They Don’t Call Me MetalJim for Nothing
Here’s what you should listen to on the way to your next fantasy battle…
The fall is usually a good time of the year for music releases. If you are a metal fan, then you don’t need me to tell you that you should at least give a listen to the new Metallica album.
However, my real mission here today is to turn you on to some fairly obscure European power metal bands. Why are Europeans better at this stuff than Americans? Because it takes a lot for them to trip over the ridiculousness of their own lyrics. It’s like they have no sense of irony about how cheesy and over-the-top some of their musical cliches can really get.
The reason that this is good for you is because YOU are someone who digs the whole “fantasy” theme in computer games and role-playing games. There’s only so many times that you can listen to those tired old Conan movie soundtracks, or the Braveheart soundtrack, or even the excellent LOTR soundtracks when you want to get jacked up for your next big night of fantasy RPG excellence.
These albums all go to eleven. Maybe even eleven-point-five.
Here’s a band you may have heard of, only because they are well known to “Guitar Heroes” around the world. A song from their last album was the uber-ultra secret hard level on Guitar Hero III, and numerous pimply teenagers from around the internet have posted videos of themselves trying to perfect their high score on this song. I swear I see kids walking around my college campus wearing Dragonforce tee-shirts, and I think it’s because of Guitar Hero III.
Anyway, the new Dragonforce album is more of the same. The riffs are absolutely shred-tastic, and the tempo is completely over-the-top. It’s not “black” metal by any means – the singer actually sings, and the keyboards make it all just a little cheesy.
These guys aren’t known for their lyrics. It’s like 14 year old kids tried to write heavy metal songs loosely inspired by their D&D game. Don’t take any of it seriously – most of their lyrical “cliches” start to sound the same after a few songs.
That said, this is the soundtrack for epic-level characters getting ready to defeat the “evil one” for the umpteenth time. Watch the video for “Heroes of Our Time” right here.
Okay, here’s an obscure band from Germany that decided to do an entire concept album based on an obscure battle from the Crusades. Remember in the movie Kingdom of Heaven when the Templars ride out to face Saladin and they don’t bring enough water and basically get slaughtered to practically the last man when they caught out in the middle of the desert? Yeah, THAT battle. The lyrics are in English, and sort of alternate between songs from the point of view of various Templar knights and songs from the point of view of Saladin and his army.
The first two minutes of this album is this really cheesy orchestral intro with the cheesiest voiceover ever. It’s so lame your rating for this album will drop by five points before the band plays one real note. Then, the band does start playing, and every second of the album just screams total metal awesomeness, and more than makes up for the awful intro.
This is quite possibly my album of the year. Here’s a link to an “audio file” of the first real song on the album, skipping that cheesy intro I was warning you about.
A great album for Paladins on their way to a fateful but hopeless battle.
More Tuetonic Melodic Power Metal. These guys are from Austria (again, lyrics in English). This is their second album, and it’s a pretty diverse offering. It’s got a few heavy bits with some growly vocals, and also some very melodic bits with pianos and orchestral backing. The lyrics are a infused with quite a bit of “fantasy” imagery, and might well be inspired by one or more fantasy novels.
Here’s a video from the album. The song is called “Velatum”. It’s a good representative of the rest of the disc.
Highly recommended for those playing wizards.
WITHIN TEMPTATION – THE HEART OF EVERYTHING
Biggest thing to come out of Holland since orangetulips. The female lead singer here will definitely remind you of that chick from Evanescence. Imagine that band, but with a symphony playing backup, and a whole lot of lyrical cliches borrowed from White Wolf RPGs.
Also recommended for elven rangers, and other vampire hunters.
Actually, if you want the live version, the band just put out a very high quality live DVD, with a CD soundtrack as a bonus.
Here’s a link to something that’s both a video game trailer and a good song by this band. It turns out that the band has kicked some development money into an MMO called The Chronicles of Spellborn. No, really, I can’t make this up. If this doesn’t get your fantasy juices flowing, then you are already part of the walking undead, my friends.
Fuel for life, as recommended by MetalJim. Get rocking already!
Posted on October 8th, 2008 at 6:20 pm. About 'They Don’t Call Me MetalJim for Nothing'.
Dude, thank you, a million times thank you. I’ve been looking for a list like this for quite some time. Lately I’ve been caught up listening to some of the more medieval-inspired power metal outfits: Falconer, Wintersun, Turisas, etc. They’re great too; I recommend you check ‘em out.
Posted on October 10th, 2008 at 2:09 pm. About 'They Don’t Call Me MetalJim for Nothing'.
Great list, thanks a lot. Another band that is similar to a lot of these is Nightwish. They’re a Finnish power metal band, and they have a lot of different styles of songs, from very heavy metal to some that are almost ballads. That said, all of their songs have a fantastic quality to them. Their album “Dark Passion Play” is probably my favorite, and would be my recommendation for the first one to buy. Check Youtube for a bunch of music videos they have.