Who does that ?

Back to USPM/EuroPM.. I think insisting on labelling metal styles geographically, whether it is black metal or power metal, to deny one continent from being "true" PM (or BM in another thread) often comes from a ridiculous attachment to clichés. Someone else explained it in a "USBM" thread. Europe (the continent) is seen by some as the only legitimate place where power metal can come from, because power metal is (as the cliché goes) about castles, dungeons, dragons.. so you can't be power metal (according to some), if you are from sunny California or a concrete covered city founded in the 1930s. By the same token, American or Australian bands can't be black metal because they don't have cold snow forests (well, North America does but they were never peopled by pagans and/or Vikings, trolls and dwarves); also, the USA are a wide country and better known for their warm climate than for their cold climate regions, and the cliché is that black metal can only come from cold wind, snow and ice.

Of course, Dio is an exception because of the fact that he played with two major British bands (Rainbow, Black Sabbath) and because of his size.

Really, this US vs Europe thing is all about prejudices, romance and not an iota about the music. Sure, one can find differences between early Queensrÿche and early Helloween, but both bands had similar influences and belong the power metal label. Early Helloween is no more different than early Queensrÿche than early Fates Warning is different from early Queensrÿche.

Speaking of Europe, the band, there are at least 20 different metal bands who covered "Final Countdown". Though not a metal song, it seems to have resonated with metal bands. I can't think of a non-metal song that has been covered by as many metal bands... well at least yet.

Are you fucking kidding me? There are plenty of musical differences. Starting after Michael Kiske took over vocal duties, Helloween adopted a much more streamlined, upbeat style, with a focus on major keys, happy lyrics, sing-along choruses. Queensryche were always more somber, minor-key, and at least on the initial EP, riff-based. Early Helloween also displayed a lot more speed metal influence from their early days. Now, there clearly are similarities between the two bands, because both represent EuroPM and USPM in their infancies, but as the years went on the two schools of power metal diverged more and more, to the point where if you can't tell that there's a significant musical difference between this and this, two power metal songs released in the same year, you're fucking deaf.

Who said there weren't significant differences ? Are you making this up just so you have something easy to write about ?

There are differences between early QR and early Fates Warning, yet we don't talk about WCPM and ECPM.

Learn how to read, you can write monologues without posting them anywhere.

I was responding to this:
Which is bullshit. Did you read the thread at all? There has been tons of musical discussion, and the debate is hardly "US vs Europe".

The differences I described between Helloween and Queensryche also apply just as much to Helloween and Fates Warning. Queensryche and Fates Warning are much more like each other than either is like Helloween, just in terms of basic song structure, riff structure, tone, etc.

Speaking of tone, watch yours or you're out of here.

Yeah I know I'm not a moderator etc etc.

You compared Stratovarius, a band with a symphonic theme (Tolkki was recording his interpretations of Paganini and Tchaikovsky in mid 90s) with Cauldron Born. But take 1997 Gamma Ray and that's much closer to 1997 Cauldron Born, and yet, as with Stratovarius, Gamma Ray are an entire different generation (bands formed in the 80s who carried on) than Cauldron Born (formed late 90s).

I think what may have happened for sure is that the 80s power metal bands from America changed their styles quickly at a point where they were no longer power metal or simply disappeared; i.e., Queensrÿche from Rage for Order onwards, Fates Warning turned into Dream Theatre at some point in the early 90s, etc. Then a new generation came in, with different influences, and maybe they represented a more riff based style of power metal in proportion because there was a relative "power metal" void left by those pionneer bands.

In Europe, through the 90s, there was a mix of old and new power metal bands, because older power metal bands mostly remained true to power metal elements (except two albums by Helloween). But listening to most Helloween Deris albums, they have quite a few songs that are completely unlike early Weikath Helloween: Push (1998), We Burn (1996), Kill It (2007). Yet that's power metal coming from Europe, not sounding like what is usually described as EuroPM. Didn't Hammerfall cover Warlord (US) ?

Gamma Ray and Cauldron Born are closer than Stratovarius and Cauldron Born but they still sound basically nothing alike...where's the similarity, that they both have high pitched vocals and guitar riffs?

