Anyone like Power metal?

[phaffas]

I really have trouble keeping up with new Power metal releases. Ive brought this up in the past and people have sent me links for news, but i just dont have time to check them out. Its so much easier to keep up to date with the music on this site, cos if i miss it, 10 others will let me know. I subscribe to a power metal blog , but theres just so much of it out there im sure alot is crap, but im missing some awesome stuff. So is anyone here really into power, prog, epic, melodic, atmospheric metal, symphonic metal etcetc or any of those other wacky offshoots like viking, pirate, folk....?

[Clutch]

I do like power metal but I'm pretty selective. As mentioned above, it's a saturated field right now with all kinds of branches. Typical of any genre of music, plenty of bands are not up to the standard of the elite and simply lack identity, as well as skills.

[phaffas]

I do like power metal but I'm pretty selective. As mentioned above, it's a saturated field right now with all kinds of branches. Typical of any genre of music, plenty of bands are not up to the standard of the elite and simply lack identity, as well as skills.

 

I often get drawn into the artwork of power metal and really wonder what the album is like... its only really occurring to me now how much is out there?!

 

gotta love power metal artwork . heres some im not sure if im wasting my time if i check out:

 

 

 

 

 

 

[sharatan]

all these branches are useless.....when heavy load had vikings and lyrix from norse mythology nobody was calling them "viking metal".....when they played together with manowar in sweden back in 83 and manowar after wrote about norse mythology also nobody was calling them "viking metal"....same case like manilla road/cirith ungol many years before that all tolkien thingie came to light the last years.....

 

"power metal" as a term was first used in mid 80's to describe bands like omen, liege lord, attacker, helstar, savage grace, heir apparent, olde fates warning etc who had many influences from the older classic heavy metal bands like maiden, saxon, angelwitch, sabbath, accept, dio etc but the sound wasn't exactly the same due to the natural progress of studio technology, the instruments, thicker guitar sound etc. if you want to check power metal start from these bands, my friend. and then you will be able to distinguish what's the best for you. also this mainly was for the US metal. in europe power metal is the best term, again for the same reasons, to describe many mid 80's german bands like helloween, avenger(pre rage), stormwitch, then blind guardian, scanner, abraxas etc.... don't believe all those stupid branches based to image or lyrix , mostly for marketing and labelling reasons, while the music is far away from what is used to describe "power metal" in the 80's...nowadays even lamb of god are claiming to be "true heavy metal" ahahahaha....it's like that the 80's never existed,ahahaha.....all these fools who were listening to nirvana and pearl jam suddenly became the metal gurus and are trying to convince me that the 80's never existed....fuck them all....i have my 80's vinyls to spin all the day to remind me what was the real heavy or power metal.....now i'll PM you my paypal adress for my 2 cents....

[sharatan]

ahahaha, thanx for posting the airmed l'amh cover done by my friend, alexis. airged l'amh although greeks they are using the celtic mythology for their lyrix. again none is calling them celtic metal,ahahaha.....

[Glen]

I do like power metal but I'm pretty selective. As mentioned above, it's a saturated field right now with all kinds of branches. Typical of any genre of music, plenty of bands are not up to the standard of the elite and simply lack identity, as well as skills.

 

I often get drawn into the artwork of power metal and really wonder what the album is like... its only really occurring to me now how much is out there?!

 

gotta love power metal artwork . heres some im not sure if im wasting my time if i check out:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Yep Power metal artwork is usually awesome.

 

However awesome artwork in at least 9/10 cases just not mean awesome music. In fact I would say that most power metal I sample is pure and utter shite......meaningly crap about battles and dragons etc.

 

Most of the decent stuff gets highlighted here.

 

There are some real experts over at Melrock noticeboard.....Les Baillie springs to mind. Just post something over there about power metal and he's bound to pop up with the last few months recommendations.

