For those of you who are unfamiliar with power metal music.. Let me explain for you..
It seems to be a very niche or fringed upon sub-genre of heavy metal, to me it is more than just another heavy metal cliche, it was a movement that revived metal in Europe in the early 90's when metal in North America hit an all time low. The genre is very important to the European festival culture, it carried on the traditions of real heavy metal like Black Sabbath, however, added in other influences as well.. Today, we see power metal bands adding in opera vocals with film-score like influence, an example would be Nightwish and just over-all, very bombastic music.. The first of the bunch to experiment with classical and metal music was Yngwie Malmsteen, he did renditions of Beethoven on a guitar and even had full orchestras at times..
Judas Priest are without a doubt the definition of heavy metal, Rob Halford is the ideal vocalist and they used the twin guitarists which so many power metal bands use today, it's absolutely necessary today to have two guitarists in a power metal band.. Iron Maiden was literally the first sing a-long band, in pubs in Europe, when people get drunk, especially in Germany, they need something very melodic and easy to sing along to, Iron Maiden was literally the reason why you would WANT to be a metal musician and Bruce was the reason why you would want to be a power metal vocalist.. In Germany, they had the Scorpions, a band I would say that many of the German power metal bands are influenced by..
However, there was one other German band who broke out with that Iron Maiden sound and turned it up a notch, no in fact, it was more bombastic than one could imagine, they also through in speed metal (as they started out as a speed metal band..) Oh yeah, you know what I am talking about, it was Helloween!! Literally, considered the first power metal band, or the founders of power metal, while they may had gotten their influence from other bands at that time, we would not have power metal today if it was not for Helloween..
And lyrically I would have to say that today's lyrics in power metal are inspired from Dio, who was probably the first one to dip into that "fantasy" type of music, he wanted us to use our imaginations when listening to his lyrics..
[YOUTUBE]FuO3hHwQ-Sc[/YOUTUBE]
Anyone in a power metal band, or any fan for that matter, holds the Keeper of the Seven Keys albums up high.. In the U.S. power metal is considered underground, Helloween never went mainstream here and no power metal band ever has.. So what does that mean for power metal? they're the flag-flyers of metal, they keep metal on an even keel and power metal sits directly in the middle of the metal genre, its not too heavy, its not too agressive and yet its not tame, they keep the whole metal genre grounded. When Iron Maiden set the standards for metal in the early 1980s, power metal carried that tradition on.
Short history of my music background..
Like most people my age (25+) who in high school grew up around alternative/hard rock and nu-metal bands, I learned to like that style of specific music and hated on classical music, in which nu-metal had completely dismantled.. I did not like Black Sabbath, Metallica or any of the 80's stuff like Glam Metal, I thought it was all out-dated and cheesy, my dad would play around the house The Cult, Dad, Brother Cane, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Boston, Collective Soul and Queensryche was what I heard most..
It was also a time without youtube and the internet in general.. I did not know what Power Metal was, I did not know ANY of the European artists.. I didn't know who Manowar or Helloween was, they were blacked out by most rock stations..
While surfing through the internet one day however on a old file sharing program called WINMX, by sheer accident I stumbled upon In Flames, which introduced me to the wave of Melodic Death Metal in Sweden, this was in 2001.. I QUICKLY grew out of the Nu-Metal phase, although the people around me were still into it and I went to several Slipknot concerts and other concerts as well, I would see Sevendust, Korn, Static-X and whatever else, however, I went to go see my new fond love as well, which was In Flames and a whole lot of other of these melo-death metal bands during my High School years.
I had slowly begun to discover Power Metal bands although they were very underground at the time, I discovered Kamelot back in around 2002-03 along with Blind Guardian, Freedom Call and a couple other bands, there were no torrents back then, there was no ordering this stuff off amazon, etc.. It wasn't popular where I lived, nobody toured here (ever) and my local record stores never carried any of their CDs.. In 04-05ish things changed, my record store got bought out and I found power metal CDs left and right, I was finishing up my last years of high school and I was totally into the Power Metal scene by then, I had picked up several Freedom Call albums as well as Kamelot, Nightwish and Blind Guardian by then, I was overloading, downloading music was becoming more and more popular..
I have since gone to several power metal concerts and it has risen to become my favorite genre of music along with folk metal.. I have seen Kamelot, Nightwish, Stratovarius, Edguy, Blind Guardian, Children of Bodom, Alestorm and several other bands... My first Power Metal concert was Blind Guardian and I will never forget this amazing experience..
I also learned to like a lot of the stuff from the 80's such as Savatage and Iron Maiden(the first sing along band), and I like classical music, opera, jazz and orchestras.. I watch Trans-Siberian Orchestra play ever year now, I have seen them three times and when I look back I wonder how I had no respect for such music as a teenager, I had thought I had this rebellious attitude, but really, I didn't at all and sure, I am a nerd and in a way, Power Metal is as nerdy as it comes, but it is also as complex as it comes, I like the melodies as much as the hard pounding riffs, I like to drinkk grog and punch motherf**kers while listening to some folk or power metal and then go play video games afterwards, or dungeons & dragons..