Most Euro PM has a heavy focus on pop-sensible melodies and choruses, it's just how it is...LegendMaker posted some Europe tracks earlier, and for sure that was a big part in it. A lot of old 80s cock rock and arena anthems were a big influence on Euro PM, just as much as the classical, vitruosic type stuff.

With that said, one can't deny the influence of Queensryche on bands like Stratovarius, who basically copied them on Fourth Dimension and some songs on the later albums. Then again, Queensryche were only straight ahead metal on the first two releases anyway. Genre names are so arbitrary and had so many meanings back in the day that it's impossible to say for sure what's what until everything got clearly defined in the 2000s. Most of the USPM bands I call interchangeably USPM and just plain "traditional metal." While I see why they get called power metal - the more intense rhythms, faster tempos, thrashy beats, bigger choruses, etc - I still don't really tend to see the line as all that bold.

As for the "USPM-sounding songs" in bands like Helloween and HammerFall's discographies, well, it's all still metal to begin with, it's not like it changed genres just by jumping across the ocean. Metal is a riff-based form of music, and a couple of isolated, heavier songs here and there doesn't necessarily mean they're in the same exact boat as another regional scene. Power metal is like any other genre in that it has different scenes, sounds, regions, etc. Swedish stuff like Nocturnal Rites and Hammerfall is notably more muscular, and Finnish stuff a la Sonata Arctica and Excalion is a bit more pop-focused and syncopated. The US stuff just happens to lean more toward the traditional side and have more of a riffy base like the origins of metal did. Just another scene really.

Yeah but then again, what's a 1997 US band which sounds similar to 1997 Cauldron Born ? Iced Earth, no, not really.

Arena rock came mostly from America. Let's say Queensrÿche (US) were influenced by Judas Priest and some Maiden (EU, well, UK), and Helloween (EU) by some American arena rock (either directly or through Europe, EU), who's to say which one is Euro-style and which one is US-style ?

One can spot perhaps two clusters (though I'm not sure how well defined) in what is commonly accepted as power metal, but my original point is that to give them toponymic labels is to be influenced by clichés because the absolute geographical representation is not there.

Still remaining in our reference year 1997, this is from US and has the choir chorus http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Qc4A-rEFu0 and many soft elements referred in this thread as EuroPM.

I really don't know what you're trying to say here. It's true that USPM kind of died out in the early 90s along with US thrash as a popular style, and a lot of the most popular USPM bands tried to change styles to maintain some sort of marketability (Omen, Crimson Glory, Fates Warning, Jag Panzer, Helstar, to name a few) but the bands that came later were influenced by the earlier USPM bands just as the later Euro Power bands were influenced by the earlier ones. A lot of the 90s USPM bands were "riffier" than the often straightforward 80s USPM bands, but that was more just a product of the style evolving away from its basic heavy metal roots than the "mass extinction." You could hear that evolution even in the early bands, prior to the 90s extinction; for example, Omen's first album essentially still has one foot in heavy metal, but by their third album they'd gotten a lot riffier and more complex. Same with Helstar; listen to the debut and compare it to Nosferatu. 90 billion more riffs.

They aren't a million miles apart, but listing isolated one-song examples as evidence isn't helping your case that "geographical representation isn't there." Overall they are distinct sounds.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IRtAhGGQYXM
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F7ecQuvTjfs
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hRoZILMRzcQ
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xxRCEsFOzdE

Not all from exactly 1997, not all exactly like Cauldron Born, but there was quite a bit of extremely riffy, aggressive power metal with ambitious songwriting going on in the US at the time. It just wasn't given much attention at all.


Why is absolute geographical representation necessary? There will always be exceptions, no genre terms are absolute or 100% accurate. There were shitloads of bands playing NWOBHM-style metal that weren't from England. USPM includes plenty of bands from Canada, like Zions Abyss and Dead Calm. The terms we have are the ones that stuck, and they're useful shorthand for differentiating between the two major styles of power metal.

Honestly it should be just called power metal for USPM and melodic power metal for bands like helloween and stratovarius, I mean bands like blind guardian, grave digger, running wild, tarot ect, sound closer to USPM than europm. This is just my opinion.

