This is a continuation of this post. Again, sorry for having to split this up, it came out way longer than expected. I now resume rambling about 2018 stuff.
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Powerglove - Continue?: Well that's disappointing. Powerglove were away for a long while and I eagerly anticipated their return as they're by far my favorite instrumental band. This album however sounds marginally better than your average youtube cover, for the most part. For the uninitiated, Powerglove cover famous videogame tunes in their own power metal way, often adding their own spins to the formula or making a fun little medley of compiled tunes. This is still true here, and there's a lot of stuff to dig into (Mario, Chrono Trigger, Final Fantasy among others), but the end result is a bit underwhelming unfortunately. Take "Mario Minor 2" for example, nearly 7 minutes of Mario stuff and I recognize absolutely nothing. It's supposed to be from Mario 2, but other than an obvious nod to the overworld music at some point (and the boss music towards the end) I just don't hear it. I partially blame myself for this but their original Mario Minor was leagues above in enjoyment and replayability. "Kraid's Lair" is 6 and a half minutes of boring chugging, then the Super Metroid theme comes on and everybody wets their pants, then it's back to nothing. "Chrono Trigger" kinda outstays its welcome at 10 minutes. Upon further listening I think I figured out my main issues: they don't add enough of their own "sauce" if you will, making most of the songs sound like youtube covers, and a lot of the time the songs are too long to retain your interest. Their previous album had almost every song at most 3 or 4 minutes long, but here they frequently go over 6 minutes. It's probably no coincidence that the shortest songs are the best; "Kirby" is legitimately great and got me hooked for a long time. "Under the Sea" features Dragonforce's Marc Hudson on vocals, and though it sounds a bit all over the place, it kinda works. "The Highwind Takes to the Skies" and "Guile's Theme" are also pretty good, although the latter borders on meme metal I guess. Unfortunately that's all I liked. I still like Powerglove and I admit the youtube comparison is somewhat unfair as it's clear that it's done by pros and that a ton of effort went into making this album, but the entire thing left me feeling kinda eh. B-
Highlight: Kirby
Powerwolf - The Sacrament of Sin: Well I'll be damned, I enjoyed this much more than I expected to. Out of all power metal novelty acts, Powerwolf is one of the most unique and generally one of the few worth checking out. However, the relative stagnancy of their music and their incessant spam of epic organs, latin psalms and ave marias made their shtick pretty tiring, so I skipped their 2015 album and listened to this one expecting to get quickly tired again. This album actually makes Powerwolf sound fresh and exciting! Granted, their music still hasn't developed all that much, and it probably helps that I hadn't really listened to them since 2013, but it does look like they've perfected their sound and know how to make their shtick enjoyable. Opener "Fire & Forgive" and closer "Fist by Fist" became instant favorites (despite their similarities) with their anthemic, fist-pumping vibe and Attila's ever great vocals. The title track is a great one as well, since Powerwolf kick into high gear and deliver a fast song in the style of German power metal. There's also "Where the Wild Wolves Have Gone", where they try their hand at a ballady-like song, and it works pretty well (it's also a first for Powerwolf, I think). "Incense and Iron" deserves a mention too for being extremely catchy and having a folkier sound than the rest. Even the more Eurovision-style, dancey tunes like "Venom of Venus" and "Demons are a Girl's Best Friend" are enjoyable because they're executed well. Not every song is a success though (didn't care much for "Stossgebet") and outside of a couple of songs the album is plain old Powerwolf. I think I've had my Powerwolf dose and I'm good for at least a couple of years, but for what it was, this album is as enjoyable as it gets. A-
Highlight: The Sacrament of Sin
