SLOW SPEED DATING: Awesome power metal of '80s

(Slightly edited project premise copied from the '70s post.)

Shortly after I decided to start my explorations of power metal and had started blogging about power metal, after months of wishing there were a conveniently explained "starter pack" of bands or records to check out, I came across a list at metalstorm.com created by writer "ScreamingSteelUS," that I've been low-key obsessed with ever since.  A collection of power metal records that uses a very big-tent definition of the subgenre for maximum diversity?  Sounds like what I wanted.  Kept to a convenient number - ten per decade - in perfect chronological order?  I feel seen.  With explanations as to what exactly each record represents and what aspects of PM it can highlight?  Yes, please.  

Sure, one can critique.  With the biggest critique being that it's just one guy's list and is prone to the quirks inherent to that.  Of note, ScreamingSteelUS goes out of his way to frame it as "potential starting points" or "some records I think are cool that I have something to say about."  So let's be clear that the list is very explicitly not presented as a best-of, a list of essentials, or a comprehensive survey of the subgenre.  Especially since each entry has an "also recommended" section that goes along with it.  (Didn't stop him from falling over himself apologizing in the comments for the lack of Stratovarius on the main list.  Of all the major transgressions, the absence of Stratovarius seems to be the one that everyone can agree on.)  Of the bands I am already familiar with, I'd call some of the choices too obvious and others painfully arbitrary, to the point that by the end it seems like he's picking records and even bands at random.  But nobody's demanding perfection.  What I really wanted, as a relative novice who was much more of a novice last year, was a list of a somewhat manageable size.  A list that, were I to listen to all of the records, would in total give me a good sense of what power metal is, has been, and can be.  I do think the list accomplishes that.  And I've always kinda wanted to just sit down and listen to and write about each one...

...But who's got time for that?  It can take me a good month to properly absorb and write about one record, let alone forty-one.  So I decided that the next best thing was to listen to a smattering of this allegedly great power metal from across the decades and react to it.  I used the highly sophisticated method of going to the artist's "top tracks" on my particular streaming service and picking the three most streamed from each album, making a playlist, and listening to it for awhile.  (If one of the top two songs is more than ten minutes long, that record only gets two songs.  If #3 is more than ten minutes long, it gets skipped and I use #4.)

So, that's the system.  The record whose representative songs intrigues me the most gets a full track by track writeup, and I may dive into the "also recommended" section to discover more music too.

Dio - Holy Diver (1983)

Represented by:  "Holy Diver," "Caught In The Middle," "Rainbow In The Dark"

ScreamingSteelUS highlights:  Dio's contribution to the overall aesthetic of power metal in all aspects - vocals; composition/storytelling, and stage presence

My thoughts:

Right away we're cheating, as ScreamingSteelUS flat out says that in his opinion Holy Diver isn't actually a PM record so much as PM-adjacent.  But it informed everything that PM became, to his way of thinking.  Dio, early Manowar, and Maiden's Powerslave are the three things I see cited most commonly as how close '80s music can get to PM without actually quite becoming PM.  Personally, somehow whatever individual traits Dio has, these songs just don't quite read as power metal to me.  Even less so than the Rainbow songs I listened to for the '70s post, honestly.  Maybe it's the heavy use of the Maideny gallop, or the obvious blues-rock chords, complete with high-hat, of the riff from "Caught In The Middle."  Or, as I've suggested on Reddit, maybe it's the straight line from '70s metal to this, and from this to the rest of the mainline metal world afterward, such that Holy Diver is just metal by definition rather than a subgenre.  I'm tempted to try to use Mr. Ronnie J. to build some long-winded treatise about how he was there when stuff that's recognizable today as metal was born with Rainbow, joined Black Sabbath to unify the developing streams of the genre, and then formed his eponymous band to forever exemplify what exactly metal is... but maybe I should save the reductive summary statements to those who know more.

All that out of the way, are the songs from Holy Diver here great?  Well, they're certainly iconic, at least.  Most of us have absorbed half of the record (including at least two songs that weren't included on my playlist) just through osmosis.  I wonder if familiarity makes me take how special a vocalist RJD was - and he was absolutely once in a generation sort of special - for granted.  Because I gotta say, modern ears or not, don't these songs sound a little plodding?  Or even tame?  And aren't they a little repetitious?  And what are they even about?*

Hard not to bang one's head, though.  And "Rainbow In The Dark," at least, 100% holds up.  Always my favorite from Holy Diver, and undiminished through repetition and imitation.  I wish they'd always been so willing to lean into a keyboard part.

