Food for the Gods

Food for the Gods is the fourth album by the Californian metal band Fireaxe. And it is epic. Not epic in the sense that it's really cool, but epic in the proper sense of the word. The full album is 4 hours long, comes on 3 discs, and spans ancient Assyria and their war with Babylon, Ancient Egyptian pharaoh Ankhenaten's brutally enforced switch to monotheism, and Israel's conquest of Canaan under Joshua. And that's just disc 1.

The first two thirds of the album explores the role of religion in human history and the wars we have fought in the name of our gods all the way up to the modern era, including a few story arcs that take place Twenty Minutes Into the Future which continue with this theme. These culminate with all life on earth being exterminated by some unnamed superweapon at the end of the second act. The third act follows the devil himself leading an army of damned souls to heaven storming the pearly gates, laying waste to the angelic host, and trying to kill God himself.

The album is available online for free by the creator, who encourages you to pirate it. It can be found here.

This album provides examples of:

 * The Aloner / Alone in A Crowd: I Live in Silence conveys this masterfully.
 * Angry Mob Song: Raise the Black Flag
 * : Ultimately . This has the unfortunate side effect of.
 * Cybernetics Eat Your Soul: The Soul Doctors
 * Do Not Go Gentle: It turns out the the revolutionary leader from The Servant of Pain never actually expected to survive the coup. But he left behind one hell of a legacy.
 * Doomsday Device: In On Earth as it is in Hell, this finally kills all humanity. Then it gets worse.
 * The End of the World As We Know It: Happens twice. The first time around it's a class 3a, 4, 5, 6, X, or X-2 (it's not explicitly stated) at the end of On Earth as it is in Hell. Then in Cold and Dark Infinity,
 * The French Revolution: Parts of Raise the Black Flag.
 * Getting Smilies Painted On Your Soul: The Soul Doctors does this to a tee.
 * Gladiator Games: Guardian of the Realm.
 * Go Mad From the Isolation: It's implied that this is why the black knight went on a rampage.
 * God Is Evil
 * Grief Song: Nefertiti
 * The Grim Reaper: A bit of a late arrival, but he shows up about of a third of the way through Cold and Dark Infinity
 * I Am Becoming Song: The Insatiable Dream (The Guardian of the Realm II)
 * I Am Song: My Name is Joshua and Tapestry of Pain.
 * I Am the Band: All the instruments and vocals were done by one guy (and a computer doing the drums). This is most impressive when you have multiple characters being sung simultaneously.
 * Knight Templar: Much of the album is an examination of this mindset throughout history.
 * The Legions of Hell: Featuring both demons and damned.
 * Meaningful Name: Food for the Gods refers to how humanity is ultimately just, well, food for the gods.
 * The Nothing After Death: Cold and Dark Infinity, which is actually sung by The Nothing After Death.
 * Omnicidal Maniac: The narrator of The Last Man (On Earth as it is in Hell Part III).
 * One Man Army: The Black Knight
 * Pyrrhic Victory: God
 * Rage Against the Heavens: The entire third act.
 * Religion Rant Song: Pick a song, any song.
 * The Revolution Will Not Be Civilized: In The Servant of Pain, the revolutionaries at first seems to be well-intentioned extremists fighting against The Empire. Then you find out what they do when they breach the Citadel...
 * Roaring Rampage of Revenge: Too many to count.
 * Rock Me Asmodeus: While the devil sings several tracks, you can't beat Welcome to my Realm, in which he sings about his motivations to the new arrivals in Hell, using the screams of the damned as his not-so-ethereal choir.
 * Rock Opera
 * Sanity Slippage Song: Tapestry of Pain, Hatred Revenge and Death, and above all River of Madness.
 * Self Destructive Charge: In The Citadel Must Fall, one soldier scales the wall, and manages to open the gate while increasing numbers arrows are sticking through him. Eventually he goes down, but the revolutionaries capture the city.
 * Solo Duet
 * The Song Before the Storm: Welcome to my Realm
 * Suicidal Cosmic Temper Tantrum
 * The Nothing After Death: Initially subverted, then played straight in the very end with Cold and Dark Infinity.
 * Utopia Justifies the Means
 * Villain Recruitment Song: Welcome to my Realm, depending on whether you consider the devil a villain.
 * The Villain Sucks Song: Welcome to my Realm, depending on whether you consider God a villain.
 * Woobie Destroyer of Worlds: The Black Knight, the unnamed narrator of The Last Man and, by the end of the album, every single being ever sent to Hell.
 * World Wrecking Wave: Occurs in The Sum Of All Fears killing