There might have been a similar thread in the old forums, I am not sure but anyway let's start this up now.

Basically, I am looking for recommendations and discussion about theme albums made by metal artists. For example, Arjen Anthony Lucassen's Star One is a science-fiction styled progressive/heavy metal group that released two albums. Or another one, Desperados and Dezperadoz, (that are actually the reason for me to start this thread, thanks to Varoth for recommending them in the first place) are a side-project of Tom Angelripper + Alex Kraft playing western/country-influenced metal.

I think that these styles give a lot of variety to musicians' normal style and other musical styles have a lot of strong melodies that can be used in metal this way too. I mainly prefer more melodic stuff, and the bands I am looking for should actually be mixing the particular style with metal, not just using it in the background (lyrics, make-up etc..).

Thanks in advance.

edit:

Shortly: I am personally looking for recommendations of the field of theme albums that use those themes musically, not just in lyrics and/or background stories. However, since I am not able to edit the topic title this discussion is free for all kinds of concept albums now.