A few acts that you need to check out:

This EP by Volture is as good as anything made in the 80s. Perfect crunchy production. Insane over the top wailing falsettos. Most importantly the song-writing is phenomenal. From speed metal sleaze to the final song which has a beautiful USPM stomp and doomed atmosphere.

Axxion feature former Skull Fist members, except this band is infinitely better. Just look at that band picture! Buncha ugly fuckers, so you know you can trust their heavy metal steel. Hard Rockin' is an anthem. Total '82 shit.

The first EP and debut full-length from Midnight Priest is essential listening for anyone who digs Mercyful Fate, King Diamond, Maiden and Priest. So basically, everyone worth a shit. The EP is raw and they were still finding their footing but it's got some corkers. The LP is just on a completely different level. Riffs so greasy you can barely hold onto them.

Then there's my absolutely favorite...I'm not sure you're ready for Demon Bitch. Arising from the post-apocalyptic wastelands of Detroit. Hellfriends Logon Saton and company capture the pure malevolent joy of hearing Don't Break the Oath for the first time. Every song I've heard from this band is electric. Undeniable. The vocals are warbling, wavering, damnated cries of a sinner who doesn't want to change. The riffs are gleefully evil. Black Magic Heavy Metal. Black Metal Heavy Magic.

Re: Paragon - Yeah I don't know a ton of their catalogue (some albums I checked and didn't like, some I just haven't checked), but 'Law of the Blade' definitely stands up with some of Iron Savior's better albums, if you like Iron Savior there's no reason you shouldn't dig Law of the Blade, unless it's just nostalgia, which seems like it may be the case here with Xeogred.

Law of the Blade, The Dark Legacy, Force of Destruction and their newest one, Hell Beyond Hell, are pretty much top of the pile for that kind of German power metal these days. I like those better than what Iron Savior's been doing or even older bands like Accept.

To be honest not really, but they are on my list of things to check out. Do you have a recommendation as to which album(s) to start with?

Alright, Law of the Blade seems pretty legit.

Guess there's still modern Euro Power left in me, but it's all shifted and changed around. I'd have a hard time arguing with Emp about his points on Kai after going through a lot of this stuff again... so samey and poppy, yuck.

Grave Digger still holds up very well I think. Kind of sounds like Running Wild on steroids.

Yeah Grave Digger rules. They're sorta inconsistent, but the good songs are so good it doesn't really matter that much. EXCALIBUUUUR! SWORD OF THE KIIIIIIINGS! TAKE ME ON YOUR WINGS! BACK WHERE I BELONG, EXCALIBUUUUUR!

I'll check out those other Paragon albums, I can't remember which ones I've heard aside from Law of the Blade, never really spent much time with them.

My personal favorites are:

King Diamond - Abigail
Mercyful Fate - In the Shadows

But I'm sure many would disagree with me.

I mean I love In the Shadows but...check out the first two albums first.

I appreciate the recommendations, I especially enjoyed Ravensthorn!



I am currently listening to Abigail and I'm really enjoying it. I have checked out some Mercyful Fate already but I will definitely check out more. Thanks for the recommendations!

I've said it before and I'll say it again, In the Shadows suffers from one of the most boring drum performances on any metal album. That's one of the reasons I much prefer Time when it comes to reunion era Mercyful Fate.

Haha thanks for replying man, some good stuff here, gotta say Midnight Priest sounded the heaviest and the best to my ears.
Demon Bitch had some good songs with stunningly great riffs, but i gotta say i dont like it when they produce the vocals to be so "low" and "overshadowed"(?) by the instruments. For me the vocals and guitars should be the focal point.

I grew up with Judas Priest, Deep Purple, Rainbow, Black Sabbath, Accept, Maiden etc and think ive got to have heard every single song from those bands. Very recently discovered the NWOTHM and since then i have spent oh so many hours listening through albums, picking out the best songs in my opinion love it.

https://open.spotify.com/user/crlback/playlist/3mNaeV1hwSgOCZDRcgmMc2 there you have a list with great traditional heavy metal!

While modern Gamma Ray sucks, no other power metal songwriter will top what Kai wrote in the 'Land Of The Free' - 'No World Order' era. Nowadays he lives off ripping 'The Sentinel' off time and time again.

A couple of recs for ya:

Crusader - Onward Into Battle - awesome heavy/power metal with an epic bent, crushing riffs, and a great atmosphere - just all around really good stuff from a fairly young band.

Attic - The Invocation - fantastic Mercyful fate worship band with a great vocalist and super catchy riffs, up there with the best of the Swedish stuff. A WOODEN CROSS, BETWEEN THE TREES, BUT SHE WON'T REST IN PEAAAACE!

