Ecthelion

Pretty underrated. As for me: Dark Quarterer - s/t Secrecy - Art in Motion

Yeah, people say that they're more dense but the problem is that it's mostly Chuck tripping over himself for most of the album trying to do these things with it being a massive problem on TSOP with the first half being an attempt at aping a lot of the tech thrash and prog metal of the last decade somewhat unsuccessfully. It manages to pick itself up around Voice of the Soul but hardly to the extent that it makes up for the prior material which is just sluggish and kind of uninteresting in its execution. The fact that superb albums like Elements are derided by comparison is laughable.

Deadly Blessing - Ascend from the Cauldron Pretty impressive power/thrash.

Black metal is easily the most image-conscious of all the trve metal genres and that reflects pretty accurately on the actual music.

8/10 Martin-era Sabbath's pretty great.

I can't call TSOP an album I enjoy due to a lot of the same issues that plague Fragile Art. Plodding, predictable riffing that hardly mixes it up compared to many prog, power and tech thrash albums from the preceding decade. Not to mention that it's influence to tech death is largely overrated considering that if you compared it to even the likes of Atrocity's first two, it would not hold up well under such comparisons. Hell, a part of me hardly considers TSOP an actual tech death album as it shares more in common sonically with the likes of albums like Think This with the difference being that Think This was much better written.

I don't, part of me has always thought that Fragile Art's fame in comparison to a lot of other prog/power is due to Chuck's own cult of personality rather than any merit of the composition. Like, if this was another band's debut, people would criticize it as lacking tightness and having more generic riffing.

One of the most overrated albums of all time along with The Sound of Perseverance.

9/10 They knocked it out of the park with Ripper on that one.

One of the most underrated classic bands out there.

Alright, so here are some recs you may enjoy. Psychotic Waltz - A Social Grace (1990) Anacrusis - Screams and Whispers (1993) Thought Industry - Songs for Insects (1992) Catharsis - Pathways to Wholeness (1995) Also, all of Alabaster's recommendations are on point with Fates Warning being particularly essential as they had a ridiculous run of quality between The Spectre Within and A Pleasant Shade of Grey.

Iron Maiden - Somewhere in Time So much better than Seventh Son.

Helstar - A Distant Thunder You know, given what this band's sound congealed into by the late '80s, this album probably has the most appropriate cover of He's a Woman, She's a Man ever recorded.

Mekong Delta - Kaleidoscope Pathos - Uni versus Universe

Absolute classic.