Japanese power metal maestros, Lovebites dropped their latest album, Outstanding Power and certain AMG staffers decided it merited a double review. Let the love nibbles commence.
Gamma Ray
Battering Ram – Time Masters Review
“Occasionally, pet projects and casual fun bands can take a very long time to gestate into something more serious and tangible. Spain’s Battering Ram has had quite a long journey to get to their self-released debut album Time Masters, starting from their formation in 2008 and their demos in the early 2010s. Over this time period, their ambitions have also grown. Evolved from just another thrash metal band, Time Masters is a sci-fi concept album looking to fuse epic heavy and power metal with technical thrash metal.” Time is the fire in which we burn.
Aquilla – Sentinels of New Dawn Review
“The Polish metal scene is much better known around these parts for its bludgeoning death metal than for classic metal worship, and Aquilla is looking to change that. Formed in Warsaw in 2015, their debut Mankind’s Odyssey was unleashed on the masses in 2022, delivering NWoBHM with a dose of ”80s–’90s speed/power metal influence. Sophomore album Sentinels of New Dawn promises a similar but more epic brand of sci-fi thunder. With a couple EPs and a full-length already under their belt, how does Aquilla navigate this set of space war stories?” May cause Aquilla Lung.
Thornbridge – Daydream Illusion Review
“I love Teutonic power metal. I love how basically every band sounds like Gamma Ray or Blind Guardian in varying degrees, as well as their wocalists’ perpetual inability to pronounce the phoneme v. There’s a comfort to be found in the formula; lucky me, then, that Germany tends to produce a greater ratio of quality power metal bands than most other regions. Thornbridge is a prime example of such quality.” Unweash the wengeance!
Scanner – The Cosmic Race Review
“It’s an early-year surprise to be graced with a new album by Germanic power/heavy metal semi-legends Scanner. Early adopters of the Euro-power style created by Helloween, Scanner released two seminal albums at the start of their career. 1988s Hypertrace and 1990s Terminal Earth were rough and ready takes on the slick Helloween style and Scanner made their version extra interesting due to their more unhinged, raw edge. After the very good Terminal Earth, however, it took them until 1995 to drop a follow-up and by then much of the metal market had moved on to more extreme sounds or given up metal entirely and gone grunge.” Olde tech.
AMG Goes Ranking – Angra
Angra are back with a new power metal opus this week, so we did our official ranking. You may not agree, but you must study this grand work of metal journalisming.
Twilight Force – At the Heart of Wintervale Review
“Twilight Force’s Dawn of the Dragonstar should have been on my 2019 year-end list. Hell, I should have at least written a Things You Might Have Missed piece on it. Yet in retrospect, at the time, the prospect of fully embracing Twilight Force was borderline embarrassing, even for me.” Return of the GammaStrataWeenie.
Fellowship – The Saberlight Chronicles Review
“I know that most of you have already eyed my score on this review, and have nearly broken your damn necks from the whiplash of rapidly scrolling up for answers. For many, this choice will come across as confusing and misguided, but as someone who’s listened to Fellowship’s self-titled EP on repeat for two years, it’s anything but. That EP might be the reason I survived the early pandemic days with my sanity intact. It’s a bottomless wellspring of joy, dominated by gorgeous melodies, exhilarating solos, and clever, heartwarming lyrical turns. On the strength of those three songs alone, Fellowship’s debut LP would have probably been my power metal album of the year. The fact that every song on the record is as good as or better than any song from the EP puts it in another class entirely.” Off to see the Wizzard.
Helloween – Helloween Review
“Helloween gets 97.543% of the credit for creating what we now think of as the Euro-power metal sound. Led by the high-pitched wailing of Kai Hansen, their Walls of Jericho debut was a nonstop rush of speed and irresistible hooks, and Keeper of the Seven Keys Part I was less speedy but far more polished and majestic, featuring the vocal power of a young Michael Kiske. When it was announced that BOTH long absent frontmen would be returning to Helloween to join current frontman Andi Deris for a new album, I felt conflicted.” He should have squashed his expectations.
![Iapetus – The Body Cosmic [Things You Might Have Missed 2019]](https://www.angrymetalguy.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/12/Iapetus-The-Body-Cosmic-01-768x799.jpg)
Iapetus – The Body Cosmic [Things You Might Have Missed 2019]
“Metal offers incalculable aural interpretations of outer space. Darkspace focuses on the inhospitable nature of the infinite vacuum. Gamma Ray pitches a trip through a black hole as the ultimate roller coaster ride. Ghost Bath dwells on the melancholic isolation of the cosmos while also sounding like something out of Sonic Adventure. Yet it takes Iapetus just over three minutes to craft a moment more compelling than any of those with their sophomore LP, The Body Cosmic.” Space in your face.
