Amon Amarth’s latest release:
Doing my occasional pop-in to this thread to listen to some more samples, I just read this:
You make me very happy with words like that.
I wouldn’t be in this thread at all had I not “discovered” Avantasia (and subsequently Edguy and Gamma Ray) back in 2001.
For years after that, I drove my gf crazy because all I would listen to was German Power Metal. Great music to sing along with.
She’s since become a massive Michael Kiske fan, so (heh heh) my plan worked.
I still consider the first two Avantasia albums the best Power Metal ever created. The composition on those two albums is just stunning.
Yeah, I really didn’t start digging into more extreme metal until really just a few years ago, despite discovering metal at just about the same time as you, @Giles_Habibula. I liked melodic death a fair amount (e.g., middle-era In Flames, Soilwork, Mercenary, Scar Symmetry), and even some proggier black metal (e.g., Opeth), but it took more interesting twists to pull me into the other stuff (e.g., the symphonic arrangements of Fleshgod Apocalypse and Septicflesh, the bluegrass elements in Panopticon, the female vocalist in Arch Enemy). I still don’t think I quite count as a full-fledged fan of pure/basic death or black metal, TBH.
Blind Guardian, Iced Earth, and Demons & Wizards really drug me in at the start, then I spread out into Nightwish, Sonata Arctica, Kamelot, Gamma Ray, Edguy, Avantasia, Ayreon, Grave Digger, Angra, Mago de Oz, and similar stuff from there. I was pretty purely into power metal for a really long time :)
Who, since Heritage, are no longer really black metal, just prog. Not a complaint, since I do like their new work too, particularly Sorceress.
I would agree they are the best thing Tobias Sammet ever was a part of, but the mere existence of Nightfall in Middle Earth means I must respectfully disagree.
I went through a prolonged Iced Earth phase, it appeals to me much in the same way Iron Maiden does (historical themes, clear vocals, thematically strong, and great art).
Power metal wasn’t represented among the metal bands I liked before becoming a metal fan per se (for the record, Iron Maiden, The Black Mages, Black Sabbath, and Metallica).
But then I got a Pandora subscription and went through a few months of trying every genre from ambient to zydeco, and it was the German power metal (Edguy, Iron Savior, Powerwolf, Avantasia, and Blind Guardian in particular) that sent me spiraling down the rabbit hole and trying to make up for lost time.
Okay, I’ve got clarify something, and confess. As big a fan as I am of Power Metal, my experiences with the genre are very limited. When I find a band I really like, I have a tendency to grab up everything they’ve ever created, and will ever create, and only verrry gradually begin to look sideways at other bands. Thus my collection of Power Metal CDs, while numbering in the hundreds, consist of only a couple dozen bands that I’ve gradually allowed myself to be exposed to. I’m very loyal to those bands, but don’t like to branch out, a bad character trait (caused I think by lack of funds - if I find something I love, I simply must own it) that I’ve been trying to remedy in the last year or so.
Now, my confession: While of course I’ve heard of Blind Guardian, I’ve never actually sat down and listened to one of their albums before.
I had to look up Nightfall In Middle Earth, and I’m now listening to it as I write this.
Which terrifies me. Because I am enjoying it quite a bit so far. And if it turns out that I love it, I see (according to Wikipedia) that Blind Guardian has been around like, forever. And has an extensive catalog. Which could turn out to be expensive for someone like me. :)
I must unfortunately report that Blind Guardian are the greatest band to have ever existed, and that Nightfall is only their third best album (sorry, @CraigM, but you can pry my Somewhere Far Beyond and A Night at the Opera out of my cold dead hands).
The longer I’m listening to this, and looking at the date (1998) listed on the Wiki, it’s becoming very apparent to me that Tobias Sammet was very heavily inspired, if not by this exact album, than by this band, when he put Avantasia together. The compositional similarities are striking.
I will grant you, Somewhere far Beyond is a VERY close second for me. Very.
Night at the Opera isn’t even close. I like it, don’t misunderstand, but it is nowhere near as transcendental.
