[Terrace’s Top Twenty Music Records] Closing

Two months a half ago, I began this series with a reflection on how odd I considered it that I used to categorize myself as a musician. Looking back, though, I now consider that statement to be truly odd. When has there ever been a point in my life when music wasn’t a profound influence on me? When have I ever not wanted to play an instrument? Being an artist doesn’t necessitate that you’re good at whatever you do. It just means that you’re passionate about it.

By that metric, I’ve always been a musician. From the day I was born, regardless of whatever genre I identified with, be it pop, hard rock, nu metal, heavy metal, symphonic metal, and now power metal. Music has always been a significant and irreplaceable part of my life, be it listening to it or playing it.

[Terrace’s Top Twenty Music Records] #01: Blind Guardian – A Night at the Opera (2002)

Emphatic. Impeccable. Compelling. There are a lot of words to describe an effectively perfect work of art, but to me, the most important one is at the same time the most vague: magical. A perfect work of art will almost always contain a factor that simply cannot be explained. It must be felt, believed in, experienced. One must expose themselves to the piece multiple times, and upon each repeated exposure, that factor becomes more and more clear, but no more easier to explain. This is perhaps why Blind Guardian is almost certainly my favorite band, because no other band truly captures this sentiment as well as they do.

Blind Guardian is a band with many fantastic stand-out records. But their most well-known, their most revered, and the one that is generally considered their magnum opus, is a 1998 release titled Nightfall in Middle-Earth. It is truly a masterpiece in every sense of the term, being perhaps the definitive power metal album to date, and a resounding tribute to the work of J.R.R. Tolkien, specifically The Silmarillion.

So, what about A Night at the Opera?

[Terrace’s Top Twenty Music Records] #02: Kamelot – The Black Halo (2005)

Imagine a perfect work of art. No, not something inhumanely flawless. Imagine something so excellent, so full of passion, such an incredible experience in its totality, that its negatives seem to simply disappear when you think about the piece as a whole. It’s not truly perfect. Nothing is. But it so effectively maintains that illusion of perfection that you simply don’t care. There’s a certain magic to it, one that ensures that the piece only gets better with repeated exposure. It truly is, in every sense of the word, a masterpiece.

What I just described is not the record that this review is about. What I described is Kamelot’s 2003 record Epica. A triumph of power metal, of all metal, of rock operas, and art in general. That’s Epica. A perfect album.

Now imagine that said record has a sequel. One that improves upon its predecessor in every conceivable way. Think The Empire Strikes Back, Spider-Man 2, Terminator 2: Judgment Day, Shrek 2. Composing a perfect sequel to a masterpiece may seem daunting, but it has been done. Kamelot did it. The Black Halo did it.

[Terrace’s Top Twenty Music Records] #03: Sabaton – Carolus Rex (2012)

Sabaton is a name that is rather infamous in the power metal scene. They’re one of its most popular acts, and fame, of course, always attracts some degree of negative attention. But the negativity directed towards them, regardless of how it is delivered, isn’t always entirely misplaced. The accusations that Sabaton are derivative, repetitive, and unoriginal are, admittedly, not entirely inaccurate. Even still, I can’t say I particularly care too much. I mean, if it ain’t broke, why bother fixing it?

Now, a concept album is something more than the sum of all its parts. I said that in my last entry, and I’m saying it again, because it still applies. Carolus Rex stands out to me among Sabaton’s discography for two simple reasons: one, because its an excellent execution of the idea of a historical concept album; and two, because those parts that get added together are already so strong on their own. In other words, Carolus Rex has the necessary consistency to be a strong concept album, but it also has excellent peaks that elevate its status even further.

[Terrace’s Top Twenty Music Records] #04: The Protomen – Act II: The Father of Death (2009)

Concept albums are many things. They are, of course, what they literally are, which is a musical record wherein the individual songs hold cohesive meaning even when listened to as a singular entity. But concept albums are also almost always sprawling, inspiring, operatic, and unique. Pink Floyd’s The Wall is a classic for many, many reasons, but I’d argue the point that it wouldn’t be as well-regarded if it weren’t for its immaculate execution of the concept album idea. Lastly, and perhaps most importantly, concept albums are so much more than the sum of their parts.

The Protomen’s Act II: The Father of Death is one such album. Its songs are rock ‘n’ roll excellence, but where the album really comes together, and where its magic really shines, is in its cohesive totality. Its one of those albums where I actually feel at odds about listening to any singular track on its own; I find it to be much like a film, in this regard. You wouldn’t just skip ahead to the climax of a movie, bypassing all the atmosphere, build-up, foreshadowing, and the like, would you? The same idea applies here.

