Does anyone with the High Roller Records Reissue of Jag Panzer's Ample Destruction have some kind of radio advertisement on the last song (Black Sunday)? I just bought it recently and listened to it for the first time and while the song is still playing this really loud ad starts playing over top of it. Is this intentional? I'm thinking of just deleting the song from iTunes since it is a bonus track anyways, but it's kind of disappointing.

Zuul is really awesome, looks like To the Frontlines might even be better than the debut. I get some nice Omen vibes from their sound.

Also forgot how awesome Exciter are.

It's after the track ends, isn't it? The radio ad plays over some snippets of other songs of theirs, I don't think it interferes with Black Sunday, which I rather like.

I remember posting about this a while back and it also didn't seem to get any sort of response. Really a killer album though and everyone should definitely check it out. This is from pages ago but I haven't been around in a good bit so yeah.


To be fair, those cover artworks are both only on the re-releases. Kind of typical Arkeyn Steel sort of stuff, for better or worse. I really like Longings Past, especially the second album - but yeah, it's hardly metal so much of the time, haha.

New Satan track sounds good as expected. Probably not as impactful as Siege Mentality was, but I can't say anything bad. Still looking forward to the new album.

How am I just hearing about this now!? I thought I had their facebook page liked. Surprised I haven't seen anyone else mention it.

@ Jonpo: Gentry Lord is pretty cool, not amazing but interesting. I listened to it a few times when I first found it but it doesn't really grab me so I hadn't really put it on until seeing you mention it. If Jori sticks with it, it could develop in to something really great, but I think it also runs the risk of becoming weird for the sake of weird and degenerating into just a novelty.

Also on a side note, "Meadows of Maseilya" by Longings Past is probably my favorite album.

Hi

(I got bored with Black Metal and Death Metal) and I'm looking for a very melodic Power Metal bands.

Neoclassical Metal is included.

Assuming you already know of the likes of Blind Guardian, Angra, Helloween, Kamelot:

Orden Ogan - To the End.
Falconer - Falconer.
Dragonland - Under The Grey Banner.
Timeless Miracle - Into The Enchanted Chamber.

I suppose it's not what I'm looking for

If you can add more melodic PM bands,I will be grateful

Like, of all time? lol...

Sometimes you gotta fall back on the bands that made you a fan. I rarely listen to them nowadays but still have a soft spot for Gamma Ray and most things Kai Hansen has touched. Listening to Walls of Jericho and then bits of Land of the Free back to back, it's awesome how much Kai improved on vocals. Rebellion in Dreamland may even be his greatest performance.


I can't help but roll my eyes at the sing-a-long stuff nowadays, but this one manages to avoid it a little bit and comes off a little more serious, with the long song constantly evolving without ever falling flat. Good stuff. I guess they're kind of like Manowar to me thesedays though, not sure if I'd blast entire albums, but I could make a nice mix of my top 20 songs that would be pretty epic.

I always wonder what Helloween could have been like if Kai stuck around and was the main guy, along with Piet Sielck. More material in the vein of Walls of Jericho would have been awesome.



Scanner Hypertrace >>>>>>> Keeper of Boring Keys.

I don't know if you have heard about this shit which has got released just this year:


also you should have stated what means a word "melodic" to you. For me for example melodic means "close to AOR" .

The music and lyrics are highly evocative and James Shellberg's vocal performance is incredible. None of the tracks sound like filler and the whole album feels complete by the end. There is also no tracks that I dislike which is something I can't say for all my other favorite bands, as most albums have at least one or two tracks I hate or a few I really don't care for. The runner up is probably "Open The Gates" by Manilla Road but that only has about 30 minutes of material that I really like, so "Meadows of Maseilya" still has it beat. That's why as of this moment it is currently my favorite album.

*shakes fist* why-yi-oughta!



That sounds about right. I really enjoy the last two songs. I'm not totally sold on the longest one yet. It takes a bit to get started (IE: before I can actually make out a riff). I'm not sure if he's got anything more in the works for this band but the dude is obviously really talented and I like that he's trying to do something different. I've never heard anything like Gentry Lord before. His Cast Iron project, short lived as it was, fucking RIPS. Highly recommended for all fans of pre-pirate Running Wild.

Someone mentioned Zuul. I put on To the Frontlines every few months but I don't think I've ever made it beyond the first handful of songs. And yet I keep thinking one day the clouds will part and it will sound like chest thumping, ultra catchy heavy metal. I know the very first songs chorus ALWAYS gets stuck in my head after a listen but I'm not sure that's in any way indicative of quality to me.

It's a ways off but I'm ecstatic about a new Christian Mistress album. Some bands "get it" and some don't. They get it.

