Uh, wow, not how I would have described them at all...they don't sound like either of the bands you listed.

Yeah..... We're talking about "Shadows in the Mirror" Arch Nemesis, right? Because I think that you listened to an entirely different band, Morphine. Also, you don't like James Rivera's vocals?!

Who the HEL doesn't like James Rivera's vocals????????????

He is incredibly DYNAMIC! The most dynamic singer that easily comes to mind when the subject is broached and the best thing about him is how he has managed to keep sounding great when other heavy metal singers seem to be losing it.

JAMES. RIVERA. RULES!

Move along, folks. He's obviously new to power metal if he hasn't heard any Helstar, so just let him learn at his own pace. Also maybe he'll figure out how to spell baritone at some point.

In other news, you guys ought to check out Invader from Germany. Just rediscovered them (on my hard drive, haha). They don't really sound German at all, playing a weird mix of raw NWOBHM-ish heavy metal topped with vocals that remind me of Stace McLaren of Razor after some singing lessons. Good energy, good riffs, lot of cool NWOBHM-style lead guitar. It's cool stuff.

So that's the German Bobby Blitz? Haha...

I listened to some songs of "Of Mind and Fantasy". I Could'nt get further than 2 minutes in each of them, though.
On a side note: If the bands that have been recommended to me have gone through significant line-up changes or if there is one album that stands out as the best the band has ever produced, please point me to it.

And Yes, I'm new to this style ! What I'm sure of is that I truly, I mean truly hate high-pitched male vocals. I heard a good dose of them in the couple of Helstar songs I listened to...

High pitched shrieking/screaming/singing... that's fucking metal my friend. You might be looking into the wrong genre.

^ yep

Morphine1873 You probably are looking into the wrong genre if you dont like high pitched voices, most of the good power metal bands sing that way.

here is a few with lower voices though:

Black Destiny
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=39nSHochqBc
(Its a hard to find their albums. Ive only been able to locate "Black Is Where Our Hearts Belong" and have yet to find the other two.)

Grave Digger
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lqp6z6vfHX8

Pharaoh
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ilvX0zrBgw

Iron Savior
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Uaj6tRrROs

Black Majesty


Vulvagun
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXCWabukGvc

sorry, double post.

Brillant input. Long hair, beer and tight pants too. Halleluia! You've got more in your bag?

Thanks The Animator; off your list, I only know Pharaoh, wich is a fine band indeed, but as a matter of fact, I'd classify them in Heavy Metal, not Power. To me, but I might by off the mark (again, some will say ), Power Metal is less fast than Heavy, less, let's say "exuberant"? more "crushing".... mmh, hard to define it really (especially considering my ignorance of the genre, haha!), I'd say more restrained too. And no high-pitched vocals, at any rate, those can't be prominent and only serve as occasional counterpoints.

BIG FAT YAWN at your pathetic attempts at description!
Someone needs a crash course!

I don't mean to be mean and I know the mods won't stand for it but power metal isn't what you defined at all. And how can you claim to like it if you can't stand high pitched vocals?

You know there's plenty of bands who sing in lower registers and it's still perfectly identified as Power Metal, right?

And listening to a few songs on youtube and stopping before they finish...isn't the best way to get the feel of a band, ya know.

Well, Jag Panzer are confirmed for next year's Keep it True... with the Ample Destruction lead guitarist, too. I'd be interested in seeing that.

Upwards of Endtime's "Sadly Never Fore" really got ahold of me this weekend, I'm so glad I pulled the trigger on that one. The whole album is like an exercise in how to write really impactful, atmospheric heavy metal while maintaining a minimalist mission statement. Each song seems to be built on only one or two riffs and a collection of really great lyrics from Swanson.

I can't vouch for anything else they've made but you need this album.

Making my way through Sadly Never Fore .. "Defenders" sounds like it could be a Crescent Shield cover.

That Upwards of Endtime album sounds up my alley; will have to check it out soon...plus Phil Swanson is awesome. He is the man.

2014 you mean.

That's amazing though "Special early days show", having the whole of Ample Destruction played live with Harry sounding as great as he does would be awesome.

EDIT: Also Lethal playing is pretty awesome as well.

Received an awesome Christmas gift consisting of demo comp CDs from Enchanter, Chozzen Phate, and Cauldron Born, along with CB's second album.

Great site for underground heavy/power metal! Check it out;
http://underground-power.de/

SHEESH somebody loves you! I've had my eye on scooping that Enchanter comp for awhile now. Really loved the song or two I sampled on YT. Great barbaric muscular sound, and I can't believe that vocalist never went on to do a full album with someone...really dynamic voice.

I didn't get any heavy metal for christmas but I did get a 200 dollar amazon gift card which will slowly be converted to steel. So far I've used it to overpay for Sortilege's EP and Larmes de Heros. Probably some weird Greek bootlegs...I'm just hoping they sound good.

You might get the version of the Sortilege EP with the free t-shirt. That's the most common one available now.

Huh..that would be interesting I guess. I'm sure it wouldn't fit but I could throw it up on my wall or something. It's shipping from a seller named "hairmetalheaven" hahahah.

It's like a medium, definitely not fitting you man.

Why are you repeating what the fatty already said back to him? Hurtful.

It was like 12 bucks after shipping though, so I'm 99% sure that it's not coming with a t-shirt. I'll be thrilled if its not a bootleg. Or even if it's a quality bootleg.