I feel the need to point out how horribly redundant the term "melodic power metal" is. It's like calling something "slow doom metal" or "growly death metal".

Ehhh It was used for a lack for a better term.

Yes, but that's the second album, 'Wings of Tomorrow' (1984) which, contrary to what maidenpriestmanic implied, is definitely AOR except for a mere couple of metal-ish tracks (this one and the title track, with its seminal, embarrassing Santa Chorus indeed). And of course, from there, the band went on to become possibly the ultimate AOR icon with 'The Final Countdown' which wasn't even close to being metal, but turned out even more influential on the uplifting, soft, poppy, sugar-coated elements of the Keepers and EuroPM in general (and, later on, Sonata Arctica in particular). But Europe's 1983 self-titled debut is a different beast altogether. The 6 songs I linked to earlier on are all from that album, and really when I say Europe used to be a (proto-power, if anybody will) metal band, it's solely on the grounds of this particular album.


You've made my day, there, dude.


No, it did not. Much like other major metal sub genres (with the notable exception of thrash), power metal as a defined genre was preceded by the term ultimately used to describe it. "Power metal", as a term, was around since at least early 1982, with an early speed/proto-thrash Metallica demo called just that. By 1988, the term was still floating around but no one genre had stuck to it yet, as proven by its use for the title of Pantera's hard/heavy with glam and thrash influences album released that year. I was there too, paying attention and reading metal mags when 'Painkiller' was released, and I don't recall that album being referred to as "power metal" anywhere, so I honestly think the review you read back then was an isolated incident. The album was largely referred to as various synonyms of "punchy" and "mean" heavy metal, as well as melodic speed metal, which makes sense, because if there ever was an example of a heavy/speed album that couldn't and shouldn't be confused with power metal, 'Painkiller' certainly is it. Priest does have a number of songs close to the power metal spirit and aesthetics, and they indeed influenced power metal bands from both sides of the Atlantic and beyond, but it's their late 70s and early 80s material one must look at to find them. As for how the term "power metal" came to stick to the genre it now describes, feel free to read my earlier post in this very thread which tells that tale in a rather detailed fashion (from there, you might even go overboard and do a search for earlier threads on this very topic, as I remember having that discussion here one or two years ago, and it was also explained then).


Are you kidding me? "The fucking Poooooowaaaaaaa", really? That's your take on "Manowar song that sounds close to EuroPM"?! A million times NO. First, this isn't even a "choir chorus", it's Eric Adams single-handedly blowing your speakers with the power of his voice, literally and figuratively. Second, you might have misunderstood the type of chorus referred to as typical of (a certain type of songs within) EuroPM, in this thread and elsewhere: think of stuff like this (a 1997 reference, see? I aim to please). Third, there's no question that mid-period Manowar was influential to a number of later EuroPM bands, Italian and/or symphonic ones in particular (there was a whole thread in which a certain someone kept bringing up this particular point, recently). Far from proving a lack of differences between the two major Schools of power metal, this only goes to show that, as with most healthy, active genres, common and mutual influences occurred between different scenes and schools. Also, 'Louder Than Hell', as an album released in 1996, wasn't quite your best pick to "remain in the year 1997", but hey! that's the least of my worries with this.

More generally, kalervon, (and quickly because I have to run to work now) I feel you came to this thread from the USBM one with a specific "oh noez! stop the regional tagging, it's not fair or accurate" mindset, and you just went ahead and assumed a similar thing was going on in this here thread about power metal. That's not the case at all, as you might have noticed from both the responses to your argument and, if you have, from reading the thread itself. USPM and EuroPM are useful shortcuts to point out to either of the main Schools of PM, that's it. Most power metal bands sounding like USPM are from the US, hence the coining of the term, but just like failsafe said, plenty of non-American bands also fit the profile. Likewise, you'd be hard-pressed to argue Angra, from Brazil, isn't a EuroPM icon unto itself, and yet they are from Brazil. We're not anywhere near as hung up on the geo-localization as you seem to think. As a matter of fact, we're basically not so at all. Please try and see that.

