DUNGEONS, DRAGONS, SWORDS...sounds like a blog for King Arthur..dont it ?...WELL, IT AINT...this one is about the most ...ummm...descriptive form of metal, POWER METAL...the songs, as a rule, paint mental pictures about vikings,wizards, templar knights or they do for the most part anyway......and the album art is off the chart...you could hang power metal albums (minus band names) in a gallery and people would go OOOHHH...that's nice
Sam Dunn, him of Banger Films and a sociology major, even did a episode about Power metal on his metal evolution series, it had Dragonforce, Dio, Manowar, Hammerfall, Gamm Ray, Helloween and Iced Earth on it, just to name a couple of the participants....I get the feeling that young Sammy does like Wacken, he keeps filming there.......
He said on the episode about Power metal, that its, by and large , a European phenomena, its the metal genre that guys can bring their girls too and a sing-a-long at any show is a given, let alone a must.
I have a list of alleged power metal acts on the 'puter and to be honest it's chokka's with bands I never would of picked..Iron Maiden, Saxon, Judas Preist..I guess, if you think about it, a goodly percentage of Maidens subject matter is a dungeons and dragons, Its just "Run to the Hills" aint exactly full of dragons and demons and thus I didn't make the link and of course Judas Priest released an album called Nostradamus...should of been a dead give away by rights...mind you "Judas Rising" aint exactly about cracking a beer in the car park , now is it.
HELL, I thought I was listening to normal run of the mill metal but with a bit of fast guitar, till I tried Dragonforce's "through the fire and the flames" on Guitar hero and then googled 'em and they came up under said subject heading....
POWER METAL MUSO'S
The musicianship is...ummm...complicated, detailed, awesome, all of the above.... I think, if you like a guitar break with a zillion notes then, for the most part, power metal is for you...of course the playing of that many b.p.m's has to make sense or your just listeneing to a monkey slap a gibson, so you know there is some seriously talented players in the genre...
a couple of guitarists that come to mind straight up are..Herman Li and Sam Totman from Dragonforce, Oscar Dronjak from Hammerfall and Kai Hansen formerly of Helloween, awesome players one and all...
One player who leaps to mind is Marco Heitala, the musical genius behind Nightwish and speaking of Nightwish lets talk singers, former Nightwish belter, Tarja has a set of pipes that will crack your bi-focals..as does Joacim Cans from Hammerfall and Marc Hudson from Dragonforce, formner Dragonforce singer Z.P Theart has a set of wicked pipes as well...and then there is Ronnie...nuff said...
.and there is the ivory ticklers for the various acts out there ...Vadim Pruzhanov from Dragonforce is awesome, Tuomas Holopainen from Nightwish is out there as well and Alex Staropoli of Rhapsody of Fire seems to have 3 arms with 11 digits on each hand sometimes...
and it could be argued that the godfather of all these players is Jens Johansson from Yngwie Malmsteen's group in 80's.......and finally, lets think about the tri-athletes of music for moment, the lads up the back....your basic 10,000 bpm's power metal drummer....BLOODY HELL...I've seen Dragonforce and I reckon Dave McIntosh done about 9,000 miles that night..FARK MOI...and Anders Johansson from Hammerfall wasnt far behind him
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One thing I will say about power metal bands, they do put on a helluva show and that, in my humble , is an awesome thing....and also the bands that I've got into,in the genre, go out of their way to stick out, also a good thing trust me, take Alestorm for instance, these blokes think their bloody pirates from the 17th century and write their tunes accordingly, if you like your metal rollicking and rousing, then them's the fella's for you..
Iced Earth is a damn fine band as well..then there is them mad bloody Italian's from Rhapsody of Fire..awesome players, with a decided barouque feel to their subject matter...and then there was a band that i'd listened too in the 80's then they sorta slipped off my radar...Manowar...would it be wrong to suggest, that these blokes have over-dosed on homo eroticism...frigging loin clothes, broadswords and baby oil are all there in abundance...AND..their songs are just phenomenally cheesy, even cheesier than most power metal subject matter...but, brilliant just the same and the video's produced by bands in the genre...good lord, watching, say a, Rhapsody of Fire video, your gonna get bombarded with stuff that looks like the promo for either the tv series Merlin or Russell Crowe's version of Robin Hood, knights, swords, ladies in waiting, all concepts used in your "by the books" power metal video....
POWER METAL VIDEO'S
Speaking of video, I picked up a copy of Classic Rock a few years back and it had a dvd of the Metal Hammer awards night and it also had a stack of "battle metal" videos on there...various acts played at the awards show..Dragonforce was foremost on the show and the italian metal legends, Lacuna Coil also put in an appearance...BUT...the collection of videos on the dvd were the eye openers for mine, Hammerfall's Blood Bound was, in my humble, the best vid on there...there was a bunch of dudes in animal skins grunting that did nothing for me...there was also Kamelot on there that wasn't too foul and Sabaton was also on there, them lads are the latest german monsters got some of there stuff, they do like a war story or two
SO...there you go, my skew whiffed thoughts on Power Metal..oh, by the way, the whole time I was putting this together, I was listening to Helloween playing "Keeper's Trilogy" on loop...yeh, baby I'm hardcore...
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