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Is Avantasia considered rock? It's more along the lines of metal...

Also look into Blind Guardian's "Nightfall in Middle Earth". You should be able to guess what it's about from the title.

EDIT: If I recall, Blind Guardian is quite similar to Symphony X. And Avantasia is pretty similar to BG. So you should like both.

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I know little about Queensryche, but they have their Operation: Mindcrime and Operation: Mindcrime II. The first is supposed to be better from what I've read.

Wikipedia says:

Operation: Mindcrime is Queensrÿche's third full-length album, which was released on May 3, 1988. It is a concept album about a man becoming disillusioned with American society, and joining in a conspiratorial plot to assassinate its corrupt leaders, with spoken dialogue between songs that advances the story and ties the songs together.

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Dream Theater - Metropolis Part 2: Scenes From a Memory (Part 1 can be found as a 10 minute track on their album "Images & Words")

Spock's Beard - Snow

Genesis - The Lamb Lies Down on Broadway (this is a headache to figure out, but has to be mentioned when you talk about concept albums)

Trans-Siberian Orchestra, while primarily doing Christmas stuff, always does concept albums with storylines. They have 3 Christmas albums:

Christmas Eve & Other Stories

The Christmas Attic

The Lost Christmas Eve

Also 1 non-Christmas disc, called "Beethoven's Last Night." A bit melodramatic at times, but good stuff nonetheless. Probably more to come, but this was off the top of my head.

Ayreon - The Human Equation - Prog album about a guy that gets into a car wreck. Different singers portray different characters while he's in a coma and the story comes out. Good music all around- features the singers from Dream Theater, Opeth, Saviour Machine (obscure band specializing in epic stuff), among others.

Alice Cooper - The Last Temptation I don't know that I'd call it epic, but it is rock and does have a storyline.

Oh, and also (done after this one...):

Opeth - Ghost Reveries Apparently a concept album, though I haven't looked into the story of it yet. Only got it recently.

Coheed & Cambria - Good Apollo I'm Burning Star IV, Vol I Also a recent purchase. Hope this doesn't get me branded as OMGEMOFGT. I do enjoy the album so far, though. Oddly enough, a lot of their lead guitar lines remind me of the Minibosses- I think it's something in the production. They draw comparisons to Rush particularly for the guys voice. Don't know what the hell the story is about, but there certainly seems to be one.

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Blind Guardian's "Nightfall in Middle Earth". You should be able to guess what it's about from the title.
Nightwish- Ghost Love Score

Nightwish- Creek Mary's Blood

Also,

Iron Maiden - The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner (on the 'Powerslave' album - it may be fairly tough to get into on first listen, so I'd advise following along with the lyrics)

Iron Maiden - The Clansman

Helloween - Keeper Of The Seven Keys (on the 'Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part II' album, same deal with the Iron Maiden song)

Ayreon - The Universal Migrator (album - just amazing)

Ayreon - The Human Equation (album - a metal opera!)

Angra - Temple of Shadows (album - this is a must-have album)

Manowar - Achilles, Agony and Ecstasy In Eight Parts (from the 'Triumph of Steel' album)

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Ayreon - The Universal Migrator (album - just amazing)

Is that the one that starts with some business about resurrecting backwards in time or something? "No one has ever ___ this far before..."?

I only own Human Equation, and while I liked what I heard on Migrator musically the lyrics were tough to get by sometimes. Then again, Human Equation has that "Motion personified alpha" line so I guess one just makes peace with it, eh?

EDIT: Want to emphasize in my previous post- the Dream Theater album is my own "must own" of that list- I think they're all worth the price of admission, but that is arguably the best album of their career, and I feel describing it as a masterpiece isn't an overstatement. There's a live DVD of the entire album available that is also worthwhile- if for nothing else than to see that they really can pull it off live (though Live at Budokan is a much better DVD production).

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Is that the one that starts with some business about resurrecting backwards in time or something? "No one has ever ___ this far before..."?

I only own Human Equation, and while I liked what I heard on Migrator musically the lyrics were tough to get by sometimes. Then again, Human Equation has that "Motion personified alpha" line so I guess one just makes peace with it, eh?

EDIT: Want to emphasize in my previous post- the Dream Theater album is my own "must own" of that list- I think they're all worth the price of admission, but that is arguably the best album of their career, and I feel describing it as a masterpiece isn't an overstatement. There's a live DVD of the entire album available that is also worthwhile- if for nothing else than to see that they really can pull it off live (though Live at Budokan is a much better DVD production).

I own all of the Ayreon albums - I'm a big Ayreon fan, and have friends who're even crazier about them than me. The split seems to be between those two albums though - personally I'm one that leans towards the Universal Migrator, since it captures more of that epic sound that I love.

As for Dream Theater, I feel there're other better Dream Theater albums, especially Images & Words. Also, their new live DVD/CD "Score XX" is a great supplement. This thread is more about epic though.