I also much liked and wholly support Empy's post, but I gotta run, guys. See ya!

So true.

Nah, those bands are heavy but have a distinctly European flavor to them. Tarot especially; they are incredibly melodic and Finnish-sounding, and the others don't really sound American or USPM-ish at all.

Other genre descriptors, like those that don't recognize Europe as being metal?

Maybe less time spent inventing new bullshit categorizations every time a band does something slightly differently, and going back the the basics, would be beneficial.

Says who? You? You're one guy. Lots of people get a lots of use out of the term "US power metal," including many of the bands who play it. I'm sorry you think there are only slight differences, but to people who have listened to lots of power metal, the differences are obvious and apparent, and it's useful to be able to be able to differentiate between them with terms like US or European power metal.

And how many guys are you?

The argument "lots of people agree with me" is just bad!

Not when it's primarily popular usage that ultimately determines what these terms mean.

If if try to explain what adramelch or airged lamh sound like i tell them that they play uspm. They might be from europe but what else could i really call them that gets as close as describing their sound as this?

Gamma Ray are living proof that "Santa Choruses" can be absolutely awesome if done right and not using trite DragonForce melodies. Almost every chorus they wrote from Land of the Free through Powerplant is a thing of beauty.


Well there's "brutal death metal"--death metal has always been "brutal" to an extent but brutal death metal takes it up to 11, much like "melodic power metal" generally means you're going to get a lot more big Santa choruses and warm fuzzy vibes than on, say, an early Blind Guardian album. No one's going to call Somewhere Far Beyond (or even, since Stratovarius have been brought up a few times, Dreamspace) melodic power metal even though it's a power metal album, while it's a pretty obvious appellation to give to Visions.

As for "slow doom metal", does the phrase "funeral doom" ring a bell?

If you ask me, power metal's first actual album was Helloween's Keeper Of The Seven Keys: Part I (and Part II.)

I also think that bands like Iron Maiden, Dio and Judas Priest helped mold the sub-genre as well.. like before (and even after) the Keeper albums were released, I mean.

I'm not saying that Maiden, Dio or Priest are power metal bands (because they're not) but just that they largely helped mold the sub-genre too.

Well, funeral doom's pretty much just death/doom + dark ambient. It has fast sections sometimes!

Disagree. Second song sounds not extremely riffy neither aggressive, no more than 1997 Gamma Ray, say less riffy than this http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BQCeG92J2Ac Each of these songs seem as far removed from Born Cauldron as they are from Gamma Ray to me. I'm not trying to convince you, but I have to say I'm definitely not convinced of the similarities you found. Absolute in the sense of non-relative.

I don't know how to explain this.. When (European) Jesuits came to America, they found a plant called ilex paraguariensis which they infused and of which they drank the water and it came to be called the "Jesuits' tea". It was not tea; tea is camellia sinensis. It was not tea in an absolute sense, it was called tea in a relative sense because at the time it was the closest known thing to tea that grew in America. Back then, one could have said: there are two types of tea, there is American tea and Asian tea. But really, there's always been only one tea, and it is camellia sinensis. At the time it could be understood, but nowadays, America imports tea, and tea is easily found in America as well as in China or India. So ilex paraguariensis has taken another name than "Jesuits' tea" in the vernacular. No one calls it that anymore.. also due to the facts that Jesuits are not around as much anymore.

It's like saying.. "Uriah Heep is the poor man's Deep Purple". Uriah Heep is not Deep Purple in an absolute sense, but in a relative sense.

If your premise is that there must be power metal in equivalent and significant numbers both in America and Europe AND if there are not as many American bands doing power metal, the next step will consist of defining some America non-power metal bands as power metal because it comes close. Whereas other people would say: these bands are speed metal or heavy metal, or traditional metal, or symphonic metal. I may have called Queensrÿche power metal while talking about their first EP and album, but then again, I'm also comfortable calling them early 80s speed metal, or traditional metal, or heavy metal. These "relative" power metal bands may seem to amount for many, but if they were picked just because there weren't many in the absolute sense and the premise was made that there should be an equivalent number, then it is no surprise.