Roman So Words - Roman's: Weeby j-power metal, that's what this is. For the people still reading, Roman so Words is quite a weird band (what the hell does their name even mean?). I always pegged them as one of those derivative anime-cover symphony j-power metal bands that were only propagated within doujin circles, despite the latter being probably not true. Regardless, this is their first full album, so I thought it was about time to check them out. The album is about evenly split between hyperactive power metal (think Dragonforce or Dragon Guardian) and what I can only describe as jrpg music. It works well, I won't deny that songs like "Accord" and "Romancing Waltz" are catchy and joyful, like Nobuo Uematsu's forgotten work that didn't make it into the earlier Final Fantasies. I also won't deny that the jazzy-sounding "Elise" is a guilty pleasure. These songs don't qualify as metal though. The actual power metal on this album is JPM through and through; Dragonforce guitars, nasal female vocals, an emphasis on flashy solos and catchy choruses (the symphonic elements are well done indeed), but at the end of the day very little will stick with you. "Ballad of Starlight", "Aria", "Rin", "Echo x Tear", all of them fit this description and they're pretty good songs while you're listening to them, but afterwards you can't really tell them apart or remember anything particular about them. As such, I'd say this album is on par with the average Dragon Guardian album; it's kinda fun for a short while, but soon enough your attention span will dwindle and you will quickly find yourself wanting to move on to something else. B
Highlight: Aria
Royal Jester - Breaking the Chains: Surprise comeback of the year, I was almost sure Royal Jester were a one-time album band after they dropped off the face of the earth in 2012. Happily (and without warning), they dropped their new album late in 2018. For people familiar with their debut, this one is more of the same; happy, keyboard-heavy Swedish power metal, with a focus on melodies and catchy choruses (think ReinXeed with a vocalist eerily similar to Weird Al). Nothing groundbreaking, but everything here is very listenable and inoffensive for the most part. "Here We Are" I particularly liked, it has a classic happy power metal chorus that gets like 2-3 key changes towards the end. "From the Ashes" is similar in spirit, moving on at a galloping pace. "Cry on Forever" is probably the fastest song here, a stupidly happy yet wholly unoriginal power metal track. Closer "Time of our Lives" is a classic melodious feel-good tune to send off the album on a high note. These are the highlights more or less; "Power Metal Never Dies" ain't shabby either, but they had to go and give it a cringey name. The rest of the songs are a middling bunch, there are some forgettable mid-paced songs where the singer sounds a bit poor, there's "Sands of Time" which is okay for the most part but sports a weird chorus. I think people into ReinXeed will most appreciate this album overall, or perhaps anyone in need of some happy formulaic EUPM, of which there wasn't a lot in 2018 frankly. B
Highlight: Here We Are
Salieri - Babylon: This is another album that likely flew under everyone's radar. It was only brought to my attention from a post in this sub - "Zlata Horecka" is absolutely one of the best songs I've heard this year. It has relentless speed, great lower-pitched vocals, a tasteful blend of keyboards and guitars like early Sonata Arctica, catchy verses and to top it all off a chorus for the ages. I really couldn't believe how this unknown band from Czech Republic managed to make something of this quality, something that my ears would instantly like. So naturally I had to check if the rest of the album was like this. Turns out this was by far the best song in there, but the rest of their stuff isn't too disappointing after all. "Giordano Buro" sports an equally soaring chorus, however, clocking in at 8:30 minutes it becomes a bit too much at times. This is my main gripe with the album - every song is about 7, 8 or 9 minutes long when really all of them could have been a good deal shorter and actually improve the album. "Zlata Horecka" is the shortest of the bunch at just a little over 5 minutes long, and it's no coincidence it blows the rest out of the water. "Kralovna melodie" fittingly has bursts of pleasant melodies throughout the track, and most of the rest of the songs move along these lines, as all of them boast catchy keyboards and good mid-range vocals (seriously I would like to see more vocals like this in power metal). The last two tracks "Babylon" and "Salieri" are collectively 16 minutes of boredom as they're both pretty ballady and uninteresting, so essentially only 6 songs are worth checking out here. But really, if you have to listen to anything out of it, it's most probably "Zlata Horecka". B
Highlight: Zlata Horecka
