Rank your top 5 Symphony X albums (and post your top 3 songs from each album)

[EyeballKid]

The Odyssey - The Odyssey, Accolade II, Awakenings
V - Communion and the Oracle, Absence of Light, A Fool's Paradise
Twilight in Olympus - Through the Looking Glass, Orion - The Hunter, Smoke and Mirrors
Divine Wings - Out of the Ashes, The Accolade, Divine Wings
Paradise Lost - Eve of Seduction, Serpent's Kiss, Paradise Lost

 

[Islandstone]

V: Communion and the Oracle, Rediscovery(I+II), Fallen

The Divine Wings of Tragedy: The Divine Wings of Tragedy, The Accolade, Candlelight Fantasia

The Odyssey: The Odyssey, Awakenings, Accolade II

Twilight in Olympus: Through the Looking Glass, Church of the Machine, Orion the Hunter

The Damnation Game: A Winter's Dream Pt.I, The Edge of Forever, A Winter's Dream Pt. II

Not too hard choosing the best 3, the exception being V, where I might just as well put Egypt as number 3. Also was a bit unsure about which album to put second; both Divine Wings and Odyssey have 3 songs which clearly stand out, some good songs( Sins, Lies, Medusa - Inferno, Wicked, King of Terrors), and some not so good/fillers ( Witching Hour - Incantations), so I feel these 2 albums are pretty even. I guess the title track from Divine just edged the other title track, while the first Accolade edges its succedor.

While we're at it, I'll take number 6 and 7 as well, which would be the two newest( not sure which one I prefer tbh).

Paradise Lost: Paradise Lost, Revelation, Walls of Babylon

Iconoclast: When All is Lost, Reign in Madness, Iconoclast


I haven't listened enough to the s/t to rank it.

 

[Detective Clarence Beauregard]

In particular I feel that SX's vocal melodies have gotten consistently worse, with many of them on PL and IC being just plain bad/boring (Set the World on Fire, Domination, Serpent's Kiss...a round of three songs with not a single good melody in sight? Something is wrong.)

Agreed. It's a bit ironic, since I recall a pre-Iconoclast interview where MJR stated that the vocal melodies were "stronger than ever." I think it mainly has to do with the way Russell is delivering the vocal melodies, too; instead of singing them, he's shouting them with more aggression.

I also feel that the rhythm guitar has come to dominate the sound so heavily that the instruments no longer play off of one another - the bass and keys have no room to move, and while you can hear the drums they too have been put into a straightjacket because they must always be on set on 10 to keep up with the endless, dominating guitar.

One of my major complaints, as well. This started on The Odyssey, but its only gotten worse. The bass in particular has very little room to be creative when there's a wall of pummeling rhythm guitar overwhelming it; anything different it could do would be buried in the mix. I understand that MJR wanted to take the band in a more riff-oriented direction, but I think Symphony X's best compositions are those in which all the instruments play a relatively equal part.

And what happened to the bass tone on Iconoclast? It was far smoother on Paradise Lost!

Also note that since Miller's departure, bass harmonics and runs are no longer used to punctuate the instrumentals - listen to the bass in the debut and then on IC, it's night and day.

I have to wonder if this has less to do with LePond's play style and more to do with the overall change in musical styles. One can still make a case that Miller was a more progressively-minded bassist, though. He also played a much larger role in the songwriting process.

So the instrumentals have become heavily geared toward traditional metal, except with prog chops, rather than having the hallmark of a prog instrumental, viz. interesting twists and turns + good arrangements.

I would kill to hear an instrumental section like that found in Divine Wings' title track again. So many different styles and sounds in that, compared to something like Iconoclast's title track, which while solid for metal, is a bit one-dimensional by comparison.

 

[LittleTortillaBoy]

V - Fallen, Egypt, Communion and the Oracle
The Odyssey - The Odyssey, The Accolade II, Inferno,
The Divine Wings of Tragedy - The Divine Wings of Tragedy, The Accolade, Candlelight Fantasia
Twilight in Olympus - Through the Looking Glass, Church of the Machine, Smoke and Mirrors
Iconoclast - Iconoclast, When All is Lost, Dehumanized

 

[Bluefish]

1. The Divine Wings of Tragedy (The Divine Wings of Tragedy, Of Sins and Shadows, Out of the Ashes)

2. Paradise Lost (Oculus ex Inferni, Set the World on Fire (The Lie of Lies), Revelation (Divus Pennae ex Tragoedia))

3. Twilight in Olympus (Smoke and Mirrors, Church of the Machine, In the Dragon's Den)

4. Iconoclast (Iconoclast, The End of Innocence, Light Up The Night)

5. V (Prelude, Evolution (The Grand Design), Fallen)

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

But, do you give up on Beethoven because you don't like his Fugue?

But his fugue is awesome. How dare you man. That's Blasphemy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbEjLMm1SHM

 

[Baroque]

But his fugue is awesome. How dare you man. That's Blasphemy.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NbEjLMm1SHM

I never said I disliked it In general it seems to not be as well liked as his other works though, I was making a point.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

I never said I disliked it In general it seems to not be as well liked as his other works though, I was making a point.

In general generally has its general head up its own general ass. Beethoven knew this, as do I.

 

[Baroque]

Fine. I don't like it all that much. And you're a dick who sounds like his head is pretty far up his own ass himself. But who cares?

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

Fine. I don't like it all that much. And you're a dick who sounds like his head is pretty far up his own ass himself. But who cares?

And it's the newer asshole fans like yourself that the band now caters to to give you the bombastic, more commercial metal that has turned off so many fans who have been with the band from the beginning. I hope you're proud of yourself.

 

[Sauna]

Fine. I don't like it all that much. And you're a dick who sounds like his head is pretty far up his own ass himself. But who cares?