 

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Please define : What is power metal for you? Because I'm reading in some auctions of the members of this board descriptions like the following : "Hair metal/power metal" It's hair metal OR power metal? It can't be both in the same time!

 

Do you like US power metal with GUTS & GLORY or the happy-tria-la-li-la-lo gay European power metal? It's up to you. I hate the second so I can't purpose you new bands/releases etc. I think epic/folk/prog etc. are different genres. Also "Melodic" metal could be anything...

[Fat Freddy]

For me, "power metal" goes back to the 80s and bands like Metal Church, Armored Saint, Vicious Rumors, Helstar, etc. -- although I didn't mind the Helloween-ish Euro "power metal" brigade that came along during the 90s (i.e. HammerFall, Iron Savior, Stratovarius, yadda yadda yadda) at first, the problem with that scene is that even in the case of the front runner bands, most of them had a great debut but then started spinning their wheels and keep making the same album over and over again. The second and third tier bands (Heavenly, Metalium, Wizard, etc.) are mainly just clones of the clones. I haven't come across a "new" power metal band that has really excited me in quite a while.

 

Never got into the symphonic power metal stuff much at all -- Rhapsody are just OK, and what little I've heard of the other bands in that scene are just too fruity, not enough "grit" for me if you know what I mean.

 

Viking/Folk/Pirate metal? Nahh, too goofy.

[sharatan]

For me, "power metal" goes back to the 80s and bands like Metal Church, Armored Saint, Vicious Rumors, Helstar, etc. -- although I didn't mind the Helloween-ish Euro "power metal" brigade that came along during the 90s (i.e. HammerFall, Iron Savior, Stratovarius, yadda yadda yadda) at first, the problem with that scene is that even in the case of the front runner bands, most of them had a great debut but then started spinning their wheels and keep making the same album over and over again. The second and third tier bands (Heavenly, Metalium, Wizard, etc.) are mainly just clones of the clones. I haven't come across a "new" power metal band that has really excited me in quite a while.

 

Never got into the symphonic power metal stuff much at all -- Rhapsody are just OK, and what little I've heard of the other bands in that scene are just too fruity, not enough "grit" for me if you know what I mean.

 

Viking/Folk/Pirate metal? Nahh, too goofy.

 

bro, i think you're wrong in some of your comments here....hammerfall came in late 90's from a shitty label back then(their success didn't make them leaders for anything)... there were way too many underground power metal acts in germany/US before them. so they were not the leaders in anything(ahaha, iron savior's joke was another one trick of kai to make some more money out of the fans...what was the reason for them while he had gamma ray playing the same thing all the time).....and skylark's great debut cd came also the same time as rhapsody's first demo which was also good one...but skylark's one was better, but yet rhapsody took all the fame...ah well....

 

also you're wrong about wizard, wizard where wayyyyyy older than hammerfall and made some great stuff in the manowar tradition....their first demotape which i have original came back in 91....it's not their fault if they didn't have a label or enough money back then to record their first cd which came 4 years later....

[heaven&hell]

For me, "power metal" goes back to the 80s and bands like Metal Church, Armored Saint, Vicious Rumors, Helstar, etc. -- although I didn't mind the Helloween-ish Euro "power metal" brigade that came along during the 90s (i.e. HammerFall, Iron Savior, Stratovarius, yadda yadda yadda) at first, the problem with that scene is that even in the case of the front runner bands, most of them had a great debut but then started spinning their wheels and keep making the same album over and over again. The second and third tier bands (Heavenly, Metalium, Wizard, etc.) are mainly just clones of the clones. I haven't come across a "new" power metal band that has really excited me in quite a while.

 

Never got into the symphonic power metal stuff much at all -- Rhapsody are just OK, and what little I've heard of the other bands in that scene are just too fruity, not enough "grit" for me if you know what I mean.

 

Viking/Folk/Pirate metal? Nahh, too goofy.

