10 Best Sophomore Albums of a Given Lineup

[Zzzptm]

Got another soul album in my top ten at number 6...



I love this one, start to finish. There's a good deal of entertaining variety on the album, and I'm sure that Led Zeppelin pinched a bit from "I'll Take You There" for their track "Down By the Seaside." For me, the strongest track is the deliberate, purposeful "Respect Yourself" that takes swamp blues to a new level. The Muscle Shoals musicians are in excellent form on this album, and it's a real treat from the Stax catalog.

Oh yeah, it's the second album with the lineup seen on the cover, having replaced one of the singers with the release of the previous album, their first on Stax.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

No. 6

Deep Purple - Fireball



You don't need me to tell you guys that this was the second album by the Mk II line-up of Deep Purple. I much prefer this one to In Rock which, of course, had some good stuff on it but had some filler too! 

They went on to even greater things with Machine Head but that's not really relevant here.

Best Tracks: Fireball, No No No, Anyone's Daughter, Fools

[Charger]

# 5

SAVATAGE - THE WAKE OF MAGELLAN



After Criss Oliva's passing Jon and Paul O'Neill worked through their sorrow and created Handful Of Rain...that album pretty much only featured the two of them playing most of the instruments and Zak somewhat reluctantly came to sing. But after that one they got a steady line up together again and released the SUBERB concept album about a war in Yugoslavia called Dead Winter Dead (which also spawned the massive xmas hit Christmas Eve (Sarajevo 12/24) but only once they renamed the band as Trans Siberian Orchestra) But Savatage returned with yet another fantastic concept album The Wake Of Magellan...Musically bit more complex than it's predecessor and features one of their greatest songs ever Hourglass which features some incredible vocals and masterful playing. But honestly the whole album is incredible. Not a single bad track and a fireworks of progressive heavy metal! Album for the ages this one!

[Zzzptm]

My number five is going with an album that saved my life, so to speak...



Mid-1987, I'm going through a lot of turmoil and needed some help. This album comes out, and it's catchy. I listen in to the lead single, "Touch of Grey" and make a connection. It's helping me over whatever it is I need helping over. A local radio station plays the whole thing one Sunday night and I stay up for it and take it all in - "Throwing Stones" really resonates with me and gives me a smile like I hadn't had in a while. I buy the cassette the next day and discover there's a track on side one that isn't on the LP - "My Brother Esau". Cool. Even better!

So why is this album so much better than the one they put out 6 years prior? Well, that album had songs that were recently written, barely worked on, and just not up to snuff. The Godchaux Era had ended after two disappointing albums and Go to Heaven was barely any better. It was a contractual obligation album, as their contract stipulated another studio release before any more live records could come out. Go to Heaven was banged out and went to the low-mid range of the charts.

In the Dark, however, featured songs that had been worked on in concert for several years, and had been crafted into strong material. I'm glad it came out when it did and I like to play it to remind myself that I got by and I did survive. Thanks, Grateful Dead.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

No. 5

The Stranglers - Suite XVI



Baz Warne joined The Stranglers for the previous album 2004s Norfolk Coast he was the guitarist but did do some vocals on that album. On this album he is the main vocalist as Paul Roberts had left. It's not a bad little album by any means and has a couple of all time favourite songs on it ("Relentless" is just one of their best).

Best Tracks: Unbroken, She's Slipping Away, Bless You (Save You, Spare You, Damn You) and Relentless

[Charger]

Now we're getting to the thick of it here...

#4

IRON MAIDEN - POWERSLAVE




I went a bit different route for my Maiden choice...mainly because I am actually not a big fan of Piece Of Mind part from few select tracks...but with the arrival of Nicko McBrain on drums for that album the classic line up was complete and this is their second outing. And oh boy what an outing it is! One of those truly great albums in the world of heavy metal. There's only one weaker track on this one The Duellists but other than that the album fires on all cylinders including the art! This is Derek Riggs best work and a truly wonderful piece of art! And yet ART! This could be a painting in a museum as far as I'm concerned!

Killer album with killer tracks. Rime Of The Ancient Mariner is still Maiden's best long song they've ever done and have never been able to recapture the magic of it and god knows they've tried.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

Hmm, I have my top 4 sorted and I know which will be No.1... now what order to put the other 3? I shall go with...

No. 4

Iron Maiden - Piece of Mind



Unlike Charger I rather like Piece of Mind and for a long time was my favourite Maiden album, it's slipped a couple of places now but more because I've come to appreciate a couple albums more than I used to. The second album to be graced with the vocals of Bruce Dickinson it was a big step up from the medium-good Number of the Beast. The change in style on Piece was subtle but important as they developed their Prog Metal formula.