RAM's newest, Svbersvm is excellent dark heavy metal a la Portrait, and really up there with Portrait's last two in quality. RAM's other albums are solid, but not on this level at all.

Also since you like Demon Bitch, check out White Magician, I've only listened to their album once so far but it seems pretty legit, probably something you'd dig. Cheers.

Blind bought a couple of albums, including the first Theocracy. Damn, there's some really good stuff on here. There's also some stuff that doesn't work as well, but when they're on, they're really on.

I'm always pretty floored whenever I revisit "Rebellion in Dreamland", such a damn good track and probably Kai's best vocal performance.



But still... I'd probably rather listen to the ruthless "Phantoms of Death" or something. It's interesting to think if we could have at least gotten a sequel album or two that followed up Walls of Jericho. Maybe Piet had a lot of influence on it and that's why it's a bit thrashier than anything Kai ever did again.

It was because of Weiki that wanted a more melodic sound.

But it features some of the best guitar riffs in all of metal IMHO. I agree that it would've been better with Shaw or Ruzz on drums. I actually really like Lars' playing on "Return of the Vampire".

Time has a few songs that I like but not many. I really only love the first 3 MF albums.

Time and In the Shadows both have some jams. They just suffer for being a bit too long and not quite as wild as the early stuff. I listen to them both quite a bit at work. I have some weird rules about albums I can/cannot play at work. Like Melissa and Don't Break the Oath are too precious to treat as background noise while I toil. They deserve better than that. Time and In the Shadows are perfect though.

has there been any good prog/power in the last couple years? in the vein of Circus Maximus, Pagan's Mind, Communic, Outworld, Manticora etc.

edit: to answer my own question, this band Gracepoint sounds kinda interesting:

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

guitarwork isn't bad anyway...the singer reminds me of fucking Creed or something.

Eternity's End also seems decent for a more neoclassical bent:

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

You might want to check out Anthriel's debut lp The Pathway from 2010. Some great modern synth orchestration mixed with great songwriting and plenty of memorable riffs, soaring baritone vocals, and an incredibly epic 13 min long closing track.

Sunburst : Fragments of creation.
https://youtu.be/-FObmzEYpAQ

Mad hatters den : Excelsior
https://youtu.be/BjEVbfQoG_A

Innerwish : innerwish
https://youtu.be/mjRZCq01VSA

Common factor is that all of these are very enjoyable from start to finish. Mad hatters and Innerwish are leaning bit more towards trad metal.

Thank you

Finally got around to checking out Paragon via their new album. Seems good on first listen, with "Thunder in the Dark" being a major highlight.

I've got to mention Trial again, Vessel is a fantastic album!

Hit up a bunch of Paragon myself today and yeah... they do seem pretty legit. I think I was actually mixing them up with Steel Attack in my head, and after revisiting Steel Attack I can definitely say they're far more generic in comparison. Paragon still seems very by the books modern German power, but they do have some nice hints of traditional elements in there, and they seem like a no bullshit kind of band and the songs just get right to the point. I can see that maybe giving them an edge over Grave Digger and Iron Savior to me, and I might favor Paragon's vocalist over those. Law of the Blade definitely kicks ass.

Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat

I mean Paragon are ok, Law of the Blade is a fun album, but find me a single Paragon track this good:

Yeah, I could see them maybe edging out Iron Savior (the two are about on par for me), but neither Iron Savior nor Paragon has any songs that stand up to Grave Digger's greatest; Giants as failsafeman posted, Lionheart, Valhalla, Excalibur, Rebellion...Grave Digger's top songs blow Paragon out of the park.

I never checked out enough of Grave Digger's albums. I like the ones I did hear - Rheingold and the s/t were the ones I heard the most often - but I don't see what makes Paragon inherently inferior like some of the people in this thread say. It's all good stuff. Just fun, straight ahead heavy/power metal. None of it really has some kind of magical erudite songwriting or performance edge.

Just got my copy of Ashes to Ashes' Cardinal VII...damn this is good. Cutting riffage and super dark, gloomy atmosphere.

I've never liked a Paragon album as much as LotB unfortunately their newer stuff sounds really generic to me.

Same here. Steelbound wasn't bad though.

The difference between Grave Digger and Paragon is that Grave Digger write really awesome riffs a lot of the time, and sometimes REALLY REALLY awesome riffs, while Paragon write really awesome riffs only once in a while, and most of the time just kind of flail around. Plus Grave Digger generally do the whole "big sing-along chorus" much better, too. Their songs on average are just put together much better. Paragon have entire albums that are basically pointless, whereas Grave Digger have maybe only one or two.

Possibly. Maybe I just haven't heard GD in that long. I'm sure they are more consistent, at least in their older albums. But I don't really think one band is musically that much better or different than the other. The recent Paragon ones have been on fire. Great albums.

