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.
Sonata Arctica
Frozen Land – Icemelter Review
“I have such a soft spot in my heart for Frozen Land. After writing my first-ever review for Angry Metal Guy, I remember feeling shaky. It went through quite a few revisions. My second, Frozen Land’s eponymous debut, was, comparatively, simple. Their 1999 Euro power metal meets 2001 Euro power metal vision made for a catchy, delightfully fun album, and my enjoyment for it showed in my writing—still my favorite intro to any review I’ve written. So it is to my great astonishment that these Finns are now on album number three with Icemelter.” Metal melts the ice.
Angry Metal Guy’s Top Ten(ish) of 2024
Starting 2025 with a bang was always important, and I elected the “being 26 days late with your Record o’ the Year post” as the best possible way to give everyone that patented Angry Metal Guy feeling of waiting and waiting only to be smacked in the face with 5000 words that you disagree with entirely. Welcome to the Wonderful World of Executive Dysfunction™! Let’s make a list!
Krilloan – Return of the Heralds Review
“As I began my listening sessions with Sweden’s Krilloan and their second album Return of the Heralds, I reflected on how rarely I review power metal. That’s partly because we don’t get much of it in the promo sump these days apart from grizzled olde dawgs like Hammerfall and Powerwolf. It seems to be a genre in decline with fewer bands stepping forward to hoist the yellow banner of Cheese Whizardy. That’s a shame too, because as much as we mock power metal for its frilly, sugary excesses, it can be among the most embiggening metal styles when executed properly. Now comes Krilloan with badass Castlevania-esque cover art and a style blending classic Euro-power with traditional and trve/epic elements.” Run of the Krill?
Verikalpa – Tuomio Review
I once wrote that Verikalpa bears “the accordion of tradition to the sauna of the metal gods, so that we might have something new to listen to while we drink.” But, let’s be honest, “competent but derivative” is not the praise anyone is looking for when they create music. And so one wonders, four years after my initial exposure, is that the only contribution Verikalpa had to make?
AMG Goes Ranking: Sonata Arctica
Sonata Arctica has an eminently rankable discography of 10 full-length records (without ranking the re-recordings and acoustic records). And motherfucker if we aren’t going to rank the shit out of that discography right here. From Worst to First. You know the drill.
Serenity – Nemesis A.D. Review
“Austria’s Serenity had a pretty good run over these last 10 years. Starting life as a progressive-minded power metal act, by the time 2013s War of Ages hit the streets they’d shifted to a more streamlined and grandiose style, sounding like Kamelot cross-bred with Sonata Arctica and Avantasia. The formula worked very well due to consistently solid, memorable songwriting and albums like Codex Atlanticus and Lionheart had a lot to offer fans of larger-than-life symphonic power metal. 2020s The Last Knight was a step backward, dumbing down their sound while trying to make it more poppy and accessible, with bright synths and borderline club beats underlying the usual pomp and circumstance. The end product was still Serenity but things sounded plastic, frail, and light on substance. Three years on we get their eighth album, Nemesis A.D.” Serenity NOW!
Wonders – Beyond the Mirage Review
“A supergroup of sorts—featuring members of Temperance, Serenity, and Even Flow, among many many others—Wonders play a triumphant, uplifting, adventure-bound sort of heavy/power metal. That means belted cleans, big stadium-crushing choruses, sparkling synths, speedy guitar chugs and noodles, double bass runs out the ass, and ten thousand metric tons of shredded cheddar.” If Wonder Bread was cheese.
Angus McSix – Angus McSix and the Sword of Power Review
“Hello, reader—can I call you reader? Let’s be honest with each other. You know exactly what to expect here. You know what kind of music this is; you know what this review is going to say; you do not need to skip to the end to know what score is coming. Even if you don’t know that the former vocalist for Gloryhammer Thomas Winkler has, since his dramatic departure from the group, started up anew with a Europe-spanning band called Angus McSix, even if you didn’t know that Gloryhammer and Winkler are well-known for their cheesy, over-the-top tales of fantasy, even if you haven’t glanced down and noticed that the preview song on Bandcamp for Angus McSix and the Sword of Power is called “Laser-Shooting Dinosaur,” you know.” Six appeal.
Kamelot – The Awakening Review
“I don’t really feel nostalgia for Kamelot. I tried getting into them when they released The Black Halo in 2005, which, though widely regarded as their best work, bounced off my DragonForce-pilled adolescent mind. To me, Kamelot was slow and boring, a brand of power metal that sacrificed the genre’s trademark excess in a bid to win over music intellectuals, socialites, and critics. Older and much wiser was I when the excellent Silverthorn dropped in 2012, which rekindled my interest in Kamelot as I devoured their back catalog. And then came the slow decline.” Of empires forlorn.