@BigWeather, however, points to a band that has one amazing album, and several other good to great ones. But their peak? So good. Glorious Burden is a power metal masterpiece, losing out to Nighfall by virtue of Hansi being simply better than Ripper.
Sheer madness. Everyone knows that the best Iced Earth album is secretly Alive in Athens 😉
Heh. I was just coming back here to post that while I still like Avantasia’s first two albums more than the one I’m listening to (Nightfall In Middle Earth), I may change my mind with further listenings. Primarily because I am just loving Hansi Kursch’s marvelous vocal qualities and delivery. I had of course heard him before when he had guested on a couple of Edguy and Gamma Ray songs, and thought at that time that he had a very interesting voice. But listening to him sing an entire album has been just a wonderful experience.
For the record @ArmandoPenblade, I have 200mb of international data. I used 10mb to post that reply to you.
JUST SO YOU KNOW
You have no idea how hard I’m laughing at that, man. That’s awesome :)
Glorious Burden was way too melodramatic-patriotic for me at release and I was seriously peeved about losing Matt Barlow (one of my all-time favorite vocalists) for fuckin’ Ripper Owens. This was around the time, IIRC, that IE everything-man Jon Schaffer was getting some nasty press about being a racist twat to the guys in In Flames while on tour with them, so that may have colored my perception of the MURICA FUCK YEAH lyrics even more than it would be anyway.
Whereas Alive in Athens featured one of my favorite IE lineups performing almost every single one of my favorite songs of theirs to a wildly enthusiastic Greek crowd across two (now three with the special edition!) discs. It was everything I wanted in a live concert disc, and I genuinely don’t think any single IE album stands up to it for me.
Hansi is bar none my favorite vocalist of all time. When he randomly shows up somewhere, like, say, a couple of the last few Ayreon albums, I am giddy like a kid at Christmas. Even better, 01001101 also features Bob Catley from Magnum, a British prog-rock group I adore who simply never, ever come to America, much to my regret.
You guys are once again overwhelming me with goodness.
I just now finished listening to Iced Earth’s Glorious Burden in its entirety, and while I did enjoy it, @ArmandoPenblade does have a point. It’s a bit too in-your-face patriotic for my taste as well, and I’m saying that as someone who can generally ignore lyrics and just enjoy the music when I want to. But hey, I did enjoy the music. EDIT: After now reading the allmusic.com review of the album, I may need to give it another listen. I wasn’t listening to the lyrics very closely. It appears that I may have missed the point. /EDIT
After that was finished, Youtube then auto-loaded Framing Armageddon: Something Wicked Part 1, and my ears instantly perked up. Maybe it was a better upload or something, but the music seemed so much more clear. I’m liking this one a LOT. Right up my alley.
Youtube really isn’t the best place for me to try to really listen for nuance though. The audio quality between uploads can be wildly uneven. I may need to spring for an actual CD and listen on my proper stereo system.
All this talk of German Power Metal and no-one likes Running Wild?! Gah! :)
Take this as your penance:
Vassafor - Malediction
I like quite a bit of Iced Earth, and this EP is my favorite. Great production quality and just makes me happy.
Thraeg’s Albums of the Month for November 2017
Not quite as impressive a crop of new releases as October, but still some very worthwhile music to check out this month.
AotM
Aetherian - The Untamed Wilderness (melodeath)
Runners-Up
Jupiterian - Terraforming (sludge)
Cloak - To Venomous Depths (black & roll)
Converge - The Dusk In Us (metalcore)
Honorable Mention
Kawir - Exilasmos (black)
Throne of Heresy - Decameron (melodeath)
Motherslug - The Electric Dunes of Titan (stoner)
Karpathian Relict - Beyond the Over (tech-death)
Moonspell - 1755 (black)
The Unguided - And the Battle Royale (melodeath)
Amberian Dawn - Darkess of Eternity (power)
Tarja - From Spirits & Ghosts (Score for a Dark Christmas)
Almanac - Kingslayer (power)
Here are a few that I enjoyed in November
Blaze of Perdition - Conscious Darkness
Procession - Doom Decimation
Impureza - La Caída de Tonatiuh