Maybe for their 40 year anniversary they will release an extra 8-disc box with all their awesome songs recorded half tempo and played on accordion. That's gonna be great \m/

jokes aside I always wondered why The House Of Atreus, and even Invictus were so popular. They're the beginning of the end in my opinion, i rather like VS earlier stuff

Written by Ansercanagicus on 13.09.2019 at 11:15

Maybe for their 40 year anniversary they will release an extra 8-disc box with all their awesome songs recorded half tempo and played on accordion. That's gonna be great \m/

Yeah can't wait for that one...

Written by Ansercanagicus on 13.09.2019 at 11:15

jokes aside I always wondered why The House Of Atreus, and even Invictus were so popular. They're the beginning of the end in my opinion, i rather like VS earlier stuff

I just think David and Edwards song writing skills were at their peak at that point, those albums also had a great production value. I also did love both Marriages albums but in time my love has faded a bit for those two. Great albums but can't compete with the Invictus and Atreus.
What are your top 5 VS albums?

Written by majormalfunction on 15.09.2019 at 13:14

What are your top 5 VS albums?

I don't think VS has any great album, since they're always filled with a mix of awesome songs on one side, and also lame fillers on the other. I can tell you that I like some songs a lot: On The Wings Of The Night, Chains Of Fire, The Burning Of Rome, The Evil In Her Eyes, The Angel Of Light, Life Of Crime, I Will Come For You, Blood And Gasoline, Transfiguration... So mostly things centered round 1990. So I'd say:
1) Noble Savage
2) Age Of Consent
3) Mariage I
4) Mariage II
5) Life Among The Ruins (maybe that's allreay hard to pick something)

Killer riffs, awesome groove, melodies and atmosphere with the synths and all... But quite mysteriously I find VS to be rather inconsistent. For there's also a bunch of songs with stupid lyrics, repetitive parts, bad sound, too long and boring ballads or anthems... I don't know how they write, it's strange. But they still managed to create great songs anyway, so...

Later on with Invictus it's like they decided to mimic Manowar:
- DeFeis' singing gets overly constricted and aggressive, (all the "wraa, grr, hhar" on some syllables) just like Eric Adams. Even the sound processing is similar. And that makes it, but it sounds ridiculous on the Vintage Box for instance.
- Harmonically the song gets less interesting, less colorfull, with C-D-Em for main chords
- The spoken parts telling the tales of the legend of the myths of the hystory of... can't convince me at all. I can't take the lyrics either
- the Greec/Roman god imagery is a gimmick too for that matter.
- I find the production to be off too, the different instruments don't blend, the choirs sound weak

So It's not for me, I can't get into that. Fortunatelly there's a bit for everyone's taste in VS discography. I prefer the hard rock/heavy metal era over the epic symphonic power one.

Written by Ansercanagicus on 15.09.2019 at 15:03

I don't think VS has any great album, since they're always filled with a mix of awesome songs on one side, and also lame fillers on the other. I can tell you that I like some songs a lot: On The Wings Of The Night, Chains Of Fire, The Burning Of Rome, The Evil In Her Eyes, The Angel Of Light, Life Of Crime, I Will Come For You, Blood And Gasoline, Transfiguration... So mostly things centered round 1990. So I'd say:
1) Noble Savage
2) Age Of Consent
3) Mariage I
4) Mariage II
5) Life Among The Ruins (maybe that's allreay hard to pick something)

Killer riffs, awesome groove, melodies and atmosphere with the synths and all... But quite mysteriously I find VS to be rather inconsistent. For there's also a bunch of songs with stupid lyrics, repetitive parts, bad sound, too long and boring ballads or anthems... I don't know how they write, it's strange. But they still managed to create great songs anyway, so...

Later on with Invictus it's like they decided to mimic Manowar:
- DeFeis' singing gets overly constricted and aggressive, (all the "wraa, grr, hhar" on some syllables) just like Eric Adams. Even the sound processing is similar. And that makes it, but it sounds ridiculous on the Vintage Box for instance.
- Harmonically the song gets less interesting, less colorfull, with C-D-Em for main chords
- The spoken parts telling the tales of the legend of the myths of the hystory of... can't convince me at all. I can't take the lyrics either
- the Greec/Roman god imagery is a gimmick too for that matter.
- I find the production to be off too, the different instruments don't blend, the choirs sound weak

So It's not for me, I can't get into that. Fortunatelly there's a bit for everyone's taste in VS discography. I prefer the hard rock/heavy metal era over the epic symphonic power one.

Wow. Didn't expect such a evaluatived response, thanks for that!

As already made clear in the list introduction, I can't agree with your opinion but I fully understand your thoughts. I agree with many of your points if we start with Visions and Eden and onward, at that point everything seemed overdone and out of proportion. However Invictus and Atreus was the peak of that kind of epic and mythical based power metal.. excellent musicianship, raw production without overdone choirs and just filled to the brim with metal anthems. The reusage of melodies from the Marriage albums is a stroke of brilliance in my opinion, makes all those five albums a coherent whole. So we are pretty far away apart with our opinions