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Greatest Song to Close an Album


Requiem

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While discussing great albums in history, @True Belief made a call that the final song on Queensryche's 'Operation Mindcrime', 'Eyes of a Stranger' was the greatest track to close an album in metal. 

We thought this would be a great topic for the forum, because as we sat there, sipping our Budweisers, we couldn't come up with many off the cuff. So which songs do you think are the best at ending albums: quality, impact, finality etc. 

I'm going to start with 'Thousand-Fold Death' from Marduk's 'Frontschwein' album. At this stage in the drunken process this is the one that stands out. What do you think are some of the best album closers in metal? 

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I'd say these are my favourite Album closers (no particular order);

Judas Priest: Jugulator - Cathedral Spires

Iron Maiden: Powerslave - Rime of the Ancient Mariner

Black Sabbath: Sabotage - The Writ

Dream Theater: Black Clouds and Silver Linings - The Count of Tuscany

Dream Theater: Octavarium - Octavarium

Iced Earth: The Glorious Burden - High Water Mark

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Bathory - Twilight of the Gods - Hammerheart
MayheM - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas - De Mysteriis Dom Sathanas
ManOwaR - Battle Hymns - Battle Hymn
Slayer - Reign in Blood - Raining Blood
 
As for, Sorrow, it's the best song on Pink Floyd's worst album, IMO.
Man, Raing Blood totally slipped my mind. Hands down one of the best closers, both on the album and live. First time I saw them on the Seasons tour they closed with Blood.
True MLR was not Floyd's best but "Learning to Fly" is the song that got me hooked so that album is pretty close to me.

Sent from my SM-G955U using Tapatalk

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Here are some genius final tracks: 

Emperor - 'Inno a Satana' from 'In the Nightside Eclipse'. An epic yet energetic ritual. 

My Dying Bride - 'For My Fallen Angel' from 'Like Gods of the Sun'. A romantic keyboard and violin finale. 

Moonspell - 'Full Moon Madness' from 'Irreligious'. A huge epic closer of gothic metal with a mesmerising ending. 

Fleshgod Apocalypse - 'King' from 'King'. A beautifully played piano piece is the perfect panacea to the symphonic death metal of the album. 

Type O Negative - 'Haunted' from 'October Rust'. A romantic and epic ode to ghostly love. 

Rotting Christ - '666' from 'Kata Ton Daimona Eaytoy'. Brooding and dark with a slow building riff. 

Blind Guardian - 'And Then There Was Silence' from 'A Night at the Opera'. A 14 minute epic with hair raising riffs and vocal lines. 

 

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A few more then.

Type O Negative - Gravitational Constant - Slow, Deep, & Hard

A hardcore/doom onslaught with Pete's typically creative lyrics. Lot's of Carnivore in this sound and I love it.

Carnivore - World Wars III & IV - Carnivore

Hardcore/thrash with some doom elements? If TON meets thrash sounds cool to you it's because that combo is indeed awesome. This track closes out the album perfectly.

Bathory - One Rode to Asa Bay/Outro - Hammerheart

Stretching this a bit but the epic triumph that is Hammerheart ends with this 10 minute epic. Everything great about the Viking Metal sound is here and you owe it to yourself not only to hear this song but the whole album.

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My pick for one of the best closing tracks on a metal album would be "Decrepitude II" off of Burzum's Filosofem.  To me, the track not only complements the ambient fade out of the album (though with prominent guitars, thereby reminding the listener that it is not entirely ambient), but also maintains and encapsulates the sense pained romanticism expressed in the rest of the album.  Though it is merely an instrumental repeat of "Decrepitude I," the repetition and lack of vocals causes one to reconsider and contemplate the ideas of its namesake.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

Darkness of Blood - Overture in Veloria (low quality youtube video)

Wolves bay in an intro redolent of Mr. Crowley, followed by vampiric metal majesty, then a languorous dusky embrace, finished finally with a forceful phantasmagasm.

 

Theatres des Vampires - Dracole Waide

An epic homage to the one and only Dracula.

 

others that come to mind:

Burzum - Tomhet

My Dying Bride - Black God

Cradle of Filth - Lustmord and Wargasm

Cradle of Filth - Tortured Soul Asylum

 

 

 

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Ok, so the closing (and title) track on Slayer's 'Seasons in the Abyss' is superb, a huge build to a consistent structure before reverting back to the epic nature of how it starts to end the track, one of my all time favourite Slayer tracks.

 

'Crucifixation' is a great end to Deicide's debut record, combining the relentless energy of the whole release with some well placed sonics in the build up to almost politely rein things in.  It is so indicative of the whole album's auditory assault and bile spewing attitude that it could sit anywhere in the record but I like the way it leaves the door open for the continuation of the nightmare on 'Legion' some 2 years after.

 

Finally (for now) I love the end Enslaved's 'Axioma Ethica Odini'.  The track 'Lightening' has so much positive energy flowing through its progressive and uplifting riff that I smile every time I hear it.

 

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  • 2 weeks later...
On 5/19/2019 at 3:57 AM, Dark30 said:

For me, it's Iced Earth, The Glorious Burden's last three songs on the civil war. In second place would be Ashes in Your Mouth on Megadeth's Symphony of Destruction. It's one of the best songs on the CD and its the last song.

Great call on the Gettysburg Trilogy from Iced Earth. Those tracks are epic - Ripper Owens is just next level. Actually it annoys me a bit that Jon Schaffer wouldn't try to do more in the line of those historical narrative driven songs. 'The Glorious Burden' is by far my favourite Iced Earth album. 

 

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For me, it's Jane Doe form the album Jane Doe by Converge.

But if you tell me that Converge it's not valid since they are half HxC half Metal (and this is a metal forum hahaha) then I would say Marrow from the album Clearing The Path To Ascend by Yob. I had the honor of hearing it live and was a total life-changer (FunFact: I had the opportunity to talk to Mike after the show but I was so nervous I finally just asked him for a photo and shook his hand [total shame on me haha]).

 

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12 minutes ago, Kilian_Leon said:

For me, it's Jane Doe form the album Jane Doe by Converge.

But if you tell me that Converge it's not valid since they are half HxC half Metal (and this is a metal forum hahaha)

Old Converge is great. "When Forever Comes Crashing" is one of my favorite albums. We talk about plenty of stuff with hardcore influences here, no worries on that account.

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On 6/11/2019 at 2:38 PM, Dark30 said:

Thanks True Requiem. Iced Earth is awesome. I love Ripper's voice. I had the honor of seeing them front row on The Glorious Burden tour and got to meet them. Very nice folks. One of my favorite concert ever. I was so into that album.

Ice Earth Ripper.jpg

Iced Earth Jon.jpg

Hey that’s awesome! Sorry I didn’t see this post until now. Anyway, those photos are cool. Too bad they couldn’t carry on together. Stu Block just doesn’t do it for me. 

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