And it's the newer asshole fans like yourself that the band now caters to to give you the bombastic, more commercial metal that has turned off so many fans who have been with the band from the beginning. I hope you're proud of yourself.

"Your tastes differ from mine, shame on you!"

I don't abide blaming the fans for the direction the band has taken. SX gets to choose what kind of music they make, no one has a gun to their heads. If indeed the guys are just making the kind of stuff they think will get them the most money (which I doubt), then choosing to do so is still their choice, and it's the band you should be mad at, not the fans. The fans are just a bunch of people who enjoy the music, I don't think that warrants being called an asshole.

 

[EyeballKid]

Amen to that, Sauna.

 

[UnholyCrusada]

I don't abide blaming the fans for the direction the band has taken. SX gets to choose what kind of music they make, no one has a gun to their heads. If indeed the guys are just making the kind of stuff they think will get them the most money (which I doubt), then choosing to do so is still their choice, and it's the band you should be mad at, not the fans. The fans are just a bunch of people who enjoy the music, I don't think that warrants being called an asshole.

Agreed.

Honestly, it's SX's own decision on what kind of music they want to create, and labeling fans who haven't been around for that long as the "root-of-the-problem" so to speak is just completely off-base. Take me for example, I'm a "newer" fan to their music, though I would say I do prefer most of the older material overall.

I may not be able to say "I liked them before they were cool" or some such crap, and I'm terribly sorry for only having discovered them in the last few years (after all, it's apparently such a travesty in the world of the internet for someone to not have been on board with a widely-recognized band since the beginning and call themselves a fan!), but if you're going to lump me and all the other post-2007 SX fans together and say that it's because of US that the band has headed in a different musical direction, then all I can say is that's some pretty faulty reasoning you've got there.

 

[AsoTamaki]

To be fair, he said that it's because of people like you ...not because of you specifically. And it's true. Maybe they aren't assholes, but it is their fault. If everyone was all "wow, this sucks" when PL came out and the more mainstream metal fans continued to ignore the band, then I highly doubt there would have been an Iconoclast that sounds like the Iconoclast we have today. Instead, Symphony X got a bunch of new "metal" fans and made an album that catered to them.

 

[UnholyCrusada]

^ I realize that, however his statement towards Baroque seemed as though he was implying it otherwise.

I'm not trying to start a big argument here, I'm just saying it doesn't make much sense to blame an entire, broad demographic for the band taking a set direction musically. I'm sure there's probably a lot more going on behind the scenes in the band than we know about that's contributed to the current, more-straightforward sound.

While we're on the subject, I personally don't mind the new direction SX has taken, but I do agree that the older, more symphonic/progressive/neoclassical sound was better for them, and I do understand how some people may feel alienated as a result. I just think there's a better way to go about this business than to start bashing people.

 

[AsoTamaki]

Yeah, I hear you. We're cool. The band or at least some members of the band clearly enjoy the new direction so it's not like it's all because of the fans anyway. Maybe if PL bombed, they would've just disbanded. Who knows.

 

[Baroque]

I don't care what some Symphony X 'purist' thinks, as I've said before. He's just bitter and resistant to change. I like Symphony X's newer stuff as well as their older stuff. If you see the other thread, I listed V as my favorite SX album. If you want to go older than that, fine DWoT is also in my top 5. So is PL and Iconoclast, but so what, who cares what I like? To blame 'people like me' for making SX 'suck' and call me an asshole based on my musical preferences just shows how he thinks of himself as better than other people for liking different music than himself, and how close minded his musical tastes are. Again I say, who cares?

I probably have just as much classical music training as this dude does if not more, it doesn't stop me from enjoying banging my head too.

 

[Postulate]

Yes, let's all get along. I'm not crazy about the new SX, but I'm not mad at them or any of the fans. Just because they have chosen to make a style of music I'm not crazy about doesn't mean that anyone has done something wrong - plenty of other fish in the sea.

 

[Prismatic Sphere]

To be fair, he said that it's because of people like you ...not because of you specifically. And it's true. Maybe they aren't assholes, but it is their fault. If everyone was all "wow, this sucks" when PL came out and the more mainstream metal fans continued to ignore the band, then I highly doubt there would have been an Iconoclast that sounds like the Iconoclast we have today. Instead, Symphony X got a bunch of new "metal" fans and made an album that catered to them.

Thank you for taking an objective look at what I wrote. ^That's basically the long and the short of it.

As I said, I hardly post here anymore because of knee jerk reactions by the growing number of newer fans to people who prefer the older material. And I only got personal with the guy because he called me a dick. I've long outgrown flame wars; so I hope people can keep it interesting without being like that guy, who IMO gives you newer fans a bad name.

 

[TrapsMaster]

Why so many people bitching on PL and Iconoclast? It`s totally different style than the other albums, yea, but in my opinion they`re much better. Why?
First: THAT`S STILL PROGRESSIVE METAL! I don`t know - you really don`t see that? It`s still progressive metal, but also heavy/power. Of course, less progressive than before.
Two: Pointless solos dissapeared. My God, most of old songs got so many pointless solos, they`re starting from nowhere and ending with no reason.
Three: New style is very dynamic, but also melodic and so damn good! It`s hard to do a cover of SX music, but... "Seven" it`s just impossible to play! Wow!
Four: Lyrics are different? Really? They`re still full of words "fire", "flame", "burning", "hell", "sky", "lies", "rise", "soul", "machine", "flesh", "god", "war", "curse", "fall", "desire", "all", "forever", "knees", "plague/infection", "blood", "dark", "eyes"... That`s SX dictionary.

I love only few old songs: "Church of the Machine" "The Divine Wings of Tragedy" "Inferno (Unleash the Fire)" "Evolution (The Grand Design)" "Sea of Lies" and "Masquerade"