I only recently discovered Blind Guardian. Typically listened to thrash, rarely power metal. Man, what excellence. Brilliant vocals, great choruses, distinct and unique sense of melody both on guitar and vocals. Something I really love about them is that vocals, guitars, and drums all have very prominent and distinct parts. In many bands I feel like one instrument will often dominate and the band becomes boring. I.e. great vocals, no guitar solos or great guitar but could care less for vocals. When I started listening to Blind Guardian and heard a chorus for the first time, I thought “Dang that was awesome, but I bet the guitar solo will suck or not exist”…and MAN was I wrong. Brilliant vocals and brilliant guitar work. And then that drumming is just always going. My life is 2% better for having found them.
I still consider "Nightfall in middle earth" one of the best albums of all times. I remember waiting in front of the recordstore on the releasday in 1998, came home and listened to it from start to finish a few times while reading the newest "Rock Hard" magazine, good times. Even today it's one of the few albums I still enjoy listening from start to finish.
I discovered that album in 1999 (via Hansi's "Demons and Wizards" project with Iced Earth), and it's one of the few metal albums I still listen to regularly 25 years later. (It really helps if you've read some of the Silmarillion, of course.) Hard to pick a favorite track since it's so consistently excellent, but maybe "The Curse of Feanor" gets the most play.
Also, attending a BG concert at the old Graceland in Seattle back in 2004 or so and singing along to "The Bard's Song" with a few hundred other fans who knew all the words was definitely a peak geek moment.
The start of “Into the storm” after Morgoth says “She, the mistress of her own lust” on a spoken intro track gives me the shivers to this day and I still consider it the best banging start of the album I have ever heard.
“Into the Storm” is just brilliant. Punching intro, vocals come in for a little “soft” intro themselves, and then vocals go hard (“where can I run”) and we’re off to the races. I’m typically a guitar guy, but man I really enjoy Hansi’s talents to compose vocals…mixing moods, styles, speed, all in the span of a few verses. Reminds me of “Time Stands Still”. That second verse comes in real self-reflective and interior like (“I stand alone”) and then BOOM “I dare you!!!”.
I definitely consider NIME to be best BG album. They tried to replicate the same level of complexity in their follow up albums, but the sound engineering and mixing just never felt the same. NIME sounds crisp and clear and every after is too layered and muddy
It seems to me that there are remasters that improved things a bit. I've always liked "A Night at the Opera", but it sounded strangely hollow, a bit like classical music or Metallica's Saint Anger. The 2017 remaster sounds more like metal. AFAICT, it's quite well done, not one of these shitty remasters that just increases compression and calls it a day.
Here in Spain they were arguably the biggest power metal band ever. Shirts with their art were very common - a tier below Maiden shirts, but putting up a respectable fight in popularity. They also filled some of the best venues - not stadiums, but the tier right below, the premium venues, which I think is a great achievement for such a niche genre.
When I was a kid I loved some of their classics like Mirror Mirror, but I wasn't as much into them as some of my entourage, as I preferred other styles of vocals. Recently however I've come to appreciate them again because Spotify suggested "Sacred Worlds" from the album Edge of Time. I love fully orchestrated metal - Metallica's S&M with the San Fran Symphonic or Nightwish's Once with the London Philarmonic - and "Sacred Worlds" is an absolute banger within this rare subgenre.
It's funny, "Mirror Mirror" is the biggest hit from NIME but it's my least favorite track on the album. I'm not a huge fan overall of ANATO but "Precious Jerusalem" might be their most epic chorus ever.
Oh the little bridge before the chorus is even more majestic, gives me goosebumps every time.
I used to "hate" ANATO for a long time but now it's easily my favourite from them and every time I listen to it it gets better. It's one of a handful of albums that to this day I can sit down and do nothing but listen to the music. No multitasking. (Though I guess trying to pick out each vocal track is a very multitasking activity).
I had forgotten about that one - it was actually my favorite cut too. The chorus is indeed a banger - extremely creative. I think Mirror Mirror was the more popular track because it had an anthem quality to it. Easier to sing with your friends at a bar or a concert, while Precious Jerusalem is pretty much progressive metal.
Thanks for the recommendation, I knew they had done that but had never listened to it. Love me some Scorpions and of course Berlin Philarmoniker is cream of the crop.
Blind Guardian is well known in Europe, but very little overseas. I went to a concert once and the mood was really good. The crowd sang for themselves for half an hour. The band was going for 3 hours altogether. Everyone was friendly (nothing else I expected with power metal).