Geographical labels such as NWOBHM, Bay area thrash metal, Florida death metal, Swedish death metal (Entombed, Dismember), Gothenburg melodic death metal, etc etc.. are legitimate for one reason: their validity is confined to a period in time. That's the way it often goes; a genre begins somewhere (Seattle grunge), it is characteristic to a relatively small region, but after a while it becomes popular and everyone is doing it. Napalm Death went to Florida to record Harmony Corruption. The geographic component of the label eventually vanishes and only remains in historical texts. The labels themselves often have a rank (first, second) or qualifier (new) in them just because of that. But labels EuroPM and USPM aim to be indefinite in time and as such they are aberrations, because bands influence bands the world over.

What? Loads of those things you just listed have a definite sound to them. Bay area thrash sounds completely different from Teutonic thrash. Evile are clearly playing Bay area thrash even though they're from England and are obviously disconnected from the original Bay area scene because they're much newer. Loads of bands play Gothenburg melodeath without remotely being from the region. Same with regular swedeath; shit, there was just a revival of that a few years ago with bands all over the world playing in that distinctive style.

My point exactly. I don't think we can speak of "schools of power metal". You mean, one on hand, Helloween and a spin-off band (Gamma Ray), and on the other, a bunch of various metal bands from America with strong European metal influences retrospectively grouped under a label.That's a completely inane comment. Everyone knows that music genres don't fluctuate at a weekly or monthly scale. The very fact that there are polarized geo-labels that aim to persist in time is, as I said, anomalous and I don't see or hear anything in your arguments that support it other than a certain predilection for homeostasis; i.e., finding comfort in clichés, US is a certain way, Europe is another way. You too can say I'm deaf or whatever, I don't care, it would be stupid at this point to argue "I hear it" / "I don't hear it" / "I hear it".

There WAS Bay area thrash which was different from Teutonic thrash (really, we could replace those labels with a total of <10 bands but I'll oblige) but there isn't anymore. When you hear a thrash band playing these days, you can hear some Slayer, you can hear some Kreator, hell you can even hear death metal influences, etc. Yes once in a while a band decides to play a distinct type of metal from an area or time, just like there are tribute bands. Still, that's not anywhere as significant as bands who get together to play metal without consciously and nerdishly trying to recreate something. There are bands that try to sound like early Sabbath, are we going to call them "Birmingham doom" ?

Ah, so now we're at the crux of your argument: trying to consciously play in a particular style is "nerdish". As in, not as worthy as those who just play the music, maaaaaan. I think we all knew it'd boil down to that, eventually.

What is happening here, is someone pretending like USPM isn't a completely different/discernible sound? A line had to be drawn in the sand to separate Omen from all that other bullshit.

That's not the crux of my argument at all. It requires some special care, it doesn't come naturally. You need to figure out what amps and pedals they used, you need to test, to recreate a sound and study patterns.

As I said, these labels are used in a historical context, for instance, one can say "I hear some gothenburg melodeath in this" (one would usually have a band in mind but they won't just say "~1995 At the Gates"); but the band is not playing "Gothenburg melodeath", they're playing melodic death or even death metal. Just like when you drink wine, you can taste this or that, but you're not drinking cinnamon or oak.

The difference here is that those two labels actually have a meaning, as both BDM and funeral doom are quite different from their more traditional cousins. Calling something "melodic power metal" is rather absurd, seeing that pretty much all power metal (including the heaviest stuff) is highly melodic.

Right, but if the band plays in exactly the style of Gothenburg melodeath but mixes the styles of several different bands from that scene together, saying something like, "I hear Gothenburg melodeath in this" isn't useful to anyone. You would say something like, "this is Gothenburg melodeath" (or "this is melodeath in the Gothenburg style" if it offends you to call them Gothenburg melodeath if they're from somewhere else or are more recent) and then say something like, "playing a mixture of early At the Gates with mid-period In Flames".

No one's saying that we ought to go onto Archives pages for USPM bands and change the genre field to USPM (and EuroPM for EuroPM bands). They're just saying that USPM is a useful description of style that's widely used and accepted within the metal community. The only reason I can find for you arguing against the use of this convention is that you think it's too limiting a style descriptor and the only people who'd use it are "nerds" who are stifling innovation by adhering to strict style guidelines.