Best tracks: Where Eagles Dare, Revelations, Flight of Icarus, Sun and Steel

[Zzzptm]

^ Powerslave was also one I considered, but found a way to get PoM on my list. Powerslave is an AWESOME album, major props to it!

Next up for me. No, literally, my next album is Next at #4:



Yes, Next by Journey.

Before anyone starts running for the barf bucket, look at that band photo: no Steve Perry. 

After dropping a redundant guitarist that appeared on the first album, this is the second album from that streamlined lineup. And while Hustler makes me cringe ever so slightly, the rest of the tracks I enjoy so much, I just leave it out whenever I play through the album and I have a wonderful time. It's spacey, proggy, fluid playing that tends towards the heavier side. It's been panned by pop critics for not having Steve Perry on it, but I consider that a blessing, as the material is well-suited for Gregg Rolie's voice and those instrumental jams are exactly what I'm looking for.

After this, though, it's 3 hard rock/metal masterpieces, without dispute. 

[Vyn]

An old friend of mine's older sister was dating a DJ back in the day. He used to give her records, and she'd give them to me. I still have a nice wlp of Next that came to me via that route. Pretty good tunes on that disk!

[Charger]

And then it's time for the top 3!


# 3

BLAZE BAYLEY - PROMISE & TERROR




After some hiatus (and getting royally screwed over by the record company SPV) Blaze returned in 2007 with a new line up (and his own record company) and a much heavier almost thrash metal sound with The Man Who Would Not Die but then tragedy struck again as Blaze was getting ready to record the follow up his wife and manager and all around great person Debbie suddenly passed away from a brain aneurysm...but Blaze recovered from the loss and channeled his sorrow into what became an absolutely fantastic album Promise & Terror. The final four tracks of the album are a short concept about the passing of Debbie and how he finally became comfortable in darkness. Those four songs alone would have been worthy for this position but adding tracks like Madness & Sorrow, Watching The Night Sky, 1633 and City Of Bones truly make this album a masterpiece.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

No. 3

Iced Earth - Framing Armageddon



This 2007 album is the second album to feature Tim "Ripper" Owens on vocals after the departure of Matt Barlow. His first appearance was on 2004s magnificent The Glorious Burden. Framing Armageddon is part 1 of The Something Wicked This Way Comes story, an expansion of the trilogy of songs that first appeared on the Something Wicked album that came out in 1998 with Barlow on vocals. Sadly Ripper would be replaced by the returning Barlow and part 2 (The Crucible of Man) was a substantial disappointment.

Best tracks: Setian Massacre, Ten Thousand Strong, Framing Armageddon, When Worlds Collide

[Charger]

Holy mackerel KDC! And damnit all to hell that I forgot to include that one!
Hell of an album! Eventhough Tim and I are long time buddies I still managed to leave that one out! The Clouding is my favourite track on that one! Other than that I agree with everything you say. And I have to add it was a real shit move from Jon to fire Tim over an email at christmas....and yes Crucible wasn't even in the same league as this album.

[KiloDeltaCharlie]

^^^
I like the Clouding too, in fact I can't think of a track on it I don't like!!

It is easy to forget stuff, I was struggling to get 10 albums together which weren't just a bands second album and then I suddenly realised I was missing an obvious album a couple of days ago and that's at my #2!

[Zzzptm]

My #3...



Fu Manchu's King of the Road.

Just listen to the opening track guitar fade-in erupting with a sudden explosion of drums, bass, and everything turned up to 11... "Hell on Wheels" shows the world that heavy rock is alive and well and living in desert metal.

I found this some years ago as I was looking around for new heavy rock that wasn't death/black metal or screamo or stuff like that. There were some bands that were loud and heavy, but just not good. Saw a recommendation for Kyuss, but the vocalist for that band just kept pissing me off with his delivery. Loved the band except for that dude. Next band to check out was one that shared a bit of history with Kyuss, Fu Manchu. This was the first album of theirs I tried out and WOW. This one did the trick, all right! And it was the second with a major lineup change, so I could include it in this list!

After this one, I dug around more, found Wo Fat and then Mos Generator... and when the vocalist/guitarist for Mos Generator had such an affinity for mid-period Black Sabbath, I decided to look up the old Black Sabbath mailing list, found it had become forums, and signed on to see how things were. And that's how this album was one of the moving parts that put me in your midst every now and again on these forums. 

[Charger]

#2

DEEP PURPLE - FIREBALL



Purple had a rocky start but once they found a guy called Ian Gillan things fell into place and things got goooood! Their second outing Fireball had a bit of a different sound to In Rock but it worked brilliantly. The title track was fast and furious and the epical Fools started off really soft before exploding into a proto-heavy metal tune! Anyone's Daughter was a real oddball of a song written tongue firmly in cheek which made it excellent! No One Came was the first ever rap metal song, but better. No weak points on this album...