And all of South America. They could do a concert in almost any big city in Brazil and fill up the place. And also not sing, as people would sing every single song for them.
I don’t know much about it, other than knowing some of my favorite bands have huge followings there. Can anybody educate me how the Japanese metal scene functions? Are there certain genres that have a hold or is it totally diverse?
Eh, if you're gonna link a Reddit thread on it, you may as well just invite /u/tokyometal to this forum and have 'em answer directly - they're effectively the only authority of the underground metal scene over there.
My initial comment was moreso based on the number of limited releases that Japan's gotten from metal albums over the years, coupled with touring there being more complicated - so when bands _do_ get to tour over there, it's usually a crazy good show. Drives demand, etc.
In fairness, early BG very much aligns more with speed metal, which is a fairly close sibling to thrash. It was that vector that got me into them more than my latter appreciation for power metal in all its bombastic soaring-vocal glory.
European/german power metal bands tend to be more speed metal based. American power metal retained closeness to heavy metal more. I would recommend him to try out bands like Helstar and Jag Panzer next.
If you like thrash and great vocals, check out Forbidden if you haven't. Late 80s early 90s technical thrash whose singer has some wild range. Twisted Into Form is their best album IMO. Their reunion album Omega Wave is also excellent.
Had a very similar feel when I discovered Domine as a teenager… the temes are also very varied. You can see what the band was reading (in terms of fantasy novels) through the years :)
One thing that's changed my metal taste is going to metal festivals that mish mash everything together and making an effort to just go see bands who I have no idea about even if I listen to their music and am unsure about liking it.
One of my favorite things about metal is how diverse it is and sometimes it just gets silly even if it appears absolutely serious - I think seeing the bands when they are having the most fun let's them try things you won't see in their music or videos or even on a regular tour.
In case anyone is into video games and power metal and lives somewhere near Madison WI there is a festival called Mad With Power my wife found last year that falls into the bucket of how is this even a thing but it's a joy to experience.
There are also a few metal cruises I've been on that are absolutely not what you'd expect and are mostly people hugging everyone and have things like cupcake decorating classes.
If you ever get a chance, I'd recommend seeing either of the Trans-Siberian Orchestra touring bands. Their show is a pretty spectacular mishmash of everything... and Christmas.
Saw them a few years ago at the Hammersmith Apollo in London. Cramped venue for a Metal concert, still one of the best I have ever been. Of course here in Europe they mostly played Savatage songs.
> There are also a few metal cruises I've been on that are absolutely not what you'd expect and are mostly people hugging everyone and have things like cupcake decorating classes.
What cruises are you talking about? I've been on seven iterations of the US-based 70kTons cruise, which AFAIK is the oldest and biggest metal cruise. And while people there are generally very friendly and awesome, I've never seen cupcake decorating classes. Instead, people were discussing drum techniques, beer and whisky, metal music and concerts...pretty much exactly what you'd expect on such an event. The most exquisite topics were probably politics and costumes (there's sort of an unofficial costume contest on the last day of that cruise).
If you like the harder blind guardian songs more (like mirror mirror) have a look at the band Persuader. The singer somewhat randomly sounds like Hansi kürsch and all their songs are more towards speed/heavy metal but with clear power metal influence.
I found power metal because I was looking for a more positive sub-genre of metal. What I was listening to before often had ahrimanic themes - death, violence, satanism etc.
I grew up on power metal and nowadays I mainly listen to two genres: black metal and classical music. One of the things they have in common is that I can't understand a word in either. I really appreciate that because I find lyrics in songs distracting and most of the time cringy.
I can't listen to music with vocals at work, but I still listen to power metal 20 years later in quite a few contexts - gym, car, walk, simply active listening. I can't argue with the quality of the lyrics being cringey though.
I've always thought it's a combination of the genre being niche and being founded on a set of lyrical themes that are restrictive - and maybe particularly challenging -, and also, the fact that a lot of these bands aren't from English-speaking countries. The bands from anglo countries like Kamelot tend to write acceptable lyrics within the power metal context (Manowar lyrics are hilarious at times and arguably well-written, but they are not power metal IMO). There are some noteable exceptions to non-anglo bands with polished lyrics, like perhaps Nightwish or Blind Guardian, but a common occurrence otherwise is to find shitty English, which at least for me is an instant turnoff.
