Power Metal: is it really about dragons? (2018)(notes.atomutek.org) |
Power Metal: is it really about dragons? (2018)(notes.atomutek.org) |
Also, attending a BG concert at the old Graceland in Seattle back in 2004 or so and singing along to "The Bard's Song" with a few hundred other fans who knew all the words was definitely a peak geek moment.
When I was a kid I loved some of their classics like Mirror Mirror, but I wasn't as much into them as some of my entourage, as I preferred other styles of vocals. Recently however I've come to appreciate them again because Spotify suggested "Sacred Worlds" from the album Edge of Time. I love fully orchestrated metal - Metallica's S&M with the San Fran Symphonic or Nightwish's Once with the London Philarmonic - and "Sacred Worlds" is an absolute banger within this rare subgenre.
One thing of note: I essentially only listen to metal and classical. Everything else is dead boring to me. ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
Except in Japan (1).
Let me remedy this https://youtu.be/i-IcX_bccFc
One of my favorite things about metal is how diverse it is and sometimes it just gets silly even if it appears absolutely serious - I think seeing the bands when they are having the most fun let's them try things you won't see in their music or videos or even on a regular tour.
In case anyone is into video games and power metal and lives somewhere near Madison WI there is a festival called Mad With Power my wife found last year that falls into the bucket of how is this even a thing but it's a joy to experience.
There are also a few metal cruises I've been on that are absolutely not what you'd expect and are mostly people hugging everyone and have things like cupcake decorating classes.
Sadly, Vitalij Kuprij just passed. :/
https://www.nme.com/en_au/news/music/trans-siberian-orchestr...
What cruises are you talking about? I've been on seven iterations of the US-based 70kTons cruise, which AFAIK is the oldest and biggest metal cruise. And while people there are generally very friendly and awesome, I've never seen cupcake decorating classes. Instead, people were discussing drum techniques, beer and whisky, metal music and concerts...pretty much exactly what you'd expect on such an event. The most exquisite topics were probably politics and costumes (there's sort of an unofficial costume contest on the last day of that cruise).
On a semi-related note, when talking about large genre-specific corpuses, https://vgmdb.net has a fascinating scope definition across all things game and animation adjacent, including both the massive doujin (fan-made) music scene and the full discographies of many j-pop artists and composers, all annotated by franchise adjacency with (often) full staff credits: https://vgmdb.net/forums/showthread.php?t=22321
It’s a fascinating corpus and one I’d love to analyze deeply one day.
[0] The midgard (Nazi online shop) sales record was leaked, including personal information, so I won't link it here
For example the metal cruise festival I go on has a group that made their own bands on board tracking app and they release stats on who wants to see what bands and if people marked later that they enjoyed it, etc.
Kudos to the author!
Ehm, this is not what happened. In 2006 Rhapsody became Rhapsody of Fire to avoid some trademark dispute. Then they split around 2009, though the main chunk is still called Rhapsody of Fire whereas the spinoff is called Luca Turilli's Rhapsody.
I tried googling a bit but I couldn't find quickly enough an article that mentions Rhapsody, the streaming service, as the other party in the trademark dispute.
However, I do remember the whole thing when it happened because I had just discovered the band.
Feels like ages ago
And you can't forget their Chicken Sonata: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFxDOV6IwHk
The Power Metal genre is less popular here in the US for sure. For example as great as the playing is for bands like Rhapsody my friends and I always found them too silly to get into.
Some other bands make the cut of course. But why this resistence to the genre in general?
My working theory is one of culture: Songs about dragons and shit probably resonate a lot better if you grew up in a places filled with castles and shit. That is simply not the US and very much is Europe.
I would even guess that in this genre, more albums are concept than not.
I would wager it was a case of life getting busy, unfortunately, as happens to us all.
Which of their albums would you recommend to start with?
> Country, Nr of bands
> Spain, 1
Some bands are still going strong, although my favorite band Mago de Oz feels like it definitely peaked between 2000 and 2010 with the release of the Gaia albums. I'm not sure that I'd call all their albums power metal, but some of their newer stuff is definitely more power metal-y.
