All the guys Nahsil mentioned would be up there for me too, though I haven't heard Leather Leone - maybe something to fix later.

Falconer's good because of those cool folk riffs - the first two albums especially.

I think Fabio may have done himself a disservice by singing for too many bands (esp. major ones). Maybe that's the last shred of vocal-dependency I have, but I kinda consider the vocalist to be the identity of a band (or at least a major part of it) and when he sings for a ton of bands (esp. concurrently), that kinda wrecks things for me. The more distinctive a vocalist, the more tied to a particular band they are for me. How long they've been in a band is also a factor here. Like, seeing Mathias Blad front Hammerfall would just seem utterly morbid to me.

He's no where near as bad as hacks like Chity Somapala (who has absolutely zero identity, personality, conviction whatsoever) though.

I can handle vocalist changes though, but I don't vocalists bouncing around from band to band - it just cheapens things for me after awhile. Not an Angra fan, but they should've went with an unknown quantity. Its like "why is Rhapsody's vocalist singing for Angra?" God, hearing Warlord's 2nd album with Hammerfall's vocalist just seemed morbid to me. Wasn't bad though, but its just something I don't think I could ever get fully used to.

Kelly Carpenter rules....just a shame that the material he sings on isn't really interesting. From what I recall hearing Outworld's s/t is the best he has sang on and even that I'd just give a 65~ score or something.

One singer I definitely find to be somewhat underrated is Guy Speranza from Riot. While not as much of a high wailer as Toony More, he just had such attitude in his voice that I love.

Then there's also Roy Khan during his Conception years and Tony Martin if I'm in the mood for more smooth, softer kind of vocalists. David DeFeis, Mike Howe, Urban Breed (who seems to have a good time maintaining his voice in shape, comparing the first Tad Morose album to that supergroup stuff or something he did recently)

Chity Somapala and Rick Altzi are my least favorite kinds of power metal singers. Utterly sleazy, banal cock rock type singing...Tobias Sammet has enough energy to recall Biff Byford at times albeit singing more glam-y vocal lines, but those other guys are just so irritating to listen to, despite there not being a huge difference overall.

Joacim Cans is funny; he isn't a great singer, but he just has a really likable voice despite not having tons of power or anything. His performance on the last Hammerfall might have been the best I heard from him.

But Falconer sans Blad just sounds uninspired and generic. I think that simply having him singing puts the band in a more folk-y mentality.

I highly suggest listening to the latest Angra album. It's not my favorite album, but it's definitely worth a listen. Someone posted about Lione's pronunciation being off in the past. On the Angra album, it's pretty spot on.

Edit: How about the (now) old vocalist from Excalion? That guy is FANTASTIC. The vocalist from Crystallion is a pretty damn good vocalist, too.

He could have improved - maybe I'm naive, but I expect pro musicians to practice all the time and improve.

I hope things weren't altered in the studio (can that actually fix pronunciation?) As previously mentioned, I normally don't get too excited over vocal heroics anymore because I don't know how much of this is augmented by studio wizardry. I guess the same can be said about all instruments. I can't even trust live albums or DVDs due to post-processing.

Yeah, he was fucking amazing - his performance on High Time in particular was life-affirming good. Some of the best vocal hooks and melodies in Europower.

I don't think the guy from Hanker is very weird, he sounds like a more restrained Conklin to me - he does rule though, as do those others you mention. Vocalists with character are so, so much better than technically good but boring vocalists like Kiske or Tate... I'd take James Shellberg from Longings Past, Tim Baker, or John Mortimer (vocalist in prog-era Holocaust) over that kind of shit any day of the week. Glad that my man Empyreal agrees.

Here is Excalion's new vocalist, Marcus Lang:



https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i9w5_gl7MOk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MUdvoYns5f0

He's not the former vocalist (Jarmo Paakkonen), but he's certainly capable.

Edit: Lang actually seems to be a better live vocalist compared to Paakkonen.

I am so happy you guys speak about vocalists! I am always going nuts about vocals! I will be checking some guys I don't know from your previous posts.
And I would love to share my list of top notch metal singers (who are still alive and didn't lose their voices and abilities yet):
Daniel Heiman
Kelly Carpenter
Jorn Lande
Philippe D'Orange
Raphael Dantas
(Sean Peck - only in brackets as I am not a big fan of his hooks and melodies)

The female vocalist list would go like this:
Noora Louhimo
Veronica Freeman
Leather Leone
Elisa Candelas Martín

Have you heard Section X by Beyond Twilight? Amazing singing on an amazing album. Well over 65!

Weinerhall decided to change style when Blad left. Luckily he came to his senses, and thus brought back both Blad and the old style for Northwinds, which is on par with the debut.

Marcus Lang seems to be very skilled - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6tedk7RPm18
Somehow reminds me Carlos Zema who is a beast too.

I've heard it and thought it was sort of mediocre. Alright background music but not something I'd like to listen to.

Phantom's Cyberchrist has been a pleasure lately. Fun ballsy speed/power even if it's not very original. Red alert! Red alert!

Did you know that Elize and Elina Ryd sang backing vocals on the Kristoffer Gobel (2003) album? Elize would have been 13-14.