I can imagine some lyrics can be hard to listen to for an english speaking native. Manowar made a german version of "Heart of steal" it's called "Herz aus Stahl" it's so bad when I heard it for the first time I thought "Oh man I hope we don't sound that bad to all the people who speak english when we're singing english."
I don't know if it's that bad... In my experience the English lyrics from these euro power metal bands are ~98% good, but then there's the odd line that has you reach for a thesaurus to see if that's real English or they've pulled it out of their butts, and most of the time it's the latter. It's pretty off-putting, it would be perfectly OK if that was it, but it often brings your attention to the fact that the lyrics are very weak in general.
FWIW, Kreator, Scorpions, Destruction, Sodom, and basically every other German metal band probably have better English than most native speaker groups for the past 40+ years. Americans in particular seem to do quite poorly at speaking other languages partly because to be American, particularly in cities, one needs to know several dialects given the many different creoles and vernacular groups due to the country being so massive and diverse.
Interestingly enough, I believe while Kamelot was founded in the US, most of the members are from Europe currently.
One thing I learned ~15 years ago was that Nightwish commissioned lyrics from lyricists (one such commissioned person told me himself I believe a year or two after Dark Passion Play was released - they never used what he wrote for them though) - maybe that helps give the polished impression for some.
There's a lot of overlap between metal and classical music (by which I mean orchestral, symphonic, and chamber, not the specific age). Something about the composition and structure of the music activates similar parts of my brain, and both are excellent to work to.
(Of course, there's only so far you can push this—some metal bands are much closer to pop or jazz, and some classical music is quite distinctively its own thing.)
> There's a lot of overlap between metal and classical music (by which I mean orchestral, symphonic, and chamber, not the specific age).
Yep, there's a whole bunch of bands in the symphonic deathcore genre. Shadow of Intent, The Archaic Epidemic, Lorna Shore and Immortal Disfigurement are a few that come to mind.
Almost the same for me, It's either blackmetal, classic or some ambient which works best for me when I want to concentrate on something. But sometimes I still need to listen to some good old cheesy Powermetal, sing along and feel like I should start immediately to conquer the world to defeat all the evil that is out there. ;)
Have you heard neo-classical metal? It's shredding at its finest. Yngwie Malmsteen is the OG, but there are many others I recommend like Hizaki and Syu. Guitarists in this subgenre often release solo albums (no vocals) so you won't find yourself distracted by lyrics.
I enjoy death metal because it is aggressive and brutal. It also spans everything from just good ol' vengeance music to literally galactic conquest.
Whatever the case, this kind of music helps me CRUSH the problem at hand. When nothing seems to be working, headbang for a little bit or make a solo mosh pit in my office, and then get back to DESTROYING the problem.
I found power metal when I was a kid because one of the things I like the most about rock and metal are operatic but growly vocals. I consider some of the singers in this list, like Jorn Lande (Masterplan, Ark), Oliver Hartmann (At Vance) and Michael Kiske (Helloween) some of the best singers in the history of rock, period.
Power metal is either brazen ego worship and/or or similarly (to death metal) talking of topics like mass murders and rapes. Though unlike the more neutral/clinical approach of death metal, power metal lyrics usually come from an angle of glorifying these things.
edit: I am merely relaying the common lyrical subjects of the genre. I made no judgment whether its a good or bad thing.
Ride against the wind, shameless killer in the night
Rape another village, before the break of light
Trample down the ashes, grind them with your hate
Take another helpless life, before it's too late
"Harder than Steel" (Jag Panzer)
You put their heads on the grinding wheel
Give 'em hell 'cause you're harder than steel
Oh, you're harder than steel, yeah, ya feel
All for yourself and no one else
-------------------------------
Now of course you can say its just two examples, but it seems to be a decent representative of common themes in power metal lyrics. Obviously the best way to find out would be performing a similar data analysis as the article.
edit: These are both famous power metal bands, in case there was a feeling they were from any other genre:
The second might be figures of speech, but not the first definitely isn't. Again I had cited the second as an example of ego worship not of murder/rape. Its not like I am saying its bad/good that power metal bands lyrics are of this nature but that's how it is.
Impressive work. I believe Encyclopaedia Metallum[0] would be a better source for the corpus, though the noise rate would be higher as there are many one-song/single/demo album bands, along with bands making music in multiple genres in different eras in their lifetime.
The ability to find lyrics on lyric sites would be a reasonable proxy for sufficient popularity, I’d imagine.