Eh, Zuul aren't all that great. Not bad, but nothing really worth commenting on.

Probably fun live but they bore me on record. I tried again last night. They have no identity.

This. This exactly. I mean, it's not currently my favorite album, but my review does give it a 95% rating (it used to be a little lower but it's grown on me). It's idiosyncratic, inimitable, and completely immerses you into its world, perhaps better than any other album, certainly better than most. That vibe is just so unique...makes me think of John Cyriis's post Agent Steel projects in that way, that it sounds absolutely nothing like anything else you've ever heard. Stellar Seed, for example, is just so damn weird. Not similar to Longings Past musically, but the fact that those vibes exist nowhere else only adds to their grandeur.


Agreed. They're fun and solid, but I'd never say they're amazing or even think about comparing them to Omen. Fairly middle of the road stuff.

I should have given my post about them another 30 minutes or so, because I too did not finish the album haha.

I guess you guys are making me want to give Longings Past another look, but I kind of remember them being funny more than anything. Not in a bad way though, the simplicity and weirdness is just a little amusing.

Have you guys heard Lordian Guard? They crack me up, may as well be labeled Castlevania metal. Again, it's fun amusing though. You could probably throw on David Defais' vocals on top of their stuff and it would fit well.

Love 'em. Their first album is one of my all time favorites. Though my favorite song of theirs is the title track to Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God (so fucking epic!). I love the anthology with the bonus tracks.

I'm not all that familiar with Virgin Steele (though I have heard them and I plan to get the 2 CD Marriage re-issue), but I wouldn't want any other vocalist with LG other than Vidonne (other than the spoken word parts in Revelation XIX and Lost Archangel). Very unique female vocals. Kind of a deep-voiced clean female vocal style. The only other singer I can compare her to is Nico from The Velvet Underground & Nico, though Vidonne's voice is still quite different.

Comparing their music to Castelvania is interesting to me. The thing is though, I'm only really familiar with NES, SNES, and N64 Castlevania games and their music. Anything from any Sega or Playstation console, I'm unfamiliar with. So, the Castlevania games from the systems I mentioned above, I really dig their music, and would definitely welcome those styles in metal (and have even done so myself a little bit in my own music), but they don't sound like LG to me.

Hate to admit, I didn't even realize their vocalist was female haha.

...for real? She doesn't sound like anything but, to me. I think her voice is probably the strongest aspect of the music. I like how wonky the guitar tone is though, almost sounding like a keyboard itself. But yeah, her voice is EVERYTHING when it comes to capturing that fire and brimstone, condemnation of the sinner vibe. I only have and have heard the debut. Not something I put on often but it's a cool little curio and I don't have anything else that sounds like it.

Not only female, but at the time LG (and Warlord) guitarist/keyboardist Bill Tsamis' wife.

Are there any all-female speed/power bands? I only know bands with female singers like White Skull, Crystal Viper, Warlock etc etc

But are there any all-chick answers to Helloween, Blind Guardian, Scanner etc etc?? Not that gender really matters on drums guitars etc etc but I have wondered about this a bit lately... Because I've never seen any. I've seen death, black, heavy metal of different sorts and way too many Girlschool/Rock Goddess sound-a-likes...

Phantom Blue 'Going Mad' is about as close I've gotten to what I'm looking for, and it kicks ass! It's one of those choruses I wished I wrote myself. Imagine a whole album like this, maybe even faster, in a Walls Of Jericho/Battalions Of Fear/Hypertrace fashion... That would fucking kill. The vocalist in this band is one of the best!!!

Japan has a few, but I'm not sure if they're what you're looking for. Aesthetics are as far from metal as you can get, and may be too poppy. But at any rate, give these a go:

Mary's Blood:
(They're all over the place stylistically though. Good guitarist).
Marionette
Burning Blaze

Aldious:
(I'd advise sticking with their first 2 albums, I can't see their 2nd vocalist appealing to too many metalheads)
Spirit Black
Luft

Destrose:
Maze (sample) (with their previous, and best, vocalist Marina - vox may be a tad shrieky for you though)

Cyntia is probably way too poppy and 80s for what you're looking for. Same with Aphasia. Show-Ya is probably a good recommendation, but I'm not familiar enough with their discography to hand out recommendations.

