I guess you could call them a concept band, then.

None of those is a concept album, you could find a vague topic for pretty much any album.

Slough Feg's Traveller however is a great concept album about an obscure 70's RPG.

Winner!

Deathspell Omega - Si Monumentum Requires, Circumspice

Operation Mindcrime is a great concept album, but it's a little overrated in its overall praise. It was one of the first ever metal concept albums, so ot does deserve some good things for having been done fairly well. It's the little 1-minute tracks that detract from the overall quality, in my opinion. I like it a lot better when concept albums are told all through the individual full-length songs, with maybe one little intro track at the beginning of the album.

For those enjoy Operation Mindcrime, make sure to check out Queensryche's EP and The Warning for their best songwriting and performance capabilities.

My vote would go to King Diamond's Abigail as the all-time best concept album, and one of the best albums ever in metal history. A truly dynamic and horrifying tale, you will marvel at the twists in the story, music, and, of course, King's vocals. You never knew when a riff will change, a solo/lead will come out, or when King switches from regular to falsetto (and vice versa) vocals.

Also, check out Them, Conspiracy, and The Puppet Master for King Diamond's other three best concept albums.

I used to say that about Operation Mindcrime, and yeah, the early stuff is a little better, but O:M is simply superlative. Even the interludes don't bother me anymore.

One of my favorites of all-time!

The new Hail of Bullets record is good too.

Of course, as previously mentioned, all King Diamond.

amaseffer- slaves for life (amazing prog metal, i played some in my show earlier today)

I'm listening to Operation Mindcrime now. It's better than when I last heard it. It's got more of a hard rock feel to it, which makes sense for the band at that time as they were moving away from their early American metal/prog stylings.

I forgot to mention one album before - WASP's The Crimson Idol. Definitely the band's best mature album with fabalous performances from the guitars, vocals (Blackie's best performance), and amazing drum work. A very true-to-life, although fictional, story that puts the listener through a real roller coaster of emotions experienced by the main chacracter Jonathan. One of the best albums ever, be it concept or not. Not to be missed by metal fans!

Yeah, O:M grows on me all the time. I think it really is one of metal's all time great conceptual works, right up there with any King Diamond. The epic scope and smooth, sleek songwriting are just great.

I think Kind Diamond is on another level with his best concept albums (namely, Abigail, Them, and Conspiracy) than other concept albums by other bands. They're so dynamic in their songwriting, moreso than all the other concept albums I've heard. They represent the best of his songwriting abilities in his solo career. And there's no doubt that they truly represent the feeling of heavy metal.

Mindcrime gives off a sort of hard rock vibe to me, so I can't put it up with my other favourite concept albums. All my other favourites represent the best of the band's career (ie. King Diamond's three top, WASP's The Crimson Idol, Iron Maiden's Seventh Son). Mindcrime doesn't display the band's best, in my opinion, as it's their EP and debut that are their best, in my opinion. It's still a really good album, but not fantastic. That's probably why I say it's a bit overrated. It is Queensryche's second best full-length album, no doubt about that.

It does deserve to be in this thread, though.

King Diamond albums are great for their concepts. thats one of the qualitites that makes the king such a great unique artist.

Mastodons new album "Crack the Skye" is a very good concept album. And the story is all over the place, this is the description of the story by one of the band members...

"There is a paraplegic and the only way that he can go anywhere is if he astral travels. He goes out of his body, into outer space and a bit like Icarus, he goes too close to the sun, burning off the golden umbilical cord that is attached to his solar plexus. So he is in outer space and he is lost, he gets sucked into a wormhole, he ends up in the spirit realm and he talks to spirits telling them that he is not really dead. So they send him to the Russian cult, they use him in a divination and they find out his problem. They decide they are going to help him. They put his soul inside Rasputin's body. Rasputin goes to usurp the czar and he is murdered. The two souls fly out of Rasputin's body through the crack in the sky(e) and Rasputin is the wise man that is trying to lead the child home to his body because his parents have discovered him by now and think that he is dead. Rasputin needs to get him back into his body before it's too late. But they end up running into the Devil along the way and the Devil tries to steal their souls and bring them down…there are some obstacles along the way."

Seventh son and Somewhere in Time are generally considered Semi-Concept albums right?

Operation Mindcrime must be from the best concept albums I've heard. Hail of Bullets' album about the WW2's eastern battles is great, it's brutal, Martin Van Drunen sounds like a desperate soldier at times and it's easy to get war images from the album. Pentacle also made an album about a certain german (or british? I can't remember) operation too, didn't listened to it yet. I didn't totally grasped Kypck's album about the soviet years, but it's interesting to say the least.

Sigh's Scenario IV: Dread Dreams is interesting (and great), a concept album about bad dreams. It's supposed to be about the bad (horrific) dreams someone had, and you get from dream to dream "like" it is supposed to be. Meaning: sometimes you go from a dream to another or a certain part totally unrelated to the other and sometimes really weird. Hail Horror Hail is also a a concept album about an imageless (not soundtrack) horror movie. It tells a diabolic story I unfortunately never really tried to read about, I think it's a bout a psychopath, but it really sounds like a movie, you can sense a certain evolution in the story to a certain ending, some parts seem unrelated to the rest of the song but fit in the whole of the album. Some songs are even what we could consider "transitional songs", songs that are meant to make the story progress with twists making them less conventional, maybe ones people less willing to hear non-traditional metal songs would skip.