On a semi-related note, when talking about large genre-specific corpuses, https://vgmdb.net has a fascinating scope definition across all things game and animation adjacent, including both the massive doujin (fan-made) music scene and the full discographies of many j-pop artists and composers, all annotated by franchise adjacency with (often) full staff credits: https://vgmdb.net/forums/showthread.php?t=22321
It’s a fascinating corpus and one I’d love to analyze deeply one day.
Encyclopaedia Metallum is an amazing resource, it's also quite scrapable.
I managed to quickly throw thogether a set of small bash scripts to crossreference the midgard [0] leaks with metal artists.
[0] The midgard (Nazi online shop) sales record was leaked, including personal information, so I won't link it here
I shared my findings of which artists I found on reddit, but because I indirectly linked to the leak my account got deleted.
TLDR:
A handful of people from shitty tiny bands, two prominent NSBM bands: Der Stürmer Vocalist and one Absurd guy
The most interesting find was a person, who is currently in the "anti-fascist" trash band Protector.
The matches where, same name, same birthday and same city.
He ordered the following: in three separate orders directly from the ns shop: things from Pluton svea, Brutal Combat, Skrewdriver , Bunker 84, No Remorse, Ultima Thule
And also, for anybody wondering, this isn't a shop that also happens to sell Nazi stuff. The shop helps fund the Swedish Nazi party, and the first you seen when visiting the site are black suns and swastikas.
I suppose another thing I can share is a plot of the order locations of all orders in the leak:
I think it's mutually inclusive since the interests are shared by some - I've found a bunch of business intelligence nerds at metal festivals running stats on everything they can get data for.
For example the metal cruise festival I go on has a group that made their own bands on board tracking app and they release stats on who wants to see what bands and if people marked later that they enjoyed it, etc.
I've commented on a lot of tangential topics in this thread, but regarding the article, I find the clustering really impressive. I know a lot of these bands and going by feel I broadly agree with a lot of the groupings. Perhaps it's not exhaustive or perfect, for example I would intuit Blind Guardian to be much closer to Demons & Wizards, because both of those bands share lyricists and themes, but the analysis otherwise nails many of the tuples. For example, Helloween - Gamma Ray - Masterplan or Edguy - Avantasia, where both groupings' bands shared lyricists. I also agree with other not-so-obvious groupings like Kamelot - Angra - Stratovarius or Falconer - Dream Evil - Hammerfall - Nocturnal Rites.
> For people who might not know, Rhapsody of Fire broke into in two bands, one keeping the original name and the other becoming Rhapsody.
Ehm, this is not what happened.
In 2006 Rhapsody became Rhapsody of Fire to avoid some trademark dispute.
Then they split around 2009, though the main chunk is still called Rhapsody of Fire whereas the spinoff is called Luca Turilli's Rhapsody.
The trademark dispute was with the Rhapsody streaming service - I don't think it was ever announced, but I suspect the streaming service paid them money to change their name since the band definitely came first.
I tried googling a bit but I couldn't find quickly enough an article that mentions Rhapsody, the streaming service, as the other party in the trademark dispute.
However, I do remember the whole thing when it happened because I had just discovered the band.
People not familiar with metal music may find it interesting to learn that actor Sir Christopher Lee - or, Lord of the Rings's "Saruman" - was an active part of the power metal scene in the later stages of his life.
I listen to Power Metal only because it is the closest genre to classical Heavy Metal (Iron Maiden, Ozzy Osbourne,Motörhead, Judas Priest) and almost no band sings classical Heavy Metal anymore.
Trad revival is a big thing these days. But I think there is something subtle about even older power metal that sometimes makes it a bit different from something you'd class as "plain" speed metal. Its a bit hard to put in words precisely. But that is why I love the genre so much. I am not so much into pure speed metal or thrash metal.
For those who like metal and are open to more experimental and avant garde, progressive styles I highly recommend the 2023 albums by Thantifaxath and Blut Aus Nord. But the best metal album of 2023 (surely! IMHO) is Terrasite by Cattle Decapitation. These bands are producing complex, esoteric, heavy music, no dragons.
The Power Metal genre is less popular here in the US for sure. For example as great as the playing is for bands like Rhapsody my friends and I always found them too silly to get into.
Some other bands make the cut of course. But why this resistence to the genre in general?
My working theory is one of culture: Songs about dragons and shit probably resonate a lot better if you grew up in a places filled with castles and shit. That is simply not the US and very much is Europe.