I KNEW somebody would recommend a lot of japanese stuff like this, but I really don't dig it. Way too poppy. I want some german grit and harschness in the sound as well. And if prefered, no modern slick productions either haha

Aldious with the Spirit Black song was kinda like what I was looking for, but why does ALL japanese singers have to do that fucking lamb vibrato? I can't really stand that vibrato with Minoru in Loudness either, and I actually prefer Mike Vescera for that reason alone (even tho I do think Minoru was the more fitting singer to be honest)

Not sure, I'm guessing cultural/language. I've heard so much of this stuff I'm pretty used to it (in fact, not having it sounds odd to me now). Now you got me thinking if there actually are any bands over there that I listen to who sing without vibrato haha

Not really Helloween/Blind Guardian, but whenever someone asks for all female heavy/power bands, Santa Lucia come to mind. Not amazing, but solid riffing and a random find of mine from awhile ago.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zgWsW4pdX5o

Don't know of any others that aren't Japanese or Girlschool/Rock Goddess stuff.

New Gauchos de Acero song. I love these kids, although they are almost grown up now. More power than speed metal this time.

Maybe try Meanstreak-Roadkill

Original Sin are freaking awesome, but more in the USPM vein and not that German stuff.

I am curious about the Norwegian power metal scene. I only know of pagan's mind who are amazing. But I would like to know if there is a bigger scene I don't know about. Any style of power metal is fine with me.

Arch Nemesis "Of Mind and Fantasy" and Ashes to Ashes "Cardinal VII" were pretty cool (not really textbook power metal though). Scariot's "Strange to Numbers" was really good too.

I'm a big fan of Communic, they're sort of progressive power metal, their 3 first albums are quite excellent.

Not power metal but Magister Templi are great heavy/doom metal, I'm currently writing a review for their new album "Into Duat", they're very epic and worth checking out.

Oh yeah, I dig Magister Templi. I haven't devoted much time to the first album, but it does seem quite cool. The only other Norwegian band I like that's in the heavy/power realm is Witchhammer, with their album '1487.' It's not even that awesome of an album, but "Transylvania" in particular is a fucking excellent song. But yeah, in general, Norway's not really a big place for PM. I guess there's a handful of popular europower bands from there, like the aforementioned Pagan's Mind and Highland Glory, but not much that's my bag.

There's also Guardians of Time. I never could get into them myself, but others seem to like them, so they may be worth a shot.

Been spinning Riot's Unleash the Fire lately. It's crazy how despite the lack of Mark Reale, this still sounds like Riot. Just wish the guitars had more bite to them.

For the uspm fans: what do you think of Assalant? They're cool to me, pretty Helstar-esque. Sadly they've just released one demo.

I agree the new Riot is really good. The new singer is legit.

Guys, I'm scared. Three years ago, I brought up a band that had completely shit itself with awfulness and made fun of it because it was an easy target. And now they're releasing a new album, and it sounds decent (y'know, if you're into poppy Euro-power metal). So far I've heard "The Awakening" and "Always the Fugitive" and I didn't immediately set fire to my ears. Send help. Either I'm going insane or the sky's about to fall.

Any newer heavy metal bands that don't sound 70s/80s worship?

I'm not sure *exactly* what you mean here, as there are plenty of bands that play in the 80s style without being worship, but I'll throw out some unique bands that have their own sound as that sounds like it's what you're really looking for.

Demon Bitch is super out there, esoteric heavy/speed/I don't know what the hell else metal that's very energetic and interesting. Jonpo will back me up on this, and feel free to read my reviews for a more in-depth description. The Gates of Slumber were primarily a doom act, but the Conqueror and Hymns of Blood and Thunder albums are as much heavy metal as doom, and don't sound like 80s worship at all, it's pretty barbaric and fantasy-laden stuff. Isen Torr is a must listen, epic heavy metal with some doom in there but it doesn't sound like Manilla Road or Manowar worship at all, definitely its own thing. In a similar vein, Twisted Tower Dire, which featured the vocalist of Isen Torr, Tony Taylor (RIP), has an album that's excellent heavy/power metal. Natur's Head of Death is also a great album that features Sabbathian riffs embedded within a much more barbaric heavy/power aesthetic that doesn't sound at all like worship. Finally, Tales of Medusa were also epic heavy metal, but they combined a unique singer with some doom influences and completely unique songwriting. It's hard for me to describe very well, but read my or Metantoine's reviews for a more in-depth description.

Haha that's weird; finnish all-female KICK ASS power metal and they have some kind of santa lucia theme going on? Haha, there's always more suprises in the metal world. The riffing in that is really good, but I wasn't really a fan of the vocals. They had some kind of "finnpunk" vibe going on, and while I like bands like Kaaos and Riistetyt a bit, I would prefer more metal vocals a la Doro or something on top of that.

But yeah, cool find!!!

New Steelwing is fucking awesome.


I am really excited to see that they try some new stuff to break out of that standard retro mold.