This is a long thread, so I will end it here..
It seems to be a very niche or fringed upon sub-genre of heavy metal, to me it is more than just another heavy metal cliche, it was a movement that revived metal in Europe in the early 90's when metal in North America hit an all time low. The genre is very important to the European festival culture, it carried on the traditions of real heavy metal like Black Sabbath, however, added in other influences as well.. Today, we see power metal bands adding in opera vocals with film-score like influence, an example would be Nightwish and just over-all, very bombastic music.. The first of the bunch to experiment with classical and metal music was Yngwie Malmsteen, he did renditions of Beethoven on a guitar and even had full orchestras at times..
Judas Priest are without a doubt the definition of heavy metal, Rob Halford is the ideal vocalist and they used the twin guitarists which so many power metal bands use today, it's absolutely necessary today to have two guitarists in a power metal band.. Iron Maiden was literally the first sing a-long band, in pubs in Europe, when people get drunk, especially in Germany, they need something very melodic and easy to sing along to, Iron Maiden was literally the reason why you would WANT to be a metal musician and Bruce was the reason why you would want to be a power metal vocalist.. In Germany, they had the Scorpions, a band I would say that many of the German power metal bands are influenced by..
However, there was one other German band who broke out with that Iron Maiden sound and turned it up a notch, no in fact, it was more bombastic than one could imagine, they also through in speed metal (as they started out as a speed metal band..) Oh yeah, you know what I am talking about, it was Helloween!! Literally, considered the first power metal band, or the founders of power metal, while they may had gotten their influence from other bands at that time, we would not have power metal today if it was not for Helloween..
And lyrically I would have to say that today's lyrics in power metal are inspired from Dio, who was probably the first one to dip into that "fantasy" type of music, he wanted us to use our imaginations when listening to his lyrics..
[YOUTUBE]FuO3hHwQ-Sc[/YOUTUBE]
Anyone in a power metal band, or any fan for that matter, holds the Keeper of the Seven Keys albums up high.. In the U.S. power metal is considered underground, Helloween never went mainstream here and no power metal band ever has.. So what does that mean for power metal? they're the flag-flyers of metal, they keep metal on an even keel and power metal sits directly in the middle of the metal genre, its not too heavy, its not too agressive and yet its not tame, they keep the whole metal genre grounded. When Iron Maiden set the standards for metal in the early 1980s, power metal carried that tradition on.
Short history of my music background..
Like most people my age (25+) who in high school grew up around alternative/hard rock and nu-metal bands, I learned to like that style of specific music and hated on classical music, in which nu-metal had completely dismantled.. I did not like Black Sabbath, Metallica or any of the 80's stuff like Glam Metal, I thought it was all out-dated and cheesy, my dad would play around the house The Cult, Dad, Brother Cane, Stevie Ray Vaughan, Boston, Collective Soul and Queensryche was what I heard most..
It was also a time without youtube and the internet in general.. I did not know what Power Metal was, I did not know ANY of the European artists.. I didn't know who Manowar or Helloween was, they were blacked out by most rock stations..
While surfing through the internet one day however on a old file sharing program called WINMX, by sheer accident I stumbled upon In Flames, which introduced me to the wave of Melodic Death Metal in Sweden, this was in 2001.. I QUICKLY grew out of the Nu-Metal phase, although the people around me were still into it and I went to several Slipknot concerts and other concerts as well, I would see Sevendust, Korn, Static-X and whatever else, however, I went to go see my new fond love as well, which was In Flames and a whole lot of other of these melo-death metal bands during my High School years.
I had slowly begun to discover Power Metal bands although they were very underground at the time, I discovered Kamelot back in around 2002-03 along with Blind Guardian, Freedom Call and a couple other bands, there were no torrents back then, there was no ordering this stuff off amazon, etc.. It wasn't popular where I lived, nobody toured here (ever) and my local record stores never carried any of their CDs.. In 04-05ish things changed, my record store got bought out and I found power metal CDs left and right, I was finishing up my last years of high school and I was totally into the Power Metal scene by then, I had picked up several Freedom Call albums as well as Kamelot, Nightwish and Blind Guardian by then, I was overloading, downloading music was becoming more and more popular..
I have since gone to several power metal concerts and it has risen to become my favorite genre of music along with folk metal.. I have seen Kamelot, Nightwish, Stratovarius, Edguy, Blind Guardian, Children of Bodom, Alestorm and several other bands... My first Power Metal concert was Blind Guardian and I will never forget this amazing experience..
I also learned to like a lot of the stuff from the 80's such as Savatage and Iron Maiden(the first sing along band), and I like classical music, opera, jazz and orchestras.. I watch Trans-Siberian Orchestra play ever year now, I have seen them three times and when I look back I wonder how I had no respect for such music as a teenager, I had thought I had this rebellious attitude, but really, I didn't at all and sure, I am a nerd and in a way, Power Metal is as nerdy as it comes, but it is also as complex as it comes, I like the melodies as much as the hard pounding riffs, I like to drinkk grog and punch motherf**kers while listening to some folk or power metal and then go play video games afterwards, or dungeons & dragons..
This is a long thread, so I will end it here..