Good question - especially since everything else in that realm is quite popular in the US. D&D, lord of the rings etc. Maybe it’s considered more cheesy here? I remember thinking it was kind of cheesy growing up in Europe and listening to various types of metal
A friend from the US I got to know on a US-based metal cruise (I'm German myself) told me that US metal concerts and European concerts are quite different: there's a lot of clapping, hopping and similar engagement routines in European concerts, while US concerts, at least according to him, apparently are more static, with maybe some fist pumping, but otherwise mostly people with crossed arms looking serious.
If that's true, there might indeed be a cultural difference in the breadth of metal fans from the US and Europe, which might as well lead to the more "happy" metal styles like power metal be more favored in Europe.
That seems fair. Unless the band has really worked the crowd up, which then you might get mosh pits and crowd surfing. I saw Haken last night, and it was as you said, bunch of people standing around (granted the venue was an old movie theater, so it's not like you could move around much with the seats in the way). Meshuggah a couple years back was pretty similar.
Bands like GWAR never disappoint, though. Some bands back in the day which were like that as well: Pantera, System of a Down, Metallica (pre-black album). In Flames recently had a decent mosh pit going on when I saw them.
my theory is that because most of the bands are writing lyrics in english and it's not their native language, they don't quite grasp just HOW ridiculous their lyrics tend to be.
please don't take this as a negative, because to me it's a positive. they sing those ridiculous lyrics with full passion without a hint of irony-- and that's why i love them. american power metal is a bit too wink-wink-nudge-nudge-amirite-guys?
Its nothing to do with the USA. Older metal genres are in general quite niche today.
Death metal and black metal is ubiquitous everywhere. Power metal and speed metal are relatively obscure these days.
Tennessee, Texas, Minnesota, and California have castles. They pop up all over the U.S. if you look hard enough. Some of them are fassades, and some of them are 100% legit imported organic homegrown European.
It was largely unknown in town. Contrast with trips I have taken to Europe (yes even work trips) where randomly I would come across a castle. For example in Swansea near the train station there was a castle a couple blocks from a TGI Friday's. It is different over there!
Many of the bands. Sticking to power metal and just from the top of my head: Rhapsody of Fire and related bands, Avantasia, Blind Guardian, Sabaton, Kamelot, Iced Earth, Gloryhammer, Ayreon and related bands (not quite power metal but the overlap in audience is large I believe)...
I would even guess that in this genre, more albums are concept than not.
My favourite band: Dream Theater. Their (arguably) best album is a concept album, they have a few. Also Insomnium’s latest “Anno 1696” is a concept album.
I'd like to use this thread to spread the word of our lord and savior Powerwolf. I discovered them just over two years ago and they immediately became my favorite band: their mix of themes, aesthetic and impressive vocals are amazing. Plus they're a ton of fun live and sound just as good :)
I dunno, I got one of their albums on Google Play Music (before Google killed it) and it just didn't grab me the way Hammerfall or Grand Magus did. The album I picked up is 'Blessed And Possessed', so I dunno, maybe I just picked up their 'Demolition', to make a Judas Priest parallel.
Which of their albums would you recommend to start with?
The Sacrament of Sin is their best; almost every song on that one is great. It's one of the rare examples of a band that was boring and bland at first and then greatly improved. Call of the Wild is a close second. On their other albums I like 1-2 tracks each.
I really enjoy Blessed and Possessed, so I don't think your analogy holds, unfortunately. If you want to give them another try, Sacrament of Sin is worth a listen.
It would probably make the analysis a bit difficult, but it would be interesting to see it incorporate more international bands.
Some bands are still going strong, although my favorite band Mago de Oz feels like it definitely peaked between 2000 and 2010 with the release of the Gaia albums. I'm not sure that I'd call all their albums power metal, but some of their newer stuff is definitely more power metal-y.
If anyone is looking for a great Spanish metal album, I'd recommend checking out Gaia II: La voz dormida. It tells a really ambitious story with amazing music to back it. And it ends with an epic 21 minute song that I don't even know how to describe.
"2000 and 2010 with the release of the Gaia albums"
That is when I was listening to them and did not follow on them later on. Did they produce anything interesting after that? Even just a single good song?
I don't think Mägo de Oz was power metal, but their early 2000s material definitely had some influences, since power metal was such an important current in European metal at the time.