Since a lot of people might not be familiar with Steelheart, check out this live performance:

It dawned on me most of my favorite Euro-power vocalists are German.

I just discovered Fabio Dessi (and the band Arthemis):

Edit: Alessio Garavello (more Italians!) was their original vocalist.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xf7vboNP89o

Perdition - With the discovery of Dessi, four of my top 5 favorite power metal vocalists are Italians.


Edit: I totally forgot about Matt Smith from Theocracy.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=38fDHOTMggU

Speaking of Kelly Carpenter (and Beyond Twilight), here's a lyric video from the new Zierler Projects album:

Fucking mental, but I dig it.

Speaking of Italians, what do you guys think of Alessandro Conti?

Here's him covering March of time.

He's one of my favorite power metal vocalists.

This song really shows Conti's ability:




Michele Luppi, Fabio Dessi, and Alessandro Conti.

yeah Outworld is the best. I really enjoy Outworld, though.

Khan is definitely best in Conception I think. His earlier stuff with Kamelot is good too.

@Emp

Here's Leone:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hb7XZy0fVlE

Chastain also has some disgustingly awesome guitar-playing.

I don't think this warrants a new thread, but here's a trailer for that upcoming Grave Digger re-recording album (in case anyone missed it):

At times Alessandro Conti is great but on the Luca Turilli's Rhapsody albums his voice sounds a bit wonky at times. He was great on the Trick or Treat albums.
His best performances were:
"Evil Needs Candy Too", "Back as a Pet", "Back to Life", "Paper Dragon", "Heavy Metal Bunga Bunga", and "Bright Eyes".

*Speaking of Luca Turilli's Rhapsody, I can't believe how boring the new album was. I really enjoyed "Ascending to Infinity" minus the final track, and I really liked his solo albums "Prophet of the Last Eclipse" & "The Infinite Wonders of Creation". (I haven't listened to "King of the Nordic Twilight" or any Rhapsody/Rhapsody of Fire albums he was involved with yet.) Anyway the best track off "Prometheus, Symphonia Ignis Divinus" was the one bloated with science fiction buzz word gibberish they used for the lyric video.

Ravensire new song!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hsd9uJryMh4

NUCLEAR FIRE!!!! QUANTUM CYBORG GODS AND TITANS

Oh god. You've just got to love lyrics like that.

Apparently he took lyrics from Rhapsody songs and mixed them together for that song. I actually really like that album (Prometheus, Rosenkreuz, and Il Tempo Degli Dei are my favorites). I never listened to Rhapsody/Luca Turilli projects before I bought it.

One note on that album: I believe it's listed that the bonus track only comes on the Digipak edition. I got the bonus track on the jewel case version.

Speaking of Kelly Carpenter, Finn Zierler is back with a new album! With Kelly Carpenter back on vocals!
Bobby Jarzombek on drums and Per Nilsson on guitar! I'm a happy prog fan now!

^^^ Yeah, I posted a Zierler song (complete one) higher up on this page. Hopefully obtaining it won't be a pain in the ass (I hate ordering from the US - shipping costs almost as much as the CD and the exchange rate sucks). However, this is something I want enough I may get it regardless of cost.

He is not such a great vocalist. Live... However his composing and songwriting is top notch! I would say that only Heavenly - Dust to Dust album is on the same level
In studio is every singer amazing. Even Tommy Reinxeed

Hehe, it got lost amongst all the Italian tenors.

I think Matt Smith is okay live.

How about Sho?


Kamijo has a unique voice, too.


I'll stop posting vocalists now.

Sampling this band Within Silence - pretty cool power/trad metal. Heavy, crisp and crunchy guitars. The vocals are only okay, but this sounds entertaining so far and they know how to rock out. Promising stuff.

Lost Horizon. Daniel Heiman alone makes the band a pre-requisite for all power metal fans.

As far as Italian vocalists go, I'd personally hand it to Rob Tyrant (specifically his performance on Labyrinth - Return to Heaven Denied) and Morby from Domine.

I know people are quite divided when it comes to Morby, but I personally think he's a great singer, and Domine are probably my favourite Euro Power Metal band.

Was never a Domine fan, but Morby was unique and sang with conviction (I cannot emphasize how important this is).

I liked Terence Holler on those older Eldritch albums. He wasn't the best vocalist in the world, but seemed pretty genuine and sang with a lot of emotion.

What do you mean was? I'm sure he still does.

Oh, nothing was implied by tense. Is he or that band even active anymore?

I'm kind of surprised that nobody here has mentioned Vittorio Ballerio from Adramelch, as far as Italian power metal singers go. I feel like failsafeman would be so disappointed.

Speaking of, I know that he mentioned Seikima-II, but I'm gonna go ahead and say that The End of the Century, their second album, is pretty consistent. It definitely does have some tracks stand out more than others (like Jack the Ripper), but I don't think that any of it is a miss.

Oh hey, I didn't know Van Canto released an album last year. They were kinda fun. I guess it won't hurt to take a quick lis--JESUS CHRIST KILL IT WITH FIRE