If anyone is looking for a great Spanish metal album, I'd recommend checking out Gaia II: La voz dormida. It tells a really ambitious story with amazing music to back it. And it ends with an epic 21 minute song that I don't even know how to describe.
https://medium.com/@WolframHempel_82303/symphonic-metal-band...
I hate to say it but this made me laugh. I know it's not what the author is saying, but it certainly aligns with my experience of the gender ratio at metal shows...
I listen to a lot of genres that end up with shows full of bearded dudes with crossed arms, nodding (myself included, to be fair). But metal shows tend to be #1.
Any recommendations for someone who loves Rammstein, despite only knowing 2-3 words in German?
I haven’t found many while searching for industrial metal.
I also really liked Pitchshifter at the time, especially the first few albums (later they switched styles a bit, starting with the pitchshifter.com, which is also pretty good). It's a bit different from Rammstein from what I recall, but can't hurt to try.
I think there's a noticeable difference from the block of 'Heading for Tomorrow' until 'Insanity...' and 'The Land of the Free'.
Then there's a pure power metal band.
Just a personal bit -- Gamma Ray's "Real World" "got me", or "clicked" at some (rather dark) point of my life, and made me look on life's complicated absurdities from a bit different - lighter - angle. If anything, I am grateful for that.
Since I always struggle with the ton of subgenres, some lyric based clustering is as good as anything to separate genres.
Maybe we should run this on all that has electric guitars...
I think melody and rhythm are kind of important, too (otherwise a minstrels verbal recitation could count as power metal). But it definitely is a good metric.
My hunch would be that the more specific and entrenched a genre is, the closer these bands stick to their styles (and lyrics).
I've always thought it's a combination of the genre being niche and being founded on a set of lyrical themes that are restrictive - and maybe particularly challenging -, and also, the fact that a lot of these bands aren't from English-speaking countries. The bands from anglo countries like Kamelot tend to write acceptable lyrics within the power metal context (Manowar lyrics are hilarious at times and arguably well-written, but they are not power metal IMO). There are some noteable exceptions to non-anglo bands with polished lyrics, like perhaps Nightwish or Blind Guardian, but a common occurrence otherwise is to find shitty English, which at least for me is an instant turnoff.
(Of course, there's only so far you can push this—some metal bands are much closer to pop or jazz, and some classical music is quite distinctively its own thing.)
Have you heard neo-classical metal? It's shredding at its finest. Yngwie Malmsteen is the OG, but there are many others I recommend like Hizaki and Syu. Guitarists in this subgenre often release solo albums (no vocals) so you won't find yourself distracted by lyrics.
See songs like We Got The Moves on YouTube. Music can be really heavy and still all about fun.
Whatever the case, this kind of music helps me CRUSH the problem at hand. When nothing seems to be working, headbang for a little bit or make a solo mosh pit in my office, and then get back to DESTROYING the problem.
edit: I am merely relaying the common lyrical subjects of the genre. I made no judgment whether its a good or bad thing.
Take those to BandCamp/Metal Archives and look for "bands like" these and you'll see there are hundreds of UK, Canadian and Swedish bands.
There is also the ever awesome Jorn (Swe) still putting out amazing Heavy Metal.
Hope that helps. No need to listen to power metal ;)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_wave_of_traditional_heavy_...
This should probably be your next stop:
https://www.youtube.com/@NWOTHMFullAlbums
And here's a small selection of some of my favourites from that new wave:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLsmrGn_1E13fBQkyefFGu...
That’s just not true, at all. Just look for the "trad[itional]" genre. I don’t enjoy it, but there are a lot of releases there.
edit: Or just combine heavy metal and either hard rock or thrash on something like RYM, that should also give you a lot of those. Here’s Hard Rock + Heavy Metal for the 2020s: https://rateyourmusic.com/charts/top/album/2020s/g:all,hard%...