Grave Digger were at their best between '93 and '98. Uwe Lulis is one hell of a guitarist and these albums feature both his and Boltendahl's best work. Combine that with great songs, outstanding productions and a revolving cast of other band members (three drummers, two bassists and the addition of a keyboardist) all makes for some very rewarding listening. They did some cool stuff afterwards (Rheingold, in particular) and some good stuff before... but those are the ones that get the most spins from me.

I really need to go back over some of Grave Digger's stuff, I've listened to Tunes of War and Rheingold quite thoroughly, but really just picked the best songs from their other 90s/early 2000s stuff, I'll try to go through those albums more carefully at some point. Definitely a cool band. The thing about Grave Digger is that you remember all their choruses and shit, of their best songs at least, whereas of Paragon the only song I truly remember over time is "Law of the Blade."

Toss in Excalibur and those are the three albums I've spent the most time with. Grave Digger is amazing to me but the thing is, they remind me the most of Running Wild... and Running Wild is one of my all time favorites, so it's always so tempting to just listen to them instead.

Running Wild were ahead of their time, yet there is no denying after 1995 they kind of went downhill, whereas other bands like Grave Digger were certainly doing better. But Black Hand Inn and everything before, are top tier.

I got through Angel Dust's - Bleed today, and it was good stuff. It did lose me a little with like two ballads in there. I don't need pure brutal nonstop speed, but yeah haha. That said, it was pretty refreshing after revisiting a lot of this other modern Euro power... it's definitely different and the vocalist is awesome. I will have to give the other newer ones a revisit.

Tried out Stormwarrior again and got bored instantly, even though it's Walls of Jericho worship as they say, it wasn't doing much.

I never see much talk about Persuader... everytime I randomly listen to them it's amazing, but they're one of those bands I kind of forget about overnight. Not sure why but it never leaves a mark despite the initial impressions always being awesome. Whenever I look at one of my modern power folders and see them they stand out, but then that's a wrap and I forget about them.

I still have a soft spot for Tad Morose, if only for Urban Breed alone. But I haven't gotten into any of his other projects.

But damn, any modern stuff in the vein of all this you guys think I might actually like? It's definitely been a strange mood.

Yeah, the medieval trilogy definitely gets the most spins from me, but how many Grave Digger albums have you thought "well, I'll never listen to that again" immediately after hearing it? Even the lesser ones I'll still throw on once in a while (no, I don't count Digger).

Plus - and this is arguably the only time this has happened in metal - they released a modern sequel album to one of their most popular older albums...and it was awesome! The Clans Will Rise Again isn't as great as Tunes of War, but it's still fuckin awesome, much better than Abigail II or that shitpile Mindcrime II.



SILENT SCREAMS ARE CALLING FOR WENGEANCE

I hit up Force of Destruction last night and it was definitely awesome, pretty varied compared to some others. The track with Kai and Piet joining in on was awesome haha. I couldn't find much of Hell Beyond Hell on youtube yet.

Andreas Babuschkin is really awesome on Law of the Blade though, stays in some higher ranges compared to some of the other albums I've been hearing of them. But I guess with the new ones it's maybe just an age thing.

Only some will get this I guess but damn, he reminds me of Matthias Steele's Anthony C GOD Lionetti III a bit here.

Yeah I can kinda hear that, he's using that sort of operatic theatrical flair that Lionetti often uses on Haunting Tales. Never really thought about that before, but there is certainly a similarity. The way he shifts from a low note to a higher note all of a sudden is kinda similar too, like when he does "We, the knIIIIGHTS!", I can kinda picture Lionetti doing one of his ridiculous sudden high notes. Interesting.

Legend (NWOBHM) are so incredible to me. I've got Death in the Nursery on while I'm working from home and I'm still as smitten by it as the very first time. I'd still describe it the same way as well. It sounds like they accidentally created heavy metal in a vacuum, sometime in the 70s. I've never heard another band that captures this feeling. It's so heartfelt. The softer parts are worked in seamlessly but when they get after it they really rip. Unbelievable record.

I was listening to that and the S/T yesterday, though Death in the Nursery is definitely the superior album.

I don't know if you've heard them before, but I'd recommend checking out Omega - The Prophet and Omega - Blood Sacrifice. I think they're both very good and worth listening to.

I'd like some assistance with some recommendations in regards to bands/albums with an emphasis on basslines? The basslines are a good portion of why I enjoy NWOBHM so much, and other bands such as Sacred Rite, Shiva, Rush, Dark Quarterer and Cirith Ungol (to an extent) etc that put a good emphasis on groovy/prominent basslines are one of my favourite things in metal.

Anything would be greatly appreciated!