Manilla Road - Crystal Logic (1983)

Represented by:  "Necropolis," "Crystal Logic," "The Ram"

ScreamingSteelUS highlights:  Sophistication of songwriting; ability to outstrip technological limitations to make something epic 

My thoughts:

You'd think one would get use to "Shark" Shelton's vocals after awhile.  On my custom playlist, it's never not jarring to suddenly be hearing that weird whiny gargle as my storyteller.  I was trying to think of a clever funny way to describe his vocal stylings, but I won't be able to top the article author's description of the "nasally half-spoken delivery [that] resemble[s] a goose reciting poerty."

That storytelling, though... you definitely go on a journey with these MR songs, in part due to the contrast between how hard and fast for its era the music goes whilst the vocals stand back.  "Necropolis" is the most compelling cut here but I can't deny the odd catchiness of any of these tunes.  I know "epic metal" eventually became a thing, but just in my dancing around the edges of power, I've never heard anything else quite like Manilla Road.  Even writing a post dissecting the Legend record didn't give me an analogue; MR just goes so bass-heavy and relentless with forays into absolutely blistering guitar solos, while not being especially loud for metal.  I will say that I'm not totally sure why Crystal Logic is the MR record for so many - I think that the two others amongst the so-called "Manilla Four" to which I've gotten so far, Open The Gates and The Deluge, are both pretty clearly superior.  I'm just glad this unique band found its following, cult thought it may have been.

Manowar - Hail To England (1984)

Represented by:  "Blood Of My Enemies," "Each Dawn I Die," "Army Of The Immortals"

ScreamingSteelUS highlights:  The band's whole shtick of turning not only the music but the associated imagery up to eleven; anathemic songs with mighty choruses.

My thoughts:

ScreamingSteelUS says that US power metal started with Manowar.  Other chroniclers of USPM ignore them entirely, or try to shunt them off into "epic metal" territory.  I may never have the words to discuss why a band is or is not a member of one subgenre over another, but for whatever it's worth, the songs from Hail To England sound like PM to me in a way that Dio and Manilla Road don't.

Genre hair-splitting aside, do I agree with the list author's comment that "you could do much worse as an introduction to the biggest, baddest, and most bombastic form of metal there is?"  I go back and forth.  I have a natural aversion to Manowar's overall vibe in that I get bored very quickly with the form of alleged masculinity that involves constant posturing and an aversion to any depth.  I'm just not interested in your boring story about you're the most invincible warrior and biggest badass who's ever lived.  I have to be in just the right mood to enjoy something like "Blood Of My Enemies," especially Eric's shrieking.  But when I am in that mood, I can appreciate the skill with which they put together their chords to sound appropriately grandiose; there is no denying that that chorus is catchy.  And this collection of songs gives me one in which Manowar are in exactly the lane that I think is right for them - "Army Of The Immortals," in which they cast themseves as sort of metal spirits summoned to be allies to the true believers who fight the war against, I dunno, artifice, or REO Speedwagon fans, or whatever.  This is what I want from this band.  I want them to be shrieking "in our eyes you're immortal!" in an anthemic manner.  Most metal songs about the power of metal make me cringe, whereas Manowar's particular skills actually let them nail it.  I think there should have been a division of labor - these guys should have let the Manilla Roads of the world be the ones to write about quests and journeys, in exchange for any and all song ideas about the power of metal and/or armies of metalheads getting handed directly to Manowar.  Play to your strengths.  

Yngwie Malmsteen - Rising Force (1984)

Represented by:  "Black Star," "Far Beyond The Sun," "Icarus' Dream Suite Op. 4"

ScreamingSteelUS highlights:  The birth of musically literate "neoclassical" metal and thus influence on every symphonic PM band ever; Yngvie's sense of spectacle; introducing the metal world to Jens Johansson

My thoughts:

I'm sure it comes as no surprise to anyone who's read my past comments on the matter that instrumental metal is a hard sell for me.  As someone who was once a kid who loved classical music and now is pathologically unable to pay attention to anything without English vocals, I... have no special insights.  I guess what I'll say is that I recognize that classical music has solo pieces, chamber groups, concertos, and so on... but so much of the power of the symphony comes from the ensemble, from hearing all of the sounds together.  Even in a concerto, I was always more engaged by the imterplay between the featured performer and the ensemble.  Transposing that style of songwriting to just be all electric guitar with everyone else in a strictly supporting role is kinda destined not to work for me.  Just personally, a piece** like "Far Beyond The Sun" doesn't make me feel anything.  I don't know what it's about other than "that guitarist is skilled, I guess, but he seems to be showing off."  "Icarus' Dream Suite" has more from an actual classical piece - those parts at least skirt the edges of being haunting - and has a killer main riff, and lets the other musicians in a bit... but it's also eight and a half minutes long.  Anyway, these tracks predictably left little impression and I will remember nothing about them after they stop playing in the background as I write this up.  Just not for me.