Sabbat's The Dwelling - The Melody of the Death Mask is an interesting one track concept album about someone killing people to collect face of horror for "artful and sinful" purposes. I didn't read the whole lyrics but plan to eventually, seems rather sick and weird. The song itself goes through a variety of moods and atmosphere and paces.

Mindcrime's definitely the bast one i can think of. phenomenal album.

Ayreon's entire catalog. There's at least one brilliant song on every single album he's made, and I can only think of one dud song - "Web of Lies". One bad song out of 91.

Is Queensrÿche's Operation Mindcrime a concept album? I don't remember, but it's pretty good.[/quote]

That's kinda like asking are the evil dead movies awesome

May I just say now that this story sounds like something I would've written in 6th grade. I mean really, Rasputin helping some random cripple because his parents are worried he might be dead because he's off doing psychic things?

Anywho, Blacklodge's SolarKult is apparently a concept album about Satan controlling some society through drugs and technology. I suppose it works, but as a whole it seems like the work may be a tad too traditional to get the whole "concept" feel going full speed. Though to be fair, it's still fucking awesome.

you sir.. are absolutely correct. everything Arjen has done is truely amazing. except for that small fuck up called Web of Lies. which really doesnt fit in anywhere and is truely filler material

That is not at all what the description said, you are definetely retarded. And besides, i wasnt saying it was one of the best concepts off all time, i just said it was complicated and all over the place. It is good, that is only half the album. Dont have to be so close minded and shun it like that.
Seriously, i am not a fan of mastodon, but what you said was retarded.
What you said has NOTHING to do with the story.

Learn to read.

Blind Guardian - Nightfall in Middle Earth

Cripple.


Astral projection. "Psychic things".




Rasputin is helping a cripple because his parent's think he's dead because he's off doing psychic things.

Learn to read. Also, don't throw around that "close-minded" bullshit.

Persistence in Mourning did a funeral doom concept album about zombies. I haven't heard it, but it sounds interesting. The album is called "The Undead Shall Rise"


Funeral doom has a lot of good concept albums, however. The Call of the Wretched Sea by Ahab (about Moby Dick), Celaenus Fragments by Fungoid Stream (about Lovecraft) and Amartia by Pantheist (about the Seven Deadly Sins)

Seriously, man, i dont wanna get into an argument. That totally goes against my anti-anger point of view. Im just saying that, that is just i little plot summary, its allot deeper then that. Keep in mind i did say it WAS all over the place and pretty out there. But it is pretty well written. Just end it.

As for some other concept albums... well, i was going to mention "Monolithe I", and "Monolithe II" by Monolithe, and "Crimson I", and "Crimson II" by Edge of Sanity"... but those have been mentioned many times already. Oh, and also "Seventh Son of a Seventh Son" by Iron Maiden, but that has been mentioned a few times as well.

Rush has also had some very good concept albums, mainly the song 2112, that song is probably the bands best song, and the story is very good. They also have the Cygnus-X Book 1 and 2. Which is 2 songs, about a half an hour together. I always liked how Cygnus-X Book 1 was the last song on "A Farewell to Kings", then the first song on "Hemispheres", their next album.

Bathory did quite a few concept albums, and I've always wondered, was Hammerheart meant to be a concept album? From the lyrics, I've assembled what I basically see the story to be:

1. Shores in Flames - basically the overture, gives us the setting for the story, namely Scandinavia during the time of the Vikings. Narrated by our first Viking warrior - we'll call him Viking A - as he describes setting out from his home in Asa Bay on a raid.

2. Valhalla - Viking A narrates to us his values as a warrior, and what he views his purpose in life is, namely to fight and die in battle and go to Vallhalla.

3. Baptised in Fire and Ice - Viking A describes his childhood memories of his father, who raised him to believe in the religion and values of the Vikings of the time.

4. Father to Son - Viking A now has a son of his own, whom we'll call Viking B. He teaches him all the lessons his own father taught him, raising him to respect his country and his gods.

5. Song to Hall Up High - Viking B, now full-grown, is the narrator of this song. It shows how he has taken his father's lessons to heart, and is thoroughly dedicated to his gods.

6. Home of Once Brave - Viking B reflects on his homeland, Asa Bay, and how it has fallen from it's once high beliefs and morals.

7. One Rode to Asa Bay - Narrated in the third person. It describes the coming of Christianity to Asa Bay, and shows us the fate of our two Vikings - B being the "man with a beard like fire/and hammer in chain", and Viking A being the old man at the end of the song, reflecting on the downfall of his home.


This is based entirely on assumptions, conjecture, and filling in the blanks, but Hammerheart has always made sense to me as being a concept album. What do you guys think of this?