Mägo de Oz has been active since 1989 and just released another album this year. Lèpoka is a more folky band that nevertheless sound very much MdO inspired. Still alive and kicking :)
I can't tell from your comment whether you're saying that there were no power metal bands in the Basque Country, or more broadly in Spain... If it's the latter: there was absolutely a power metal scene in Spain. Avalanch, Warcry, Dark Moor (in the article) were power metal all the way and extremely prominent in the broader metal scene - they were some of the biggest metal bands of the early 2000s. Saratoga and Tierra Santa were not strictly power metal, but very closely adjacent (especially the latter, both lyrically and musically). There were plenty of smaller bands trying to make it in the space, too.
Big Nanowar fan here, but I would not day they parody metal...I mean, they obviously do but at the same time they actually like metal. So, it's not your typical parody, it's more kind of an inside joke.
I know that unique word count is not a perfect way to measure "sophistication" of the lyrics, but I still find it funny that the "best" metal band has less than a half of Aesop Rock's vocabulary given how some metal fans look down on hip-hop. (That's not an attack on them, I'm a huge fan of both).
I hate to say it but this made me laugh. I know it's not what the author is saying, but it certainly aligns with my experience of the gender ratio at metal shows...
I listen to a lot of genres that end up with shows full of bearded dudes with crossed arms, nodding (myself included, to be fair). But metal shows tend to be #1.
I have to say, despite my closest approach to power metal being doom/stoner rock, I am very much enjoying everyone geeking out on their preferred niche genre. No matter where you look, there's history to learn and jargon to master.
Oomph! is generally the first thing people recommend. It's been a very long time since I listed to this type of music and I don't know what they've been up to recently ("recently" meaning "last 20 years"), but the Sperm and Defekt albums from the 90s are pretty good.
I also really liked Pitchshifter at the time, especially the first few albums (later they switched styles a bit, starting with the pitchshifter.com, which is also pretty good). It's a bit different from Rammstein from what I recall, but can't hurt to try.
OFC Gamma Ray is the least Power Metal band. Gamma Ray it's like blending Helloween and Pet Shop Boys. Still, a lot of albums from GR surpass Helloween. Yes, even the Keeper one.
Not my favorite band by a stretch, but Gamma Ray is 100% power metal, and nothing in it reminds me remotely of Pet Shop Boys... If anything, it's the unshakeable Helloween influence that brings the melodic happy metal vibes.
I don't know if there are any bands that stay in a single narrow style forever. And I don't know if Gamma Ray could fit just one style too - there is Power, Glam, Speed Metal in their songs.
Just a personal bit -- Gamma Ray's "Real World" "got me", or "clicked" at some (rather dark) point of my life, and made me look on life's complicated absurdities from a bit different - lighter - angle. If anything, I am grateful for that.
"some lyric based clustering is as good as anything to separate genres"
I think melody and rhythm are kind of important, too (otherwise a minstrels verbal recitation could count as power metal). But it definitely is a good metric.
I wonder whether bands are more consistent in style of play over their lifetime, as compared to lyrics or other 'metrics'. It's probably easy to find all types of variance/consistency.
My hunch would be that the more specific and entrenched a genre is, the closer these bands stick to their styles (and lyrics).
"My hunch would be that the more specific and entrenched a genre is, the closer these bands stick to their styles (and lyrics)."
They usually also have the problem, that their fans often don't like them to change. They want more of what they know, but better. Not different (especially in entrenched genres).
Turisas for example, a band making songs mainly about vikings. I watched them live a few years ago - was quite good, but the band made remarks that they do not take the whole viking thing that serious (nostalgic buisness they called it) and would rather play something else. And they did one song in the end, in a quite different style (sounded like futuristic metal) but the audience was not thrilled - they were there for viking and glorious battle metal. So this is what Turisas are still playing, this is what brings them money, but they have not made a new album in over 10 years, but how can you make a good album, with a theme you don't find that exiting anymore?
If you want that, ideally you should spin up a new band name for a project thats too different in style from a band whose style you have already established.
Its not that people resist change, thats how thrash metal bands changed into death metal slowly and the invention of death metal is highly celebrated. But it was a slow and organic change. Typically bands that have some sense about this tend to spin up a different name if they want to play something totally different from their existing band.
In general, for sure. Only some big bands have managed to change their style and have their fans follow them. For most a different band would make the most sense. And I am only guessing about Turisas, but they probably should have done so, but it was probably more comfortable to make money with the established hits and name. Starting something new is not easy, after all.
If the musicians are already famous from one or other particular band, then they should easily pull up a strong fan following for their other projects too. Just look at how many people look up the large number of random projects of Speckmann even if say they had found out the band "Master" first.