Jag Panzer - Ample Destruction (1984)

Represented by:  "Licensed To Kill," "Symphony Of Terror," "Harder Than Steel"

ScreamingSteelUS highlights:  The reckless speed that defines what makes the thrash-adjacent wing of USPM what it is; the extra level of majesty that makes USPM something different from thrash; Joey Tafolla's expressive leads

My thoughts:

These quick surveys can be reductive because when churning through a bunch of music, the temptation is to say "these were the defining traits of what band X offered."  If I wanted to epitomize the narrative of Jag Panzer, I'd use "Symphony Of Terror."  Nice minor chords seemingly built around Harry's harmonics, all setting up for him to do the "Nos-fera-at-u" thing on the chorus... yep, that's power metal.  Good stuff.  Thing is, though, even with a band like this that isn't the most versatile act ever, they're not doing just one thing.  They're not conforming strictly to the boundaries of made up subgenres that had yet to be codified.  Ample Destruction also includes a very basic third-rate thrash song in "Licensed To Kill" and a solid attempt at an anthem from the Maidwn/Priest wing of metal with "Harder Than Steel."  If it weren't for "Symphony Of Terror," I would wonder based on the other two tracks why this record looms so large in the PM story.  And probably honestly why anyone is so interested in the record.

Warlord - And The Cannons Of Destruction Have Begun... (1984)

Represented by:  "Lost And Lonely Days," "Black Mass," "Child Of The Damned"

ScreamingSteelUS highlights:  Mark Zonder's "cannons of destruction" (the drums); the low-fi recording and performances coming together to give a helping of estoteric mystery as a side to the raw power

My thoughts:

The framing of USPM that most non-Metalstorm writers seem to use is Marco's division between the aggressive and the melodic, basically each epitomized on this list by one 1984 album that was underappreciated upon initial release and went on to be hugely influential.  For a long time I've had this idea that something about the melodically sophisticated lane of USPM really appealed to me.  I have mostly neglected to actually explore to see if that's true.  But is it possible that it's not USPM that intrigues me, so much as really just Warlord?  I haven't felt the same magic in my (to be clear, very limited!) tastes of Crimson Glory, or '80s Savatage.  Warlord, though... those hooks are there, but notice the captivating creepiness that underlies them all.  Props to using the keyboards in exactly the right proportion; is it possible that Diane is the secret hero of the band?  Or maybe not, because at any given moment, Mark is always doing something really interesting with the percussion.  So he's got to be the not-so-secret hero.  And oh yeah, William Tsamis and basically everyone involved are playing their asses off.  I even kinda like the fact that this particular "Damien King" is so raw-throated, less polished than his predecessor from the original Deliver Us tunes that they rerecorded here.

A song that ought to be a dopey pop song like "Lost And Lonely Days" becomes an epic cry of pain.  A creepy number like "Black Mass" becomes existential drama.  A rocker like "Child Of The Damned" gains depth that's so far beyond the ability of imitators like HammerFall to sell that it's not even funny.***  I've still only dabbled in Warlord, but man, these songs just keep giving.  I've rarely seen such a combination of catchiness, depth, and raw power.

Thor - Only The Strong (1985)

Represented by:  "Let The Blood Run Red," "When Gods Collide," "Thunder On The Tundra"

ScreamingSteelUS highlights:  Singularly overblown bombast adding up to a record that's "good fun"

My thoughts:

Other than debates about what does or doesn't belong on a power metal list, Only The Strong has to be the designated "controversial" entry on the '80s list, right?  Everything else I've seen called "important" by multiple people, whereas ScreamingSteelUS seems to be just promoting a particular offbeat cult favorite that he really enjoys with this pick.

