Tommy Portimo of Sonata Arctica at his drum kit on stage at Wacken Open Air 2024, sticks in hand, long fair hair, tattooed arms, surrounded by cymbals and microphones.

Essential Albums

The Fastest Power Metal Songs

Speed is the one thing power metal states as a number, and the number arrives with no unit on it. Count the pulse, the kick, the snare, the riff or the sung line and one song answers five different ways, which is why a ranking of fast songs is a ranking of counts.

By Julien Vasseur 26 October · 11 min read

From the Magazine

Histories · Biographies · Essentials →

Rhapsody of Fire at Rockharz Open Air 2025: a guitarist leans back over his instrument at the left, the drummer plays at the centre under the band's painted backdrop, and the singer holds the microphone at the right.

Essential Albums

The Power Metal Concept Albums

A concept album promises events in an order, and the music of this genre is built to come back identical. So what actually carries the story in the audio? Five devices, one hard test, and th...

By Julien Vasseur

Avantasia at Wacken Open Air 2022: Tobias Sammet in a top hat and long dark coat points sharply across the stage, mouth open, with a guitarist playing behind him on the right.

Essential Albums

The Longest Power Metal Epics

A fifteen minute song cannot be a four minute song played four times, so it has to find something for the time, and the supply of answers is short. What the numbered parts printed on these s...

By Julien Vasseur

Stratovarius on the Wacken Open Air stage in 2022: the singer throws the horns at centre, a guitarist and a bassist flank the drum riser, and a crowd of raised hands fills the foreground.

Essential Albums

The Power Metal Ballads, and What They Do on an Album

A power metal ballad is a position before it is a song. Where it sits decides what the two tracks touching it can do, whether it was written for the album or for a radio station, and what a...

By Julien Vasseur

From the Team

The whole team →

Eirik Solvang Black Metal The Black Metal Records Collectors Chase

Andrzej Sawicki Blackened Death Viking, Folk and Everything Else Death Metal Absorbed

Rafael Quintero Death Metal The Death Metal Records Collectors Chase

Gareth Llewellyn Grindcore The Underrated Sludge Metal Albums

Ilse Brandt Doom Metal What Doom Metal Actually Means

Declan Rourke Heavy Metal Heavy Metal vs Rock

Reviews

All reviews →

7.0 Kreator Renewal

7.0 Napalm Death Words from the Exit Wound

7.5 GWAR War Party

8.0 Borknagar The Archaic Course

7.5 Unleashed The Hunt for White Christ

6.5 Napalm Death Leaders Not Followers

On This Day

26 October

25 years Motörhead 25 & Alive - Boneshaker 2001 · Live

28 years Napalm Death Words from the Exit Wound 1998

28 years Borknagar The Archaic Course 1998

22 years GWAR War Party 2004

34 years Kreator Renewal 1992

27 years Dream Theater Metropolis Pt. 2: Scenes from a Memory 1999

Release Calendar

Full calendar →

Date	Band	Album	Type
26 Oct 2026	Herzog	Mugwort	Full-length
30 Oct 2026	Enslaved	Mið	Full-length
30 Oct 2026	Ministry	Hate to Go - Take Out or Delivery	Full-length
30 Oct 2026	Cirith Ungol	All the Shadows	Full-length
30 Oct 2026	Blind Channel	Painstream	Full-length
30 Oct 2026	Blind Channel	Painstream (24-bit HD audio)	Full-length
30 Oct 2026	Acherontas	For the Blood of Tiamat - Praxis I - XXX Years Anniversary of Magick and Metamorphosis	EP
30 Oct 2026	Scarblade	Guardians of Time	Full-length
30 Oct 2026	Darkest Hour	Suffer Divine	Full-length