Power Metal!
August 3, 2009
Power metal is for people who know why twenty-sided dice and mana tokens are as important as power chords. If you like Iron Maiden or Dio, there are a million other bands paying tribute in their own way.
Power metal gets a bum rap from people who take music too seriously. (Even glam metal fans get their licks in.) I’ve always felt that it’s the musical equivalent of sci-fi and fantasy. Its classical roots give it an epic feel. The genre also stems from bands like Uriah Heep and UFO. Judas Priest laid the groundwork, but the power metal bands did it twice as fast, with precision and grace.
Visually, they’re easy to laugh at. But listen to how they play: they want to do it right. It’s easy to understand why metal fans hated grunge and nu-metal when you hear this stuff. It’s all about ability.
Helloween is one of my favorites. They’re kind of like Maiden, but faster and, at times, funnier.
I always saw Manowar’s albums in the store, and though, “These guys really like Conan comics.” Our long-gone metal station, KZDC, played this song in 1996, and I knew then that heavy metal would survive. If these guys could put out this song in the middle of the “alternative” music “revolution,” we’d be okay.
