 metal albums on RYM, 4 are there in the top 40 all time and on the first page of metal albums. Another one is a at 69 and one of the defining masterpieces of Black Metal, and one is the Primordial album - the 2nd biggest Cinderella of this tournament, but so much higher ranked than the actual Cinderella its silly to compare.

Which brings us back to "Kingdom Come". Which is ranked, wait for it... 435! What? Even when the nominations were made some months back I was intrigued by the relative unpopularity amongst more casual hard rock and metal fans toward Sir Lord Baltimore. I am included in this group.

So Sir Lord Baltimore making it into the Elite 8 is a minor BEA tournament miracle. The reason for its meteoric rise is mostly due to, in my opinion, the random seeding of the tournament. Kingdom Come hasn't come up against a top 100 album yet. Obituary, Gris, and Panopticon have stood in their way. All solid records, don't get me wrong. But compare those to what Black Sabbath had in their path - Tormentor, Sleep and Burzum! A trial each week (maybe not week 1 so much, but you get my drift.)

Anyway, done with my long tangent. I voted Slayer. I think its a masterpiece and it gets my blood pumping every time. Kingdom Come is solid. I actually quite enjoyed it,and its all the more impressive considering how intensely heavy and fast it was for 70.

Edit: oh and just so its said and noted, Slayer's "Seasons In The Abyss" is at 29 all time metal albums on RYM.
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-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

[CA Dreamin]

^^^
Mercury, thank you for this insight.

I nominated Kingdom Come thinking the tournament could use an early/influential album in the genre. And because I thought users who haven't listened to it might be pleasantly surprised by how good it is, and by how heavy it was for 1970.

I never expected it to get this far, and it is pretty cool. Meanwhile my other nominated album, System of a Down's self-titled debut, which I thought had a great chance of going deep, was out in the first round.

But that's the tournament for you. Unpredictable. I gave Kingdom Come my vote (I'm biased of course), but I think Slayer will probably end its Butler run.

But who knows, maybe Sir Lord Baltimore has at least one more miracle in it.

[Mercury]

@StreetSpirit, yes your nom of this old classic has definitely been eye opening for me. I had honestly only heard of it a few times in passing when reading books about early metal. Outside of Zeppelin and Sabbath and bit of Mountain I had never delved into quite early examples of hard rock first starting to morph into a more metal form. And I really did end up being very impressed by Kingdom Come. It's freak outs are really wild even to some degree by today's standards. They rocked so fucking hard! I hope they get more credit soon. Also considering that the story goes that the term Heavy Metal came from a review of them, I mean come on!
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-Ryan

ONLY 4% of people can understand this chart! Come try!

My Fave Metal - you won't believe #5!!!

[babyBlueSedan]

Definitely know where you're coming from in regards to a ranked tournament - If I had a do over for this tournament I'd probably do something like that. The reason I didn't is because I was hoping we'd find albums like the Primordial one and Kingdom Come and those albums would make it far. I was worried that if those otherwise obscure albums were up against Dopethrone and Seasons in the Abyss and Oceanic (rip) they'd lose fairly earlier and we'd forget about them. Especially since some voters are likely to give their votes to albums they're more familiar with rather than ones they just heard. Now of course doing it random results in some shitty matchups; I still regret not doing anything about that Dopethrone-Symbolic matchup in the first round. But if you want to know what a great album Symbolic is you can look at the RYM charts. I'm not sure I would have given the Primordial album a second listen if it had lost the first round. Just my two cents, and I do wish I had asked opinions on the rankings at the start.

As for this matchup, I've realized I'm just not a fan of early thrash metal like this Slayer album. Even Kingdom Come packs more of a punch. So while its probably my 7th favorite album left, I voted to keep the upsets going.
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And it's hard to be a human being. And it's harder as anything else.

[Temporary33]

Went with kingdom come though I thought Seasons would be absolutely crushing at this point.

[babyBlueSedan]

Seasons in the Abyss wins, 7-5
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And it's hard to be a human being. And it's harder as anything else.