Whatever those five songs are (I'd say 2-3 reach greatness), none of them touch a song like Bridge of Death, and putting aside Black Arrow, the weakest song on Hail to England is still kickass. Battle Cry has a slight homogeneity and filler issue, which is why it's #16 in my list, but even there I'd say Last Rites and In the Arena are as spirited and glorious as anything in the Cirith Ungol discography (not even mentioning that they're simply better).
Ample Destruction, great as it can get, is still at least half-comprised of 6~7/10 tracks. If it wasn't for The Crucifix and Symphony of Terror carrying the USPM flag proudly, you wouldn't even have to think before putting it way below a stylistically comparable album like the Metal Church S/T.
HEY let's autism this one out
that run from 'generally hostile' through 'cardiac arrest' is obviously a little clunkier than the rest but still insanely powerful and spirited and exhilarating - at worst a strong 7 ('the watching' would prob be my pick as weakest) but generally 8/10 level - while the other five are 9-10 territory ('symphony of terror' probs being the weakest and 'harder than steel' the best).
forget 'death of the sun' and the instrumental, neither of which are bad so much as comparatively unnotable, and you have pretty much wall to wall 9-10s on KotD. i'll accept the first two as 8s if you're being a curmudgeonly fuckface. title track, 'finger of scorn' and 'master of the pit' are obvious 10s, i'd give 'cirith ungol' a 10 as well but a 9 is acceptable i suppose.
BATTLE CRY isn't that far away. the bookends are outstanding, 'last rites' isn't far behind and i'll stick up for 'die by the blade' as an underrated 9. the rest ranges from 6-8 though. i guess i find it overall more samey and formulaic than the cream of the crop - 'the axeman' for example is really beloved but it's just too stiff and basic for me. i suspect you specifically would get off on this album less if it didn't have that early thrash tinge to some of the riffs, which i don't think really suits them anyway (actually, i don't understand why you'd shit on manilla road's dubious incorporating of thrash influences but then jerk off over, say, the title track on here).
comparing anything with 'bridge of death' is just mean, stop being mean.
i know i started it, fuck you. KING OF THE DEAD obvs dips lower than HAIL TO ENGLAND does but it also has a much greater quantity of next level stuff (as does AMPLE DESTRUCTION - i can see why someone who incorrectly thinks songs like 'warfare' are 6/10 would feel otherwise though), so it still wins for me by fairly wide margin. if you took the best of HtE and SotH and put them together minus the fat, then maybe it'd threaten my top spot here, but it still probably wouldn't be enough.
i've warmed toward METAL CHURCH quite a lot lately and i can hear the craft and charisma, as well as certain similarities to panzer, but i don't think it's directly comparable to AD in tone and i don't get swept up in it in the same way. i'd say that one drops off a bit on the B-side too and from a lower ceiling, but i recognise that album's probably just less my thing than the other stuff mentioned here. there's just something kinda distanced about it, hard to explain. maybe i'll get over it.