Seven Thorns - Symphony of Shadows: I'm often surprised that Seven Thorns rarely get talked about here, their previous two albums were a fairly standard yet decent slab of melodic EUPM, like a happier-sounding Gamma Ray or a more aggressive Freedom Call. Their newest album has them entering a rather edgy phase, judging from the all-black cover featuring crows and a bloodied Marilyn Manson in a top hat. The music itself doesn't manage to be that edgy though; there are a couple blastbeats and 'darker' sounding songs, if you will, but overall this is still very saccharine melodic power metal. "Evil Within" aims for the aforementioned darker sound, yet explodes into a triumphant happy-sounding chorus, which works pretty well actually. "Black Fortress" is another mid-paced track similar to "Evil Within", catchy chorus and everything. Most of the songs here have a clear emphasis on melodic choruses and not on speed or double bass drums, which is a shame since when they go into that territory they pull it off well. Case in point, "Last Goodbye" and "Symphony of Shadows" are by far the best songs on the album, as both are very energetic and fast-paced with uplifting choruses. I would have preferred to have more of this, but the rest of the songs aren't half-bad either, for people who like chorus-oriented tunes at least. Well, except "Virtual Supremacy", the verses in this song were so bad I almost cringed. I'm a bit on the fence about recommending this as I'm lukewarm towards the end product and can't really compare it to a particular band. Upon repeated listens I drew a few parallels between this album and current Nocturnal Rites, since the singers sound similar and both put an emphasis on choruses, so I'll go with this comparison. B
Highlight: Last Goodbye
Sinbreed - IV: Gotta give credit to Sinbreed for being one of the most consistent, play-it-safe bands in the genre nowadays. All of their albums so far have this "safe" Helloween-like sound of german power metal, so if you dig this description you will probably like Sinbreed (and if you don't dig it, you will probably never like Sinbreed). "IV" is no exception. They got a new vocalist, and though he's no Herbie Langhans, he does a good job on most of the songs and Sinbreed's sound actually benefits from the higher registers of this dude's voice. So, there's not much to see here, it's what you expect Helloween-style power metal to sound like. That doesn't mean it's not well done however; "First Under the Sun", "Through the Fire", "Falling Down" and "Pride Strikes" are captivating and blazingly fast songs with cheesy Helloween-like choruses, which is what most of us are looking for anyway. I did also like "Wasted Trust" and the catchiness of "Pale-Hearted", though I understand most thought the latter was bad. The rest of the album is mostly forgettable stuff and the singer clearly sounds amateurish at times, while nothing sounds particularly inspiring. That's hardly surprising for a band who decided to name their fourth album "IV" though. Other than these issues, you can tell this was a competent effort. In sum: it's a Sinbreed album. B
Highlight: First Under the Sun
Thaurorod - Coast of Gold: Third time's the charm for Thaurorod, who finally hit their stride and delivered a power metal album of the highest caliber like I knew they would. In many ways this album is the embodiment of 'just right'; it has a perfectly fine timelength of 50 minutes, a good amount of songs (10 in total with no intro / interlude fluff), a healthy dose of fast tunes with a few slower paced ones to let the album breathe a little, it's like everything was planned to a tee. The songs themselves are all top tier - "Power" sets the tone for the rest of the album by being an appropriately powerful track with a captivating and uplifting chorus, complete with Andi's soothing voice. "The Commonwealth Lives" (that's a weird title) is even better in that regard, sporting a catchier chorus and a faster, almost breakneck-speed pace. The title track is in the same vein as the previous two tracks, but without making the album tiring or redundant. "24601" is a nice change of pace, both music-wise and lyrically. I enjoyed the homage to Les Miserables, as well as the homage to Sonata Arctica with those infectious melodies. The best song of the album however has to be "Feed the Flame" - it's like Dragonforce, Sonata Arctica and Freedom Call spawned the song as it's equal parts relentless, catchy and soaring. The chorus in particular is flat-out amazing, they repeat it like three times in the end and I still can't get enough of it. This is like the quintessential power metal song, and likely my SOTY. "My Sun Will Rise" is a close second favorite, similar in speed and catchiness but with a tad more serious / less happy vibe. Nearly every song here is a highlight; perhaps ballad "Halla" and the mid-paced "Cannibal Island" are a tad less excellent than the rest, but they help in making the album cohesive so there is no room to complain. Overall, Coast of Gold is IMO up there with some of the best material from Sonata Arctica and Stratovarius, and definitely feels more like it was released in 2003 rather than 2018. One of the best of the year for sure! A
