Power Metal belongs in the top genres for metal music. There's nothing new with power metal from heavy metal, except the vocals and also the speed of the music. Speed metal was really the start of power metal in America. These new metal music songs were an alteration from the typical metal that everyone was use to. With more harmonies and less distortion, this opened the door for others to try.
Musical Elements and Lyrics
Most vocals contain growling and clean. The majority of the types growls or screams you'll find with this genre often reflect the style you should find in black metal or death metal. Vocals certainly are a big part of what power metal is all about. Ronnie James Dio (Dio), Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden) and Rob Halford (Judas Priest) are some of the most prominent power metal vocalists. Other bands began to explore more options within their singing. Vocalists like Timo Kotipelto (Stratovarius), Ralf Scheepers (Primal Fear), Michele Luppi (Vision Divine) and Michael Kiske (ex-Helloween) took this new wave of singing and perfected it.
You will find numerous bands that sing about fantasy and mythology in power metal. But there will always be bands to sing about religion and politics. Even with the politics and religion in their music, they still would put a fictional twist to them. Bands that followed this trend were 3 Inches of Blood, Hammer Fall, DragonForce and Symphony X. Lost Horizon, Helloween and Gamma Ray sang a lot about positive situations. Sabaton, Iced Earth, Manowar and Firewind sang a lot about dark and evil situations.
Style and Instruments of Power Metal
Power metal bands stick to the fundamentals with guitars, bass, drums plus some elements of keyboards. With slower chord progressions in their music, power metal still has high harmonic tempos. Despite having their slow chord progressions you can watch for some very extreme electric guitar solos. Also watch for a bass electric guitar in the background overlaying some heavy bass notes.
Drummers will use a double bass pedal or dual bass drums on their sets in Power Metal. Most likely all metal bands use a double bass. You'll hear the double bass running or quick beats in between other elements. This heavy metal type of drumming has been used in all genres of metal music.
Keyboards are also incorporated in metal music. Bands such as Nightwish and Rhapsody use keyboards to improve their sound. Most keyboards are used for accents in metal music, but there are more and more which have melodies overlaying the harmony of the music.
Other Aspects of Metal Music
With thrash metal, speed metal and heavy metal being a big part of the metal community in the United States. They began to experiment and expand on where they could go. American power metal is faster than European power metal. Another difference you may find could be the style of music and also the tone of the distortion. American power metal has had higher vocal singers and much more distortion in the sound of their music. For more American Power Metal consider Manowar, Iced Earth and Savatage.
You'll find more melodic metal in European countries. Having a more melodic sound probably comes from the popular genre folk metal. You'll receive faster palm mutes and less guitar distortion within their power metal. But even with the modification of metal music, power metal remains one of the most popular metal genres for the European community. Sonata Arctica, Stratovarius and Helloween are some of the most popular European metal bands.