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Television - Marquee Moon

Van Halen - Van Halen

Pink Floyd - Wish You Were Here

I kinda took from three different books there, but the Lamb Dies Down On Broadway by Genesis mentioned above is always a great selection and quite possibly the best one so far in this thread.

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Symphony X - The Odyssey, as already mentioned

Dream Theater - A Change of Seasons

Dream Theater - Octavarium

Dream Theater - Six Degrees of Inner Turbulence

Dream Theater - finally Free (part of Metropolis part II)

Dream Theater - Learning to Live

Evanescence - Your Star

Christina Aguilera - The Right Man

Andromeda - II=I

Andromeda - Extension of the Wish

Shadow Gallery - First Light

Shadow Gallery - Cliffhanger

Liquid Tension Experiment - When the Water Breaks

Genesis - Selling England by the Pound

Pink Floyd - Shine on your Crazy Diamond

Steve Vai - Melissa's Garden

Porcupine Tree - Arriving Somewhere but not Here

and... well, as far as concept album are concerned Symphony X The Mythology Suite really did it for me.

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As far as albums go:

Dream Theater - Scenes from a Memory

Ayreon - The Human Equation (my favorite album ever)

Ayreon - Into the Electric Castle

Ayreon - Universal Migrator

Queensryche - Operation Mindcrime (only part 1, part 2 is worthless)

Blind Guardian - Nightfall in Middle Earth

Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Christmas Eve and Other Stories

Trans-Siberian Orchestra - Beethoven's Last Night

Not yet mentioned:

Shadow Gallery - Tyranny/Room V...put together, it's a fantastic 2.5 hour prog metal story.

Aina - Metal Opera (it's, like, a metal opera)

Emperor - Prometheus: The Discipline of Fire and Demise (if you like black metal)

Lots of good songs mentioned already, but also:

Iced Earth - Gettysburg: The Devil to Pay, Hold at All Costs, & High Water Mark (classic/power metal, 3 parts, 30 minutes total, you will probably learn more about Gettysburg in this song than you did in history class)

Nile - In Their Darkened Shrines (death metal, 4 parts)

It's funny how about 7 of my favorite 10 albums are concept albums.

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I like this thread.
Me too, but I'm beginning to think that my internet connection doesn't.

Good thread. The Ayreon and other power metal albums are seconded. Also try out some Opeth; not everyone's into growling, but if you're ok with that, there are some epic songs in their catalogue.

(Being a vgm site, how about some of the Dwelling of Duels entries? there are some damn epic Metroid guitar mixes there =D)

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More epic metal:

Helloween - The Dark Ride

Axel Rudy Pell - every single album

Edguy - The Piper Never dies (on the Hellfire club album)

Edguy - The Pharaoh (on the Mandrake album)

Bruce Dickinson - Tears of a dragon

Deep Purple - Child in time (can't go wrong with this one)

Iron Maiden - Pashendale

Gamma Ray - Rebellion in Dreamland

Hammerfall - Glory to the brave

Therion - To mega therion

Therion - Ginnungagap

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This thread rocks.

*gets shot*

More seriously though, I'm gonna need to check out some of these guys. I can't have only three(okay, four if you count Nightwish but so far I only like two of their songs) power/melodic/speed/whatever the fuck they call themselves metal bands!

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You want to hear something awesome?

Look up Babylon Mystery Orchestra.

By way or warning, it's probably my least favorite in my nearly 1000 discs, just to emphasize how much I do not like it. I own it through only the blackest, most foul deed of trickery and deceit, but regardless, I am glad I do, in a terrible way.

To be fair, it's really just the guys voice that makes it stand out. When I hear him, all I can think of is that "goth" sketch from SNL with the kid in his garage getting beat up by his jock brother. Seriously.

If anyone hasn't checked out Avenged Sevenfold's last album City of Evil, I highly recommend it. Although, there is no definitive storyline to follow, the entire album as a whole unfolds like an epic. Subsequently, I learned about it by reading Akira Yamaoka's blog.

Yeah, I like these guys. They aren't the best songwriters ever- that is, while they play very well and write good parts, sometimes I feel like the songs aren't the most distinctive and can tend to run together (but that's not really a problem when you're looking for something "epic" is it?). But, it's fun and very nice to hear good technical work in popular rock again.

Couple others to point out:

Echolyn - Mei The whole disc is one song, doesn't get much more epic than that. It's quite a listen, and while these guys seem to be little known, I really like what I've heard.

Neal Morse - Testimony a note on this one, it's the primary songwriter/singer from Spock's Beard, who has gone solo since converting to Christianity and this album is about his conversion. If that subject matter would get to you, you won't enjoy the album- but, it really is a good album on its own merits. The same kind of prog/pop Spock's Beard put out, essentially. Also, Mike Portnoy from Dream Theater handled the drum duties so can't go wrong there.

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