Anyway, I feel like even without reading about the guy, there's no way to not immediately know that these songs come from a bodybuilder turned rocker, and were recorded in the mid-'80s.  They just exude steroids.  And possibly cocaine.  Why is there a constant buzzing macho-coded guitar tone over everything?  Oh right, 1985.  Since I grew up watching pro wrestling, I'll use a metaphor that kid-me might have appreciated.  Only The Strong strikes me as being, to metal, what Hulk Hogan and his band of WWF faux-superheroes were to the century-old performance art of wrestling: a cartoony turbo-charged variant wherein the image/style and the (very limited) substance were one and the same.

The sheer, well, excess, generates an instant appeal for me.  There's a charm in just how thoroughly this certain sound is embodied.  Granted, the appeal doesn't often last more than a minute or so, since there's not much depth.  But when they stumble onto a hook like the chorus of "Thunder On The Tundra," it's kinda glorious.  

In the category of what I'm going to uncharitably and unfairly call stupid songs pitched at an audience of morons, it's clear that Manowar (and Jag Panzer, in the latter's dumber moments) have a lot more skill than do Thor and friends.  Yet I think that on the rare occasions that I'm actually in the mood for bombastic '80s bullshit, I'd prefer to hear Thor go all the way with it.  The tracks here capture a very specific era and vibe.

Fates Warning - Awaken The Guardian (1986)

Represented by:  "The Sorceress," "Valley Of The Dolls," "Guardian"

ScreamingSteelUS highlights:  "An odd stroke of genius" that so balances power metal with early prog metal; John Arch's unique vocal approach

My thoughts:

Another record that always has a lot going on, but here the tempos are constantly shifting and it's impossible to predict what's going to happen next; about as proggy as '80s power metal gets without ever quite falling apart, in other words.  On the one hand, this does mean that despite having spent a fair amount of time with Guardian last year****, the title track is the only song I could still call to mind.  On the other hand, there's always something interesting happening.  Even in a song like "Valley Of The Dolls" that is a near-complete mess, every part of the seeing mess is compelling in some way.  And the hooks come just frequently enough to satisfy the vocal melody fan's ear.  If I celebrated the excesses of an act like Thor, well, this is an excess of ambition, and similarly likable for it.

Helloween - Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part I (1987)

Helloween - Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part II (1988)

(No, he couldn't resist including them both, breaking his own "rules" of one entry per artist and ten entries per decade.) 

I Represented by:  "Future World," "Halloween"

II Represented by:  "Eagle Fly Free," "Dr. Stein," "I Want Out"

ScreamingSteelUS highlights:   Distillation of everything PM in two records; full-band synergy; emphasis on melody first and foremost despite the speed; sonic diversity between tracks

My thoughts:

I don't know if I have anything to say about the Keeper duology that hasn't been said by hundreds of thousands of other people, but I'll try.  Okay, hearing these songs on the playlist after the Fates Warning songs does help reinforce for me what a great song "Halloween" is.  Either because of its cohesiveness or because of its relentless heaviness with minimal tempo changes, I've never really coded this band or this particular song as "prog."  As long as the track is and as many parts as there are, they're all hard driving, and they all feed off what happened in the one or two parts preceding them.

Obviously I know the full records from which these selections come.  I've always been of the opinion that Keeper I is significantly better overall than is Keeper II.  ScreamingSteelUS points out something that I hadn't appreciated, which is that Kai Hansen is the credited songwriter for like 90% of the first volume whereas the second is mostly Michael Weikath.  I've written before about how I find Kai way more appealing as a guitarist than as a singer.  Haven't really thought about where he ranks as a composer.  Well, if he was already mentally halfway out the door when he wrote that song whose narrator has nothing more to give and wants out, it perhaps explains why I personally perceive a decline that starts with Keeper II that took the band some time to recover from?

I really do love Keeper I.  I don't know how "Future World" and "Halloween" manage to only occasionally make me embarassed,***** even in contrast to stuff I actually find embarrassing like "Dr. Stein" (or, not on this playlist, "Keeper Of The Seven Keys," the song).  They're silly in a way that's more fun than cheesy.

Running Wild - Death Or Glory (1989)

Represented by:  "Riding The Storm," "Bad To The Bone," "Death Or Glory"

ScreamingSteelUS highlights:  Sophistication of vocal melodies; sheer bombast of the hooks; early example of a "themed" PM act

My thoughts:

I mean, I've already written two whole posts about Death Or Glory.  Now having heard more of what lead up to it, it lives up to its billing as one of the absolute classics of the sub-genre.  Obviously a list of records is a list of records rather than a narrative... but my narrative is that the power metal of the '80s has been gradually working its way up to gving us a "Riding The Storm."  That song combines the rugged heft that Manilla Road and their successors gave power metal, the melodic sensibilities that Helloween and their successors gave power metal, and the intricacy of composition that Warlord and Fates Warning and their successors gave power metal.  Running Wild have thus taken the music of its decade to its apex.  One particular apex, anyway.  

