Power Metal

Origin: Early 1980’s Europe and U.S.

Characteristics: Uplifting feelings; fast, melodic guitar riffs; soaring, virtuosic vocals; fantasy lyrical themes

Typical Live Hand Gesture: ✊

What is the appeal?: Fun and empowering moods and themes; big and catchy melodic riffs

An interesting phenomenon that happens over and over in metal is a group of artists making an entirely new style of metal by exaggerating specific characteristics of older, existing styles. Just as death metal dialed up the speed, aggression, and darkness of thrash metal, a genre that would be known as power metal made an entire style out of the empowering, “soaring,” fist-pumping and deliberately-cheesy sound of old-school heavy metal.

The work of Ronnie James Dio in the band Rainbow as well as in his own band Dio served as the prototype and inspiration for power metal. Dio’s lyrics and imagery were inspired by fantasy; he’d sing about wizard towers, gypsies, and a “holy diver” among other often-metaphorical topics that would invite listener’s imaginations. The music was straight-up, fist-pumping heavy metal, adorned with fast guitar solos and power chord riffs. This was similar in style to heavy metal contemporaries Judas Priest and Iron Maiden, whose own music would also prove influential to the unborn genre of power metal.

Rainbow (rock band) - Wikipedia
Rainbow, one of the projects of Ronnie James Dio whose empowering music and fantastical lyrical themes would serve as inspiration for dozens of metal bands to follow. (Image credit: Wikipedia)
Ronnie James Dio’s earliest well-known work was with Ritchie Blackmore’s Rainbow. In “Stargazer,” he sings of a wizard in his tower.
Dio’s own band Dio had fantasy-inspired lyrics and imagery similar to Rainbow. This style of fist-pumping, empowering heavy metal would serve as a blueprint for power metal.
Iron Maiden were another band who would be enormously influential to power metal, especially after recruiting vocalist Bruce Dickinson. Songs like “Run to the Hills” are full of epic, fist-pumping melodies.

One of the first bands to build on Dio’s fantasy-inspired take on heavy metal was Manowar, from the United States. Manowar’s music was unashamedly cheesy, with their lyrics taking just as much fantasy inspiration as Dio’s, if not even more, and their members dressing up like comic book warriors on-stage and in promotional photos.

Manowar were even more overt with their fantasy lyrics and imagery. Their music feels like riding into glorious battle!

In the mid-late 80’s, Germany’s Helloween built on this empowering and intentionally cheesy form of metal even further, creating more of a blueprint for modern power metal to follow. Helloween’s music was outstandingly melodic, with pounding, fist-pumping rhythms, and empowering, soaring vocals.

Helloween’s two Keeper of the Seven Keys albums were hugely influential to power metal. The German band had a gift for catchy, uplifting melodies and choruses.

German power metal such as Helloween would set the standard for the genre in the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. Similar to Helloween, Blind Guardian played melodic metal with empowering, memorable choruses, and speed metal riffing. German peers Gamma Ray followed suit, creating epic, melodic metal in the same vain.

Blind Guardian infused Helloween’s brand of melodic power metal with speed metal riffs and drumming.
Gamma Ray created some of the most over-the-top and epic German power metal.

Across the sea, bands like Savatage, Crimson Glory, and Iced Earth set a strong example for the US power metal scene. While some of these bands, such as Savatage, played a fusion of power metal with classic heavy metal, others like Iced Earth took a more aggressive, thrash-influenced approach to their instrumental performances. These bands all shared a knack for empowering, fist-pumping choruses, melodic riffs, and dramatic guitar solos. This form of US power metal can also be seen as an overdriven form of classic heavy metal, embracing all the cheesiness to find in the style.

Savatage played a form of classic heavy metal with fantasy-inspired imagery and empowering choruses.
Crimson Glory went all-in with their fantasy imagery. Transcendence is full of powerful guitar harmonies, soaring vocals, and catchy choruses.
Iced Earth played power-thrash metal, blending the aggressive riffs of thrash metal with power metal’s empowering choruses.

Like their grittier cousins in thrash metal, power metal gained an interesting boost in popularity from the 2007 video game Guitar Hero III. Dragonforce’s “Through the Fire and Flames” was famously the most difficult song in the game, even awarding players an in-game achievement or trophy for clearing the song on the hardest difficulty. The song’s placement and difficulty within the game created a sense of wonder around it and around Dragonforce themselves, drawing a new generation’s interest towards flashy power metal.

“Through the Fire and Flames” was famously featured as the most difficult song on Guitar Hero III, introducing a generation of young gamers to power metal.

Works Cited

Fehl, Zach. “In Defense of Their Good Name: Power Metal.” Metal Insider, Metal Insider, 3 July 2014, http://www.metalinsider.net/columns/in-defense-of-their-good-name-power-metal.