Highlight: Feed the Flame
Torian - God of Storms: Another sleeper hit for 2018. I was only vaguely familiar with Torian before listening to this, but I thought of them as another unremarkable, run-of-the-mill German power metal band. This album however sounds like it was crafted by one of the leading bands in the genre, both in terms of musicianship and sound quality. Seriously everything here sounds crystal clear and damned good, the choirs during the choruses in particular would put Orden Ogan to shame. In fact this album does sound a bit like Orden Ogan in their prime. "Evil vs Evil" for example is a furious track that would fit right into Orden Ogan's "To The End". "Far From Midian Sky" is an even more pummeling powerhouse of a song with a captivating chorus. "Old Friend Failure" and "Unbowed, Unbent, Unbroken" (Hammerfall nod?) are a bit more mid-paced and anthemic-sounding but my god, these choirs. They're omnipresent, but at the same time they're tastefully used and they don't smother every song, it really adds a lot to the album. Most of the album is pretty hard hitting German power metal (especially "Crimson Born"), so nothing is too original but at the same time everything sounds high-quality. The album closes with the token epic "A Glorious Downfall", nearly 9 minutes of catchy Orden-Ogan like goodness. I mean it, Orden Ogan fans ought to get a kick out of listening to this, but then again most should check it out as it's one of the best albums 2018 had to offer. A-
Highlight: Far From Midian Sky
Traumer - History: Brazilian power metallers Traumer are back with yet another fairly standard EUPM-worship album. I really can't tell much of a difference between this album and their previous one; opener "History" almost sounds exactly like the opener of their previous one ("Forever Starts Tomorrow"). The singer's voice is pretty inoffensive, but he blatantly tries to emulate Andre Matos and his vocals become grating at times due to that. Still, the track is okayish cookie-cutter power metal. "Lullaby" lies on the less fast, more melodic side, but other than that it's more of the same. The entire album sounds like these two songs repeated again and again, with few surprises to behold. "Lonely Rain" has a slight bait-and-switch thing going on, as it starts like a ballad and then blossoms into a happy sounding fast-paced power metal song. "Revolution Has Begun" is also pretty uplifting, as is the bonus track "Burning Rainbow Road". The real ballad of the album, "Thousand Tears", actually manages to not suck, which was another surprise. The rest of the songs are kind of a blur; I don't know if it's this dude's voice, or the general melancholic / soft tone of the album, but it easily puts me to sleep and when it comes to power metal, you really want the opposite of that. Even when it comes to old EUPM emulation, there are far better offerings this year to check out. B-
Highlight: Well that's awkward, there are no videos of any album song online. You didn't miss out on much anyway.
Unlucky Morpheus - Change of Generation: People seem to be going crazy about the new Unlucky Morpheus (which is good - they deserve recognition), but to me this sounded like yet another Japanese power metal album. I've probably listened to far more weeby power metal than the average power metal fan though, so maybe I'm biased. Still, this is pretty high quality stuff; "Knight of Sword", "Cadaver" and "Change of Generation" are all powerful anthems in the usual JPM fashion you either hate or love. Vocalist Fuki does a great job as always, and there are a bunch of strings and violins in places to spice things up, which really adds a lot to the songs. There are also a couple of more ballady, violin-heavy tracks like "鎮昏歌" and the closing track, which sound beautiful and make this release stand out a little from Japanese Power Metal Album #4962. Then there are the questionable parts of the album - I don't get what they were trying to do with "Revadac". It's supposed to have the music arrangement of "Cadaver" but backwards, yet outside of vague familiarity I didn't really hear it. I'm also not a fan of the harsh vocals, they feel very tacked on and some of the songs in there could very well do without them. Other than this relatively minor gripe, this is still enjoyable. I just think the other album they put out this year deserves more praise than the praise this one gets. B+
Highlight: Change of Generation