I'm just super psyched to hear Sortilege, honestly. I've seen a lot of people say they're the best of the French trinity and I'm itching to find out. I've tasked myself with using my amazon gift cards to only buy undeniable classics that I'm going to obsess over for years, even if they're a bit more expensive.

I like High Power more but Sortilege are great, yeah. Zouille is a hell of a singer, it's crazy how many good singers were in that scene. Do French kids just take singing lessons as a matter of course? Do they participate in choir at school or church much more often than in, say, Germany? I mean I'm not just blowing smoke here, it's really interesting that French heavy metal has a plethora of awesome singers, while Germany had practically none in the same time period for the same style.

Hmmm, interesting point. I guess the Germans all started out with a very rough 'n' ready vocal style and then matured into good singers (or, at least some of them did). That EP and the second album are definitely classics, though, Jonpo. I'm sure you'll dig them.

Even so France had better "rough 'n' ready" singers too, I'd say. High Power you know, but listen to Strattson or H-Bomb. Not to single out Germany, the US and England definitely didn't have France's consistency in singers either. Yeah there were greats like Midnight or John Arch or JD Kimball or Bruce Dickinson, but with the quantity of bands coming out of those countries in the early and mid 80s it's not that surprising. With French metal you actually have to dig around to find a truly bad singer. Even dinky demo bands like Desdemona had pretty good singers.

Hey guys, how are you all?

I have a question, I've really been digging Condition Red by Iron Savior. This album is so fucking awesome, it has some really killer songs on it that I just can't stop listening to at all. Does anyone know of more stuff like this modern, but well done power/speed metal with actually amazing vocals like Piet Sielck's? That would be great.

Anything Judas Priest influenced would work actually, haha.

Hey cyberscreen, check out Ballistic's only album.

Don't forget ADX when it comes to awesome classic French metal, fantastically fun stuff there.

Gonna have to say Sortilege is probably my favorite as well though, vocals wise as well... easily.

Seems like I should check the old school scene of French heavy metal. I'm a sucker for cool singers, and all this talk about it being full of great vocalists has picked my interest.

I think I prefer Sortilège over High Power, but High Power has this amaziiiiiiiiiiing song called Offrande Charnelle that I sing every lyrics every time I listen to it. One of the best heavy metal songs ever.

Xlxlx, check out Nightmare and Blaspheme too.

YES! There are definitely some people here who appreciate Offrande Charnelle. I know FSM mentions it in his review. Usually when I'm playing the album I get distracted thinking about it coming up, then distracted after it's over thinking about how great it was during other songs. Jeremy and I listened to it on the way back from seeing Saint Vitus and agreed it's in the running for best heavy metal song ever.

I actually really love Blaspheme's debut, probably listened to it a lot more than High Power. I'm a sucker for that super plunky bass tone that just overpowers everything. Magie Noire!

Already aware of Nightmare (love some of their modern output), but will give Blaspheme a listen when I get fucking YouTube to work Thanks for the rec, 'toine!

What I really like about "Offrande Charnelle" is just how bombastic it is...it seriously reminds me of Celtic Frost in that regard. Such a huge song, really ahead of its time in terms of emotional scope. They tried the same thing on their next album with "Le Dernier Assaut", which is a very good song, but it's hampered by a pretty crappy production, unfortunately. That snare sound really gets on your nerves after a while :/ I guess they were going for a martial thing, but it's just a little too much for me. On the upside, they take it even further into bombast-land, with an occasional organ and even more twisted guitarwork, it's really worth getting past the crappy snare. Definitely evokes a mood similar to "Offrande Charnelle".

Overall just a really cool band, and I really dig their other songs too - the debut isn't just about "Offrande Charnelle", people! Sortilege are good too of course but I feel their quality rests largely upon Zouille's shoulders; in terms of pure songwriting I think High Power is superior. Sortilege tend to be lighter, less riff-focused, more in a hard rock vein (in terms of song structure) that I just don't like as much (though I will reiterate that I still like Sortilege an awful lot). High Power just write very tight riffs, play them off of each other wonderfully, and make sure each idea flows into the next fluidly. They understand very very well how to construct a basic, no-frills-attached heavy metal song. That's one of the big reasons I think they're so successful when they decide to write a lots-of-frills-attached heavy metal song: they understand the basics so thoroughly that they know just when and where frills are best applied, and where they should be left out. A lot of other bands, especially now that metal in its basic forms has been around for so long, often feel the urge to differentiate themselves from a perceived norm through the incorporation of wild frills, such as throwing in influence from X non-metal genre or adding in X weird instrument, and I think these bands often come across as lame novelties specifically because they never learned the basics that well. It's like someone trying to write a super complex post-modern thousand-page novel without understanding the basics of storytelling.

I'll have to listen to High Power more. I thought they were the French equivalent of Omen but think I'm mixing them up with someone else. Blaspheme? Thought I had some of their stuff but I'm not finding it. Hmm...

I think I'm just randomly thinking of Kraken for some reason, even though they're Canadian.

'Offrande Charnelle' is a really strange song... every time I play it I'm kind of taken aback by it. Great stuff. I like High Power a lot, too, but they're not in the same league as Sortilege.

On that note, I just ordered ADX's first album.

Kraken actually sound a lot like a primitive Omen. Just straight up heavy metal for the most part, but they have a similar kind of muscular, hyper-masculine vibe going on, and the songwriting exhibits some similar quirks as well. Really good band, people should pick up their demo compilation.