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HOTMK was my first and is still my favorite. However, as much as I love all the earlier material, Gutter Ballet is probably my second favorite. I was actually disappointed when it came out because it was so different but it really grew on me.

I think Streets is a good album, but I just can’t get into it. The later albums I find to be too boring but there are moments of greatness here and there (“The Wake Of Magellan” for example is an awesome track). In general I think Jon Oliva’s Pain is way better than Savatage after 1990.

P.S. I’m never one to miss out on an avatar theme…. or an Avatar theme!

Very good band. Although i havent listened to all their albums, my faves would be:

Sirens
Dungeons Are Calling
Hall Of The Mountain King
Edge Of Thorns
Gutter Ballet

On the other hand Power Of The Night was mixed, Fight For Rock was bad and apart from a few songs i just couldnt get into Streets

Thanks to this thread, i should now start checking out some of their later stuff...

Black Axe wrote:

mordred wrote:4. Hall of the Mountain King (1987) 9/10
6. Handful of Rain (1994) 8/10
7. The Dungeons are Calling (1984) 8/10
8. Poets and Madmen (2001) 7/10

How dare you underrate these classics!

Dude, I probably love Hall of the Mountain King and Handful of Rain (what happened to The Wake of Magellan in place 5? How dare you underrate that?) as much as anybody else in the world does. I know them forwards and backwards if you wake me up in the middle of the night. We're talking about my favorite band here, almost every Savatage album is a holy gospel to me.

I just don't hand out grades like 10/10 too often. In my book, less than 30 albums in history are worthy of the 10/10 grading. Three of those are Savatage albums. No other band has made more than two in my book.

mordred wrote:

Black Axe wrote:

mordred wrote:4. Hall of the Mountain King (1987) 9/10
6. Handful of Rain (1994) 8/10
7. The Dungeons are Calling (1984) 8/10
8. Poets and Madmen (2001) 7/10

How dare you underrate these classics!

Dude, I probably love Hall of the Mountain King and Handful of Rain (what happened to The Wake of Magellan in place 5? How dare you underrate that?) as much as anybody else in the world does.

Your 7 and 8's don't support your claim. Because I would rate HoR 9.5 were PaM en HotMK get 10's. I rate TWoM an 8 as well due to Jon's rapping on Paragons of Innocence.

Black Axe wrote:

mordred wrote:

Black Axe wrote:
How dare you underrate these classics!

Dude, I probably love Hall of the Mountain King and Handful of Rain (what happened to The Wake of Magellan in place 5? How dare you underrate that?) as much as anybody else in the world does.

Your 7 and 8's don't support your claim. Because I would rate HoR 9.5 were PaM en HotMK get 10's. I rate TWoM an 8 as well due to Jon's rapping on Paragons of Innocence.

It's not 7's and 8's, it's a 9 and an 8. Poets and Madmen gets 7/10, I don't love that as much since it has 2 or 3 tracks that are not fantastic.

My rating system is as follows:

1 = a personal insult
2 = Absolutely horrible in every aspect
3 = Really fucking bad
4 = Bad on the whole, but a couple of tracks might be OK
5 = average
6 = good
7 = really fucking good
8 = fantastic, every self respecting metal head must own
9 = near perfect album, a masterpiece, a timeless and immortal classic etc
10 = Gutter Ballet

mordred wrote:It's not 7's and 8's, it's a 9 and an 8. Poets and Madmen gets 7/10, I don't love that as much since it has 2 or 3 tracks that are not fantastic.

My rating system is as follows:

1 = a personal insult
2 = Absolutely horrible in every aspect
3 = Really fucking bad
4 = Bad on the whole, but a couple of tracks might be OK
5 = average
6 = good
7 = really fucking good
8 = fantastic, every self respecting metal head must own
9 = near perfect album, a masterpiece, a timeless and immortal classic etc
10 = Gutter Ballet

I see. Then this is what I'm saying:

11/10 Handful Of Rain
11/10 Poets And Madmen
11/10 The Wake of Magellan
11/10 Edge of Thorns
11/10 Hall of the Mountain King
11/10 The Dungeons Are Calling
10/10 Gutter Ballet
6/10 Siren (Good on the whole, but a couple of tracks might be bad)
1/10 Fight for the Rock

Need to give Streets another listen (been 4 years or so ) and I still need to get Dead Winter Dead and Power of the Night.

Fine, if you think I underappreciate HOTMK and HOR then feel free to call me out on it, it's not a competition who likes an album the most anyway. I know they are albums I will never stop listening to.

You know, 10/10's don't come easily. Black Sabbath is one of the best bands in the history of heavy metal, they never did one single album I could award 10/10. Several 9's but no 10. Candlemass did two 10's, that's incredible. Judas Priest did one 10. Iron Maiden too. Running Wild, Manowar, Mercyful Fate, King Diamond, Manilla Road and Queensrÿche did one 10 each. Savatage did a shocking three 10's, which is unmatched.

PS. Power of the Night is like Sirens but not quite as good, title song is amazing though. Dead Winter Dead is like The Wake of Magellan but more symphonic and not as guitar oriented. Not quite as good, but really fucking good still.

mordred wrote:Savatage did a shocking three 10's, which is unmatched.

At least four bands match that for me.

But we do agree that Savatage are and were awesome.

Sirens ,Dungeons ,Power and Hall for me. Gutter and Streets are cool as well but it had no

RRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE

RAGE RAGE RAGE RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!

Witchkiller wrote:Sirens ,Dungeons ,Power and Hall for me. Gutter and Streets are cool as well but it had no

RRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE

RAGE RAGE RAGE RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!

Except Gutter Ballet, which has Rage AND war!

mordred wrote:You know, 10/10's don't come easily. Black Sabbath is one of the best bands in the history of heavy metal, they never did one single album I could award 10/10. Several 9's but no 10. Candlemass did two 10's, that's incredible. Judas Priest did one 10. Iron Maiden too. Running Wild, Manowar, Mercyful Fate, King Diamond, Manilla Road and Queensrÿche did one 10 each. Savatage did a shocking three 10's, which is unmatched.

But not all people award these scales the same, a 10/10 Savatage album could be equivalent of a 5/10 when someone compares it to their favorite albums of other bands.

Black Axe wrote:But we do agree that Savatage are and were awesome.

Yeah, let's drink to that.

What do you think of Savatage spinoffs like Doctor Butcher, Jon Oliva's Pain, Circle II Circle etc?

Too much Savatage avatars in this thread (just like a iron maiden one)

mordred wrote:

Black Axe wrote:But we do agree that Savatage are and were awesome.

Yeah, let's drink to that.

What do you think of Savatage spinoffs like Doctor Butcher, Jon Oliva's Pain, Circle II Circle etc?

Doctor Butcher and JOP are both quite uneven. And the JOP records suffer from bad, slightly modernish, (guitar) sounds. I'm not really familiar with CIIC.

The guys should work together in Savatage, that's were their songwriting compliments each other and works best.

Black Axe wrote:

Witchkiller wrote:Sirens ,Dungeons ,Power and Hall for me. Gutter and Streets are cool as well but it had no

RRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE

RAGE RAGE RAGE RAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGE!

Except Gutter Ballet, which has Rage AND war!

wich is cool but not like raaaaaaaaaaaaaaaage................