Unlucky Morpheus - Saireco Jealousy: I was on the fence about including this one, since it's barely 30 minutes long and it's a remake of their 2009 album "Jealousy". I ended up including it because it's worth a listen and IMO it has stronger material than "Change of Generation" with none of the duds. In short, it's Unlucky Morpheus going at full throttle with possibly some of their all-time classic songs on deck. "Jealousy of Silence" is extremely fast but retains a melancholic tone in the style of Balflare. "Endless Control" is a personal favorite of mine, also the song that got me into their stuff way back. It starts off with the drum intro of Sonata Arctica's "Blank File" and then quickly bursts into a somehow even more infectious chorus. Just great stuff. While the rest of their 2009 album didn't do much for me initially, listening to the remake brought the other songs back to life as well. Like, listen to how great and catchy "Le Cirque de Sept Couleurs" is, or the two Japanese tracks " 魔境堕天録サリエル " and " 百鬼飛行 ", all of them are crazy good quality power metal. Even the instrumental interlude in the middle of the album is entertaining with its frenetic speed. Really the only downside of the album may be that there's no variety and no room to breathe as every song is a double-bass powerhouse. Also "Perverseness" is slightly less amazing than the rest of the songs, though still great on its own. In any case, people who liked "Change of Generation" should definitely not sleep on this one, it's one of the highest points of UM's career. A-
Highlight: 魔境堕天録サリエル
Veonity - Legend of the Starborn: Disclaimer - this was my first exposure to Veonity. I knew about their previous two albums but the first one looked like the most generic power metal album ever from the cover alone and the second one looked like more of the same, so I never bothered. This one however seemed to generate quite the hype, so I bit. Now on the surface, this looks like everything I could ever want from a power metal album. Good production, great vocals, fantastic emulation of the best and most cheesy bands in the genre (like a mix of Freedom Call, Heavenly and Edguy), anthemic fast-paced songs and catchy sing-along mid-tempo tracks. "Rise Again", "Guiding Light", "Sail Away", "Warrior of the North" and "To The Gods" all carry this burst of positive energy that explodes on you during the chorus and leaves you with a stupid grin on your face after they're done. Guest vocals by Bloodbound's Patrik Selleby on "Freedom Vikings" and ReinXeed's Tommy Johansson on "Winds of Asgard" also hit the nail on the head and give an extra punch to both songs. So yeah the album sounds pretty perfect, but digging a bit deeper soured me on some stuff which brought the album down a few notches. First off, a minor grievance - what the hell is their theme supposed to be? The cover alone shows a viking with the hammer of Thor (?) gazing over Atlantis (??) with planets in the distance alluding to the 'starborn' part of the title. What? This is some "Use the force, Harry - Gandalf" shit, just decide what your theme is before throwing everything together. A more major issue I had with the album is twofold; first, the album is too long. Ticking at almost 70 minutes is already pushing it even if these guys were recording an original masterpiece, but 100 percent of the album is unoriginal (albeit fun) power metal everyone's heard before, and once you've heard the first two songs you have more or less heard everything to be found in this album, so 70 minutes is downright insulting. Secondly, the songs themselves are too long. Again, I wouldn't mind if they had 7-8+ minute songs that did something interesting to justify the length, but almost every other song goes over 6 minutes in the same manner - they repeat the chorus multiple times in the end, they introduce a weird new section right before or after the solo, or they prolong the outro by a minute or so. This gets quickly tiring and if they trimmed the fat they could've easily cut one, maybe two minutes from most of the songs. They could also skip the worst songs; you already have a slower-paced happy power metal track, do you really need two more that sound exactly like this one? If they had fixed these issues, this would've been AOTY contender, but alas. Their sound is good though (if generic), so I'm confident their next album will achieve greatness. B+
Highlight: Sail Away
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I'm aware I missed some of the bigger albums of 2018, like Angra, or maybe Lione / Conti, but I lacked the time and interest to listen to them and they were covered by other lists anyway. I'd rather place a couple more unknown releases into the spotlight in case they get a new fan, rather than just talk about albums everyone else is talking about. However, I am a bit sad I didn't get around to listening to Guardians of Time, or Orion's Reign, or Judicator; I youtubed all of them and they sounded great, but I didn't listen to them enough to form a coherent and thorough opinion, and then life made me move onto other things. Maybe in the future, eh?
