My Ranks 1.) Ballbreaker 2.)Black Ice 3.) Stiff Upper Lip
I think Black Ice is great but I believe as time goes on I will realize that there is really no constant theme to the album. Ballbreaker and SUL have a steady them throughout. However, I think that Black Ice has more "hits" than SUL. All of these are some of my favorite DC albums. Miles and miles ahead of Wright & Slade albums.
Ballbreaker easily wins for me, then (at the minute) BI might just shade Stiff. But I know for a fact that in the future, Stiff will overtake BI as the novelty wears off. I agree with you GoZone that SUL has more of a sound/theme....
SUL and BB are my least AC fav albuns compared to entire discography, so Black Ice wins easily, specially because BI is my 2nd fav AC album. SUL is better than BB.
Very hard. I genuinely think that these albums are very similar. All have their strengths and weaknesses. I am not a fan of BB's production and there are times on BI where things get a little too clean,SUL has a nice dirty production which suits me fine. Strangely BB might just have the better songs, just from BI, SUL falls a little short in this respect.