 

bro, i think you're wrong in some of your comments here....hammerfall came in late 90's from a shitty label back then(their success didn't make them leaders for anything)... there were way too many underground power metal acts in germany/US before them. so they were not the leaders in anything(ahaha, iron savior's joke was another one trick of kai to make some more money out of the fans...what was the reason for them while he had gamma ray playing the same thing all the time).....and skylark's great debut cd came also the same time as rhapsody's first demo which was also good one...but skylark's one was better, but yet rhapsody took all the fame...ah well....

 

 

As far as Hammerfall goes, their debut came out in 1997 and at the time they were one of the leaders of the newer groups that were being called Power Metal, in the US magazines at least. None of the bands of that sound were getting any coverage from US mags until Hammerfall came out and then them, Primal Fear(who had just came out), Nocturnal Rites, Jag Panzer(who had just got back together in 1997) and a few others started getting quite a bit of coverage from Metal Maniacs and mags like that. Also Helloween started to have an increase in their presence in the US from the Better than Raw and Time of the Oath releases too. Blind Guardian from the release of Nightfall in Middle-Earth started getting interviews in these same magazines as well. It was around this time of 97/98 that I started finding out about all these bands that I didn't know existed before, of course within 4 or 5 years there were 30 other bands that sounded like all the bands I mentioned and as usual the market was saturated. Of course this is just my opinion. But I do still like Hammerfall(which is what this post was supposed to be about ) but they were much better back on their first 3 releases.

[Fat Freddy]

bro, i think you're wrong in some of your comments here....hammerfall came in late 90's from a shitty label back then(their success didn't make them leaders for anything)... there were way too many underground power metal acts in germany/US before them. so they were not the leaders in anything(ahaha, iron savior's joke was another one trick of kai to make some more money out of the fans...what was the reason for them while he had gamma ray playing the same thing all the time).....and skylark's great debut cd came also the same time as rhapsody's first demo which was also good one...but skylark's one was better, but yet rhapsody took all the fame...ah well....

 

also you're wrong about wizard, wizard where wayyyyyy older than hammerfall and made some great stuff in the manowar tradition....their first demotape which i have original came back in 91....it's not their fault if they didn't have a label or enough money back then to record their first cd which came 4 years later....

 

Understood, but you gotta keep in mind that I'm speaking from a U.S. perspective. I wasn't sayin' that HammerFall are the best of the best, (I like'em but they're certainly not the kings) but they were the band that finally broke big in the late 90s and kinda kick-started the whole "power metal" thing up again over here. Until they came along, started getting a lot of press, and started selling records, none of the other bands I mentioned had any presence over here at all. Even guys like Gamma Ray didn't have US deals though they were huge everywhere else. We may have been able to read about many of these bands in 'zines but unless you were willing to pay $35 for imports from Japan or Europe, we weren't hearing these bands at all on this side of the ocean.

 

By the way, Wizard may be older than HammerFall, but they're still pretty lame one way or the other.

[Dead Planet]

I used to be into power metal until a few years ago when the market became saturated with so many bands sounding the same. I've always considered power metal bands to be those that utilize a lot of double bass in their music and as a result I've always thought of bands like Hammerfall, Dream Evil and Primal Fear as melodic metal........but that's just my opinion.....

[Fat Freddy]

 

Maybe it's just me but the band name "Fairyland" alone would keep me away from this one, regardless of how cool the cover art is.

[Dark Star]

Ok I LOVE Me some power metal!!

 

I enjoy both US,and Euro power metal, with My favorites being Hammerfall, Primal Fear, Helloween, Gamma Ray, Blind Guardian, Metal Church, Helstar, Iced Earth and etc....

 

As far as the Viking/Folk/Pirate Metal goes?? Never got into Viking or FOlk metal reallty, but Pirate metal?? LOVE Running Wild!!!!!

[sharatan]

with all these mentions of hammerfall you'll make me hate'em.....there were tons and tons of better and older european power metal bands(well most in germany).....

[rob62972]

Love power metal!! When it doesn't suck!!