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MY 2018 POWER METAL AWARDS
Best Band that Came Back to Life: Heavenly
It's (almost) official, Heavenly are back together and there are news of them making an album. I can scarcely believe I'm typing this and I don't know why the entire sub isn't raving about this. There are a few reality-induced setbacks; they haven't made an album in a decade so it's natural to question whether they still 'have' it or if the new album will live up to the hype, and also there's no telling whether they'd get around to finishing the album. Timeless Miracle have been working on their comeback since 2015, scheduled to release in 2017, and now it's 2019 with no news of the album dropping so ... yeah. Regardless, I'm glad to have Heavenly back.
Best Re-Release / Remaster: Dragonforce - Re-Powered Within
I don't know how an improved production could ever change my mind on an album so much, but by god the new version of "The Power Within" almost sounds like a new DF album. You can actually hear the background choir during the chorus of "Fallen World" and it's amazing, and "Die By the Sword" sounds way better than what I remembered. Almost every song has received an update and now I can't go back to the originals. This quickly went from my least favorite DF album to like the 3rd or 4th favorite, which is quite the feat. It's entirely possible that my tastes have shifted since 2012, but in any case they did a bang-up job with the production on this remaster.
This Year's Metal Opera ... that Actually Didn't Suck? : Marius Danielsen's Legend of Valley Doom Part 2
Not a fan of this guy, but apparently this album was way better than the first. I briefly skimmed some songs on youtube and it does sound like the song quality has improved. The lineup is also great; Kiske, Luppi, Heiman, Hayer to name a few, they even brought Tim Owens. That's impressive to say the least. Lyrics are still ass (judging from the lyric video to "Temple of the Ancient God") but you win this one Marius.
This Year's Shitty Metal Opera: Eunomia - The Chornicles of Eunomia Part I
Thankfully Marius's younger brother Peter stepped in to save the day and fill in the shitty power metal opera quota for the year. I'm kinda glad Eunomia exists, otherwise it would pain me to put Melodius Deite in this spot. I'm not sure if it exactly counts as an opera, but Conti sings on it and all of it is insipid tiresome crap, so it fits the bill. Where do the brothers get the money from to bring all these huge names on the studio? Not gonna lie, if I had a bunch of disposable income I would also recruit everyone I could to record a shitty metal opera for the fun of it.
Best EP: Leverage - The Devil's Turn
There wasn't much competition for the spot AFAIK - it was either gonna be Leverage or Victorius, but Victorius play boring generic power metal so Leverage win by default. The EP's also pretty damn good, Leverage have a cool AOR / power metal sound that I always dug, and this (along with single "Red Moon Over Sonora") makes me very hopeful for their upcoming 2019 album.
Most anticipated album of 2019: Turilli / Lione Rhapsody's album
Everybody loves that one meme about the 85 or so Rhapsodies at this point, but jokes aside I'm stoked. LT's Rhapsody's two albums were my AOTYs for the respective year they came out on, and at the end of the day it's Luca. With Fabio. Plus Conti is singing on it too. All the planets are aligning for my 2019 AOTY right here. I guess I'm also hyped for Pumpkins United but that album is slated for 2020.
Song of the Year: Thaurorod - Feed the Flame
It was going to be either this, or Salieri - Zlata Horecka. I went with this one because it embodies everything I love about power metal; it's cheesy, extremely uplifting and happy, incredibly intense without letting up, the chorus is amazing and gets stuck in your head for ages (just typing this up gave me the urge to hum it), it's all great. It's not a masterpiece of any kind and it doesn't try to be too ambitious, but it delivers exactly what it promises and I can't stop listening to it.
Band of the Year: Unlucky Morpheus
Unlucky Morpheus put out not one, but two excellent albums in 2018. I have a clear preference between the two of them, but there's no denying that both are high quality power metal and Unlucky Morpheus are the best thing Japan has to offer in the genre, at least until Galneryus record their next album.
Best Album Art: Eternity's End - Unyielding
Just look at it! The colors, the landscape, everything is perfect. Felipe Franco, take notes before you make the next boring bluish red / yellow art for a power metal band.
Submitted February 02, 2019 at 05:32AM by jasonk12 http://bit.ly/2BeTK0U
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