I remember Blind Ride had some fanfare... the problem is that the following month or so, Satan's Host released By the Hands of the Devil, and that album basically did what Blind Ride did mostly right, only better. Didn't help Hibria's case that they had abandoned whatever trad leanings they had left on that second album, which itself shed quite a bit of that after their debut. Didn't help their case even further that Moving Ground is basically St Anger levels of bad, and Abel basically got himself a new band after that point. The new album is alright, it's got a few good songs, but Hibria ain't moving units like they did back in the day. Iuri's been in Eternity's End for a while and their new album has been doing quite well IIRC.

Hammerfall comes to mind. It's easy to forget how big they were and how much hype was around them in the late 90s/early 00s. Never hear them mentioned at all now.

Yeah, what happened to Hades (Hades Almighty)? They were all the rage back then, with some magnificent albums and popularity within the underground that fucking skyrocketed. Alone Walkyng is still one of my all-time favourite mini albums!

Well, their new album came out earlier this year, and it didn't even chart on the Billboard Top 200 albums.

Here in Belgium Sabaton is waaaay bigger than Nightwish. The festival billings and size of venues they play make the difference clear.

I dunno if mentioned already or not, but whatever happened to Pain Of Salvation?? Early 00's and they were supposed to take the crown of prog metal. I guess the interest in the genre itself also faded, so perhaps that didn't help...