[phaffas]

Ok so it seems one mans power metal is another mans heavy metal and another mans atmospheric metal and another mans neoclassical metal etc etc.. which is why ive been cautious starting this thread.

 

However, some of my fave "power metal" bands include:

Edguy, Stratovarius, Rob Rock, Avantasia, just starting to get into Primal Fear, Theocracy, early Black Majesty, (is Driver power metal? or US metal? ).. ok im also gonna mention Balance of Power even though they arnt power metal.. theyre still awesome!

[phaffas]

I had a Cryonic Temple cd years ago... i tried to get into it, until one day i realised "hey, this is everything i hate about bad power metal".

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Do you need US Power metal?

 

Here we go :

 

http://www.myspace.com/rachelscoven

 

Just listen Scarlett Night or Reign & stay speechless!

[dreamstorm]

For me, "power metal" goes back to the 80s and bands like Metal Church, Armored Saint, Vicious Rumors, Helstar, etc. -- although I didn't mind the Helloween-ish Euro "power metal" brigade that came along during the 90s (i.e. HammerFall, Iron Savior, Stratovarius, yadda yadda yadda) at first, the problem with that scene is that even in the case of the front runner bands, most of them had a great debut but then started spinning their wheels and keep making the same album over and over again. The second and third tier bands (Heavenly, Metalium, Wizard, etc.) are mainly just clones of the clones. I haven't come across a "new" power metal band that has really excited me in quite a while.

 

Never got into the symphonic power metal stuff much at all -- Rhapsody are just OK, and what little I've heard of the other bands in that scene are just too fruity, not enough "grit" for me if you know what I mean.

 

Viking/Folk/Pirate metal? Nahh, too goofy.

 

bro, i think you're wrong in some of your comments here....hammerfall came in late 90's from a shitty label back then(their success didn't make them leaders for anything)... there were way too many underground power metal acts in germany/US before them. so they were not the leaders in anything(ahaha, iron savior's joke was another one trick of kai to make some more money out of the fans...what was the reason for them while he had gamma ray playing the same thing all the time).....and skylark's great debut cd came also the same time as rhapsody's first demo which was also good one...but skylark's one was better, but yet rhapsody took all the fame...ah well....

 

also you're wrong about wizard, wizard where wayyyyyy older than hammerfall and made some great stuff in the manowar tradition....their first demotape which i have original came back in 91....it's not their fault if they didn't have a label or enough money back then to record their first cd which came 4 years later....

 

I recall Skylark's debut CD well. It's been a while since I listened to it. Great ideas, I was just having trouble getting past the thick Italian accent and I even think they were using a drum machine.

[sharatan]

do you need US power metal the texan way from the last years? here's one for ya...

 

http://www.myspace.com/oneofsixx

 

 

if you need the trax, PM me....

[stormspell]

One of 6X' demo was awesome. Too bad they never released anything afterwards...

 

The best recent band from Texas is/was ANCIENT CROSS... unfortunately their debut CD never came out either...

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Mutinys Fold

 

Vocals from other dimension!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[phaffas]

I do like power metal but I'm pretty selective. As mentioned above, it's a saturated field right now with all kinds of branches. Typical of any genre of music, plenty of bands are not up to the standard of the elite and simply lack identity, as well as skills.

 

I often get drawn into the artwork of power metal and really wonder what the album is like... its only really occurring to me now how much is out there?!

 

gotta love power metal artwork . heres some im not sure if im wasting my time if i check out:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Just our of randomness, ...

 

Pertness sucks. The first song is good. Every song is the same. Bland.

 

Airmed l'amh - was umm yeh PASS. Couldnt get pass the annoying vocals. Did sound talented though.

 

Im actually gonna give Fairyland another spin... has SOME potential..

[Nebuchadnezzar]

Definition of Power metal from the land of Gods (last Saturday) :

 

 

 

 

 

 

:bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown: :bowdown: