Care to recommend them to me then? V has pretty much been my all time favorite album since the first time I heard it (hell, it was so awesome I actually listened to the whole thing 3 times in a row non-stop the first day I got it; I've never done that with ANY other album before). If there's anything out there that's as good or even better, I would love to hear it.
I think Seventh Wonder's Mercy Falls album is spectacular. Minus the weird voice acting, I think that album is nearly flawless. Definitely one of my favorites.
Staying in the heavy prog vein, here are a couple that IMO are at least equal, perhaps superior, to V. Fates Warning - A Pleasant Shade of Gray Pendragon - Believe Sieges Even - The Art of Navigating by the Stars IQ - Ever
Most of the albums I would consider of equal quality are not the same style as V, so I'd hesitate making recommendations... but here we go! To name a few: Frost* - Milliontown Pain of Salvation - The Perfect Element Leprous - Bilateral Porcupine Tree - The Incident Opeth - Still Life Even still, V has a bigger scope than most of these albums (recurring themes, etc.); I just love these albums equally (and PoS's TPE more).
The voice acting on Mercy Falls is so cringe worthy, that I had to remove all tracks with voice acting just to enjoy listening to it. Musically, it is a really good album though, especially The Black Parade. I like Waiting in the Wings more though. V is probably my favorite album overall.
The Black Parade is my favorite on that album! And, I just wish there wasn't voice acting in One Last Goodbye. It completely killed the song. I can pretty much skip all the other tracks with voice acting, but damn.
Not my favorite album, but I think its a great album, Love the riffs the keybords, al the sound. That breakdown you mention in Heretic its amazingly heavy, love to pump up the volume in my car when it starts.
For me nothing they do will ever surpass V, but thats just me. I made myself not try to compare Iconoclast to V cause no matter how good it were, V would most likely stump in its face like Edward Norton in Am.Hist.X. That said, Iconoclast has some great songs, but apart from the title track and When all is lost i think their inspiration is somewhere else, and definitely somewhere that wont even return to their glorious V days. Blame the record label, blame their age, blame "maturity" or whatever you like, but for me the magic is over.
I just wish the lyrics were better. That's my main beef with the album. I know in metal there are a lot of cheesy lyrics, but I can't get over it in Iconoclast.
While they didn't bother me at first, some of the lines became more annoying with time (e.g. "We are strong..").
I hated some of the lyrics out of the gate on Iconoclast and won't be listening to it again since there is so many other better discs... I want to give a second recommendation to these 3 fantastic dics... Pain of Salvation - The Perfect Element Leprous - Bilateral Opeth - Still Life