 

I was very tempted to rank Death Or Glory above Keeper I, and based on just these three songs, am still tempted to do so.  I do think that in the end Helloween just give one a little more variety, even within a song.  But arbitrary ranking are gonna be arbitrary; sometime the accepted classics are all classics for a reason.  Call Keeper I and Glory my #1A and #1B choices, respectively.

Stray thoughts:

- Nobody really listens to metal for the lyrics, so I'm going to devote most of my snark about lyrics to these little afterwords here.

- I wonder if Dio's default response to things like a busy intersection, or stuff shifting in the closet while at home, was to yell "look out!"

- "There's good and there's evil; there's no in between.  We shall slay evil with loooogic!"  Dude, are you an absolutist whose view of the world is borderline spiritual, or are you a rationalist?  You're talking out of both sides of your mouth, Shark.

- I'm thrown by the conflation of male-on-male violence and sex in "Licensed To Kill."  Just a weird choice.  Or at least I'm assuming it was intentional.  You can't include that many double-entendres by accident.  

- Doesn't "Symphony Of Terror" seem to reach its lyrical ending too early?  You have a vampiric killer, you have a would-be victim stepping up to beat him at his own seduce-and-destroy game.  Okay, decent twist.  And at that point you're still only in the second verse, and formula says you need another verse and chorus trying to sound creepy.  You just said that Nosferatu got turned to dust!  Are we still talking about this?

- Fates Warning may well be discussing heady topics about what evil and outsider status mean, society's treatment of women and girls, and personal responsibility... but I can't even say for sure, because the lyrics are, to give it most charitable possible spin, at a level of poetics that's way over the head of this listener.

- In this world of fantasy songs of various seriousness and poetry of various density, "Bad To The Bone" sticks out, in a good way, for having some of the most direct, pointed lyrics you'll ever hear in this strain of power metal.  Why are the pirate band the only ones who're writing about real shit?  (That's rhetorical.  My answer would be that, as pointed out by many who actually listen to the records, RW in this era are really as much history themed as they are pirate themed.)

- When my rules only allow a certain number of songs, and there are so many choices, I logically at least understand why "Stand Up And Shout," "Don't Talk To Strangers," "Deliver Us From Evil," "A Tale That Wasn't Right," "Keeper Of The Seven Keys," and various others didn't make the list.  But ye streamers, having "Tortuga Bay" right there, and somehow not making it one of the three most streamed songs from Death Or Glory is... baffling.

Overall:

I already know the Keeper records and the Running Wild record forward and backward.  Just because they're my favorites don't mean that they have to be the ones I write more about.  What I'm actually most excited to do is sit down and absorb the hell out of the original incarnation of Warlord, instead of just kinda having them on in the background.  So that's what I'm going to do.  Meanwhile, a small Reddit poll asking for favorite of the list led, unsurprisingly, to a landslide win for Helloween, with just about 50/50 division between I and II, so I feel justified in packing Keeper II because I think it'll be more interesting to write about.  

My totally subjective and arbitrary ranking of how much I enjoyed sampling these records:

1)  Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part I

2)  Death Or Glory

3)  And The Cannons Of Destruction Have Begun...

4)  Awaken The Guardian

5)  Keeper Of The Seven Keys Part II

6)  Crystal Logic

7)  Holy Diver

8)  Only The Strong

9)  Hail To England

10)  Ample Destruction

11)  Rising Force

 

Coming up:  Deeper dives into Cannons, Keeper II, and at least one "also recommended" or associated record.

*I've seen multiple comments on the Internet expressing frustration about the notion that "Holy Diver," the song, is either obscure, or just nonsense that we let Dio get away with because he could sell it.  "Ride the tiger; you can see his stripes but you know he's clean."  No, Ronnie, I cannot, in fact, see what you mean.

**Pedants will tell you that an instrumental is not technically a "song."

***As previously established, my respect for HammerFall's taste in USPM is topped only by my distaste for their own songwriting.

****It was introduced to me as a key part of my metal education, and I in turn framed it as achieving something akin to what Adramelch's Irae Melanox was striving for. 

*****Okay, I kinda hate the "you open the door, and you scream" part.