If that's true, there might indeed be a cultural difference in the breadth of metal fans from the US and Europe, which might as well lead to the more "happy" metal styles like power metal be more favored in Europe.
Bands like GWAR never disappoint, though. Some bands back in the day which were like that as well: Pantera, System of a Down, Metallica (pre-black album). In Flames recently had a decent mosh pit going on when I saw them.
my theory is that because most of the bands are writing lyrics in english and it's not their native language, they don't quite grasp just HOW ridiculous their lyrics tend to be.
please don't take this as a negative, because to me it's a positive. they sing those ridiculous lyrics with full passion without a hint of irony-- and that's why i love them. american power metal is a bit too wink-wink-nudge-nudge-amirite-guys?
Dragonforce (of course) Brocas Helm Manowar
https://historicelgin.com/pratts-castle
It was largely unknown in town. Contrast with trips I have taken to Europe (yes even work trips) where randomly I would come across a castle. For example in Swansea near the train station there was a castle a couple blocks from a TGI Friday's. It is different over there!
I used to "hate" ANATO for a long time but now it's easily my favourite from them and every time I listen to it it gets better. It's one of a handful of albums that to this day I can sit down and do nothing but listen to the music. No multitasking. (Though I guess trying to pick out each vocal track is a very multitasking activity).
Some say they are still chanting to this day.
TLDR:
A handful of people from shitty tiny bands, two prominent NSBM bands: Der Stürmer Vocalist and one Absurd guy
The most interesting find was a person, who is currently in the "anti-fascist" trash band Protector.
The matches where, same name, same birthday and same city. He ordered the following: in three separate orders directly from the ns shop: things from Pluton svea, Brutal Combat, Skrewdriver , Bunker 84, No Remorse, Ultima Thule
And also, for anybody wondering, this isn't a shop that also happens to sell Nazi stuff. The shop helps fund the Swedish Nazi party, and the first you seen when visiting the site are black suns and swastikas.
I suppose another thing I can share is a plot of the order locations of all orders in the leak:
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/792204238889287749/...
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/792204238889287749/...
https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/792204238889287749/...
That is when I was listening to them and did not follow on them later on. Did they produce anything interesting after that? Even just a single good song?
A Brit here... sorry. Epic singer either way.
Yep, there's a whole bunch of bands in the symphonic deathcore genre. Shadow of Intent, The Archaic Epidemic, Lorna Shore and Immortal Disfigurement are a few that come to mind.
I often hear the joke that Beethoven wrote the best guitar solos. Moonlight Sonata's 3rd movement on guitar is a fun listen .
I was about to say 'Basque Power Metal' bands. Berri Txarrak it's more akin to Rise Against. Su Ta Gar it's speed metal with some thrash influences.
In one of the raw scripts I received from the German side, I remember staring at "medicament" for a long time, before looking it up.
So yes, I know the feeling. :)
One thing I learned ~15 years ago was that Nightwish commissioned lyrics from lyricists (one such commissioned person told me himself I believe a year or two after Dark Passion Play was released - they never used what he wrote for them though) - maybe that helps give the polished impression for some.
They usually also have the problem, that their fans often don't like them to change. They want more of what they know, but better. Not different (especially in entrenched genres).
Turisas for example, a band making songs mainly about vikings. I watched them live a few years ago - was quite good, but the band made remarks that they do not take the whole viking thing that serious (nostalgic buisness they called it) and would rather play something else. And they did one song in the end, in a quite different style (sounded like futuristic metal) but the audience was not thrilled - they were there for viking and glorious battle metal. So this is what Turisas are still playing, this is what brings them money, but they have not made a new album in over 10 years, but how can you make a good album, with a theme you don't find that exiting anymore?
My initial comment was moreso based on the number of limited releases that Japan's gotten from metal albums over the years, coupled with touring there being more complicated - so when bands _do_ get to tour over there, it's usually a crazy good show. Drives demand, etc.
