One of the bands that I play bass guitar for (Thunderwolf) falls into this sub-genre, so I have a few years first-hand experience playing this style of music. Unfortunately we haven't recorded anything in a while, but to give you an idea of what we sound like here's two of our songs that we recorded a couple of years ago -
Firewind
This Greek band are a power-house of musical talent. I had the pleasure of seeing them live at a small London venue last year, which was a great experience. Their performance was flawless and, thanks to the intimate venue, was very engaging with the crowd. Their singer, Apollo, has an impressive vocal range as well as having an amazingly powerful voice. The drummer and bass player I found to be adequate, but not as impressive as the other members. That said, they did their job of providing an extremely tight rhythm section for the band. One of the two guitarists, Bob Katsionis, displayed some incredible fret-work, but that's just half of his talent. He also plays synth in the band, and sometimes even plays both at once harmonizing with himself - impressive stuff.
There is one important member left that I have yet to mention... Gus G. This guitar wizard is one of my favourite guitarists of all time, and it's not surprising that his talent recently landed him with the job of playing guitar for none other than Ozzy Osbourne.
Enough typing from me - listen to some music from this awesome band!
Galneryus
Now to another part of the world - Japan. Home to some of the most talented people in the world, not just exclusively musicians. You know what they say - no matter how good you are at something, there's a little Asian kid somewhere who is 100x better than you. Fact.
This Japanese supergroup are no exception. I don't want to bore you with paragraphs of words analyzing each member - just watch this.
Pretty impressive huh? Needless to say, that bass solo @ 2:30 is BEAST!
This following clip is the intro track to their 2010 album 'Resurrection'. It's an instrumental track, and i personally find it to be very powerful - I love the key modulation at around 0:59. The album artwork fits perfectly - I can just imagine soaring through the skies of a fantasy world, mounted on the back of a dragon; sword in one hand, tankard of mead in the other!
Edguy
One of my favourite power metal bands. The clip below is a song that I used to cover with my power band - bringing back lots of good memories!
Gamma Ray
Now we come to one of my all time favourite bands - Gamma Ray. Cheesy as hell, but that ain't a bad thing! In true traditional power metal fashion, their lyrics paint pictures of fantasy worlds and talk of fictional creatures. Here's a good example - Heart Of The Unicorn.
This next song explores the idea of a 'new world order', brought upon the world by the Illuminati - a secret society that have been discussed by conspiracy theorists for many years, and I'm sure this will remain for years to come. This is a really uplifting song, much like the majority of their back-catalogue! Enjoy.
Kamelot
I'm going to round of this post with yet another epic power metal band. The song below is easily one of my favourite of theirs, and certainly one of their most successful. I love the arpeggiated synth part during the chorus, and the subtle guitar harmonies are perfectly placed. The time signature changes work incredibly well (5/4 verse, 6/4 pre-chorus i believe), and doesn't confuse the listener so much as to interrupt their headbanging rhythm!
I may revisit this post to update date it with some more examples of this epic sub-genre of metal. Hope you enjoyed my selection of music!
