Had a lot of fun this week listening to new and old power metal. The first metal album I ever bought was a Once by Nightwish which I think you could argue if it was or wasn’t a real power metal album. Since I got into metal I’ve always loved the cheesy lyrics, licks, and styles of power metal. It’s nice to see a group of people in metal who don’t take themselves as serious as other subgenres in metal do.

To my untrained eye the biggest difference I notice between Euro and American metal fans is that American metal fans are okay with being nerds and enjoying the kind of cheesier stuff in metal, but Euro fans seem a lot more invested in taking the “metal lifestyle” seriously. A lot of my German friends seem shocked at how many American metal fans are really just nerdy people who happen to also enjoy heavy metal, and I know that for my circle of friends we all got into metal via power metal.

I really like this idea of gateway metal bands, and it seems like power metal is one of the best genres at getting the casual music fan more interested in metal. A lot of casual music fans have this idea that metal is like death or black metal and that there are no clean vocals, or all the songs are about Satan. In reality metal is a much broader genre with more depth than a lot of people want to give it (not as much depth as late teen or early 20’s metal fans want to give it though). Looking back I’m always surprised that my older siblings CD’s and a few power metal bands was all it really took to get me to be so invested in metal.

• Proud to be Loud by Pantera
• Voidspawn by Chthe’ilist
• The Spectral Burrows by Slugdge
• A Home by Rivers of Nihil
• Intro by Bolt Thrower
• Eternal War by Bolt Thrower
• Through the Eye of Terror by Bolt Thrower
• Cult of Ophidian by Summoning the Lich
• Thrawing in Agony by Altered Dead
• Into Subconcious Depths by Malice Divine
• Sentiero dell’eternita
• Nothingness by Thron by Wÿntër Ärvń