{"id":121175,"date":"2025-10-14T10:09:11","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T10:09:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/121175\/"},"modified":"2025-10-14T10:09:11","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T10:09:11","slug":"5-concept-albums-that-prove-metal-is-a-storytelling-genre","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/121175\/","title":{"rendered":"5 Concept Albums That Prove Metal Is a Storytelling Genre"},"content":{"rendered":"

Heavy metal is a genre that hits hardest when you can feel it on all fronts<\/a> \u2014 ears, brain, heart \u2014 and sometimes there\u2019s nothing that showcases that better than a good concept album full of clever storytelling.<\/p>\n

From Queensr\u00ffche\u2019s Operation: Mindcrime all the way through pretty much Coheed and Cambria\u2019s entire discography, there are a plethora of great rock and metal concept albums to explore, and when you want something a little darker and\/or intricate to capture your attention, you might try these\u2026<\/p>\n

Abigail by King Diamond<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

Merycyful Fate frontman King Diamond set out on his own in the late \u201980s with an all-new band, and, after dropping their debut album Fatal Portrait in 1986, the freshly minted band returned the following year with Abigail, a concept album that would go on to be an iconic moment for heavy metal.<\/p>\n

The story is quite extensive, but the basic premise is that it is a horror story about Jonathan La\u2019Fey and Miriam Natias, a couple who inherit a mansion that they ultimately move into, despite being warned to avoid the house.<\/p>\n

It is eventually revealed that Miriam is possessed by the spirit of a stillborn child named Abigail, whom she is also pregnant with, and Jonathan is advised to kill Miriam to prevent the child\u2019s rebirth. As you can probably imagine, things do not go smoothly for Jonathan and Miriam, ending in a truly gruesome climax.<\/p>\n

Leviathan by Mastodon<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

To be fair, Mastodon\u2019s second album, Leviathan, is not an album based on an original concept, but it is, unequivocally, the best heavy metal concept album based on an existing narrative.<\/p>\n

The record is a musical retelling of Herman Melville\u2019s literary opus, Moby-Dick, quite specifically focusing on soundtracking the hubris of man as it\u2019s depicted through the actions of Captain Ahab, who seeks, much to his own detriment, to kill the great White Whale after which the book is named.<\/p>\n

Not only did it catapult the band into the forefront of the heavy metal scene, but Leviathan continues to be heralded as one of the greatest metal albums of the new millennium, proving that their captivation with the story was something shared by metalheads around the world.<\/p>\n

In Sorte Diaboli by Dimmu Borgir<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

In 2007, epic black metal band Dimmu Borgir released their first and, technically, only concept album: In Sorte Diaboli \u2014 which essentially translates to \u201cIn league with the devil\u201d \u2014 and it\u2019s no stretch to say that it is their masterpiece.<\/p>\n

Across the nine to 11 tracks (depending on which edition you hear), the band utilizes their brand of tride and trve unholy black metal to tell the story of a priest in medieval Europe who begins doubting his faith, and eventually winds up taking over the role of Antichrist.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s this dude that works as a priest\u2019s assistant, and after a while he just discovers that he has nothing to do with Christianity,\u201d Dimmu Borgir guitarist Silenoz previously said of the record. \u201cHe just sort of has this awakening and realizes that he has different abilities and different powers and is leaning more to the dark side.\u201d<\/p>\n

Coma Ecliptic by Between The Buried and Me<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

Most Between the Buried and Me albums follow some kind of concept, but their 2015 project, Coma Ecliptic, stands out for being a bit more definable.<\/p>\n

In their own words, the band said of the album\u2019s concept: \u201cThis time, the story follows the wanderings of an unidentified man, stuck in a coma, as he journeys through his past lives. Each song is its own episode in a modern-day, sort of The Twilight Zone-esque fashion. The unidentified man enters each world and is offered a choice: stay, or move on to the next in search of something better, something more \u2018perfect.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n

Maybe this one is just more personal for me, since I\u2019ve been following BTBAM since The Silent Circus, but Coma Ecliptic is just a fascinatingly clever album from start to finish (shoutout to \u201cDim Ignition\u201d) and, 10 years later, it\u2019s still an album I regularly revisit.<\/p>\n

A Tear in the Fabric of Life EP by Knocked Loose<\/p>\n

\t\t\tPlay video<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"Play\"\/<\/p>\n

In 2021, Louisville hardcore band Knocked Loose decided to throw a wrench into whatever perception the world might have had of them by dropping A Tear in the Fabric of Life, an EP that feels like the auditory representation of the bleakest Southern Gothic book you\u2019ve ever read.<\/p>\n

The concept narrative behind A Tear in the Fabric of Life was conjured by Frontman Bryan Garris and is about someone mourning the loss of a loved one who died in a car crash. The story isn\u2019t necessarily based on his real life, but is a fictional story he came up with to explore grief and mankind\u2019s inability to often let go of pain and sorrow.<\/p>\n

Musically, it was by far their heaviest project to date, but they also paired the album with an animated short film, which visually achieved an added layer of insight and emotional depth that really makes one feel the heartbound-anchor pulling you into an ocean of trauma that Garris and the boys injected into the album.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Heavy metal is a genre that hits hardest when you can feel it on all fronts \u2014 ears,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":121176,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[264],"tags":[73828,18,117,23800,19,17,337,10321],"class_list":{"0":"post-121175","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-music","8":"tag-concept-albums","9":"tag-eire","10":"tag-entertainment","11":"tag-heavy-metal","12":"tag-ie","13":"tag-ireland","14":"tag-music","15":"tag-noisey"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121175","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=121175"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/121175\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/121176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=121175"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=121175"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=121175"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}