No, this is a very different sort of power metal from this or even this. You're focusing more on the word "melodic" without considering the sort of music that is usually tagged with "melodic power metal". Pretty much all death metal is "brutal" to some extent but only a certain sound is classified as brutal death metal. Doom metal almost always has dirge-like tendencies but only a certain sort of doom metal can be called funeral doom metal. Melodic power metal is not just some random descriptor, it is a sound--very fluffy, gentle power metal, brisk but not too fast (DragonForce are average at best in terms of speed among Euro-power bands, despite what the Guitar Hero fanboys will tell you) with a steady, heavily processed double bass beat, a complete overdose of Santa Choruses (if almost every single song has one instead of just some of the songs, it's probably a melodic power metal album), lots of poppish songwriting elements (dropping the guitars in the first verse and bringing them back for the first chorus is a classic) and not much structural or textural complexity, with the rhythm guitar shoved into the background. A band doesn't have to match every single flag exactly but they have to meet most of them. Melodic power metal is not just melodic, it is exceptionally melodic and fluffy even by Helloween-clone standards.

"If", indeed, if there is a band who plays music with predominantly only Gothenburg melodeath period influences, you could say "wow, this sounds just like Gothenburg melodeath", or mockingly, "this is Gothenburg melodeath from Tanzania" (let's also suppose the band is from Tanzania). Now how many of these bands are they (today and in general since the Gothernburg scene as it was died out) ? And why consider a label valid for something that only a handful of bands do ?

I don't think USPM is too limiting, as a matter of fact, I think it is too loosely defined musically. It's a catch-all; whereas the catch all should be "metal" in my opinion.

I certainly said nothing about nerds with regards to USPM (I used the "nerd" root to describe the attempt to create music based on a certain area and era; I could have said "geekishly", probably would have seemed less of an insult).

This movie called "The Artist" is a tribute to the late 20s/30s Hollywood. Yet there hasn't been anyone trying to ressurect a label to qualify that film alone. There would have to be quite more films like that for such a label to emerge or reemerge. It's a freakin movie, perhaps a foreign movie if you don't live in France, and perhaps an artistic movie, and certainly a black and white and silent movie, but that's it. It's not a Hollywood movie from the 30s.

Dude. YOU'RE the one placing the chronological/geographical limitations on these descriptors. As others have said, there are Canadian USPM bands, and there are South American EuroPM bands. Back to Evile: nobody's saying "Evile are a thrash band from the Bay Area in the 1980's". They say "Evile play Bay Area styled thrash." Nobody says that Angra play power metal in Europe in the 1980's, they say they play EuroPM. It's a style descriptor, not a historical snapshot, no matter how much you want it to be.

Uh, gotcha, you have a point (well, quite a few, actually). Still, technically speaking and using your criteria, can't you say that most/all typical Europower counts as melodic power metal? Especially taking into consideration the fact that BG, which you have chosen to use as a contrast for your explanation, fits more under "German speed metal" than anything, at least on their earlier stages.

PS: I am legally obligated to say that Skylark are an abomination.

Wow, what an in depth argument about such a hair-splitting point. I can't see that it's a difficult concept that a band can play a style of music which is named from the geographical scene which spawned and/or popularised it. If someone said Fatalist played Stockholm death metal, they'd be right. I could say Black Majesty play European power metal but not say Black Majesty are a European power metal band. The meaning can be inferred from the phrasing.

I'd say they were definitely power metal oriented from Somewhere Far Beyond onwards. But I could also put this forth as an example where the connection to typical Euro-power is much more clear but it can't be lumped in with most of the bands typically labeled "melodic power metal".


Yes. Yes they are.

Isn't it sad that Great Britain doesn't have a lot to show for "power metal". I mean, we had NWOBHM which was the spark for a lot of things, power metal included but when the sub genre itself arose in full bloom all we have of any real significance is...DragonForce????????? And maybe Power Quest, but uggggggggggh to them!

Does anyone even remember Marshall Law?