[Terrace’s Top Twenty Music Records] #05: Linkin Park – Meteora (2003)

Truthfully, I was planning on opening this review with some sort of snide joke about the infamous reputation of nu metal. This would proceed to transition into some tangent about how I used to religiously listen to nu metal in middle school, and how the genre’s angst-ridden lyrics and tone felt meaningful at the time, but now seem rather immature, and oftentimes an insincere method of tapping a certain demographic. I would then conclude by saying that, despite all this, Linkin Park specifically is a guilty pleasure of mine that I just haven’t been able to let go of.

But I’m not going to do that, and for two great reasons: one, I’ve grown enough that I no longer bear any guilt about my admiration for Linkin Park, and two, to insist on degrading the band in that regard would be disrespectful towards those members of the band that are still around, and even more so towards that one that has tragically passed on. The late Chester Bennington was a huge inspiration and role model for me personally, and to dishonor in such a way would be loathsome.

So, I’ll say this right up front, just to make it perfectly clear: Meteora is a masterpiece of a record, and that’s all there is to it.

[Terrace’s Top Twenty Music Records] #06: Demetori – Nada Upasana Pundarika (2009)

As I mentioned earlier, most Touhou arrange circles are passion projects. There’s not a lot of money in it, and self-publishing albums is entirely the norm, so most musicians are simply in it for love of the games and their soundtracks. What this ends up meaning is that even someone like me, who loves these things so much, has to admit that most Touhou arrange albums aren’t that great. Usually, they’re a bunch of kids doing overly-derivative covers of melodies that Touhou fans have heard a million times over. By the time most Touhou arrange circles mature into real excellence, the musicians have moved on to composing original music.

Those Touhou arrange records that are truly excellent, those that are true musical marvels on the same level as well-known classics; those are hard to come by. And if I were to ever find one, I would sing its praises and laud it for the triumph that it is. If such a gem existed, I would surely love it forever.

My dear readers, I present to you just that: the greatest Touhou metal album ever made.

[Terrace’s Top Twenty Music Records] #07: Brothers of Metal – Prophecy of Ragnarok (2017)

Quick question. What’s the easiest way to start learning about a topic as exorbitant as Norse mythology? If you answered Neil Gaiman’s Norse Mythology, then you’d be right if I said best, and not easiest. If you answered Thor movies, then you’re just wrong, sorry. If you actually read the title, and saw this for the overt lead-in that it definitely is, then congratulations! You’re good at noticing the obvious!

Brothers of Metal are a power metal group so new and unheard of that they don’t even have a Wikipedia page. I could fix this myself, if I wanted to, but that would ruin my metaphor. Technically active since 2012, they never actually got around to releasing anything until five years later. You see what I’m getting at.

[Terrace’s Top Twenty Music Records] #08: 5150 – Symphonic Touhou VIII (2014)

We’re back with another Touhou arrange album! After their nine-entry absence, we now have two of them in a row. What are the odds? Unlike Thousand Leaves’ Genesis, though, this one is a bit more straightforward. No case of two conflicting arrangers with drastically different musical visions. The circle 5150 only has one primary arranger, and that’s Ryu-5150 himself.

Ryu-5150 founded his circle in 2009, the same year that Bach and Kawase founded Thousand Leaves. The only other member of the circle was Asuka, who handled the album art illustrations and assisted with the overall concept design. Their debut was a record titled Symphonic Touhou, and unlike what the title might entail, it didn’t primarily draw inspiration from classical symphonies by composers like Mozart and Beethoven. Instead, it was inspired by bands like Rhapsody of Fire and their kin. In other words, it was bonafide symphonic metal.

[Terrace’s Top Twenty Music Records] #09: Thousand Leaves – Genesis (2010)

Hey, guys. Remember Touhou arrange albums? I bet you forgot all about those damn things, didn’t you? Makes sense, since the last one occupied the #18 spot. But even for those of you that did remember, I also bet you were beginning to suspect that I was simply using this niche, practically unheard of music to pad the bottom of my list. Well, NOT… exactly! I actually really enjoy a few select Touhou arrange albums, so much so that, even after making it into the top ten, we’re not quite done with them yet.

Thousand Leaves is (or was, considering they haven’t released a record since 2013) a metal group that dabbled in a variety of styles. Primarily, though, they’re associated with melodic death metal, especially in their later years. That aside, though, it feels weird to refer to Thousand Leaves as a collection of individuals, considering that they’ve only ever consisted of one or two.