10 KILLER METAL CONCEPT ALBUMS, Pt 1

1. QUEENSRYCHE – OPERATION: MINDCRIME (1988)

This is the best concept album in the history of heavy metal. Through its concept the band makes a very strict critique to a system that fails. The television makes its propaganda, the money can buy almost everything, governments are simple puppets of thirds, people without will who watch what happens around and can’t react. It appears the decay of our society in its majesty. We have to do with a concept that, despite the fact that created almost 20 years ago, is to the point still today. It’s needless to speak about the music. Whoever who listen to it has only things to win.

2. IRON MAIDEN – SEVENTH SON OF A SEVENTH SON (1988)

This album is the last of the great classic albums of this band. It's also Iron Maiden's seventh studio album, which makes a neat tie-in with the album's title and the subject. The album is based on the fantasy novel “Seventh Son” by Orson Scott Card, that tells the tale of a child that possesses occult abilities and from it’s moment of birth is subject to manipulation by the forces of good and evil, and must come to terms with his powers and how to use them. For many people, including the man who drops these lines, this masterpiece is the best album that the band ever created. Apart from its lyrical depth, the music is flawless with much experimentation in band’s sound and composing course.

3. W.A.S.P. – THE CRIMSON IDOL (1992)

The story of the album talks about a teenager named Jonathon. He is a complete failure to his parents eyes, and after his brother’s death, to a car accident, he runs away from home. In a music store he sees a guitar and he wants to become a rock star. After much work Jonathon manages to find a contract for a record and to become a rock star. He finds out that the life isn’t as glamorous as it seemed to be. Jonathon has fame and fortune, but not the one thing he always wanted, the love and acceptance of his parents. One night before a concert, Jonathon calls his parents in an attempt to reconcile their differences and heal the emotional wounds between them. Jonathon realizes that he will never be accepted by his parents and decides to commit suicide. During the aforementioned concert, Jonathon removes the strings from his guitar, shapes them into a noose and hangs himself. This album is the peak moment of W.A.S.P. and it is a well of emotions. The music is genial created as the mood matches perfect with lyrics’ each moment.

4. DREAM THEATER – METROPOLIS PT II: SCENES FROM A MEMORY (1999)

The biggest progressive metal band here presents a concept album that has as a main character Nicholas. Nicholas discovers, with the help of an hypnotist, that in his previous life he was a woman, Victoria Page who was part of an erotic triangle between two brothers. In the meantime, a dramatic story of love lust in the end of the decade of ‘20s, takes place. The music of the album is a travel to different kinds of music, such as metal, prog-rock, oriental, Charleston, and the catalogue has no ending. If “Operation: Mindcrime” was the best concept album of ‘80s, then for dead sure “Scenes From A Memory” is the same for the ‘90s.

5. AMORPHIS – TALES FROM THE THOUSAND LAKES (1994)

From their first release, Amorphis showed that they were able for big things. This is their second full-length album and they created a concept album, with the lyrics to be based on the Finnish national epic, Kalevala. In the lyrics, we can find tales from the Finnish mythology that illuminates the happiness, the grief, the conflicts and other folds of the every day lives of Finnish ancestors’. A new dimension reveals into band’s music, as it is more melodic than their debut, with a further use of keyboards and clean vocals on the songs. This album is often hailed as one of the better Amorphis records, and as a very influential and historically significant, in the development of the Melodic Death Metal and Doom Metal genres, album.