The History of Power Metal

WE MADE IT TO 1987!!! \m/ 1987 was an incredible year in the history of power metal. According to Rate Your Music's power metal page , 1984 saw 1 release, and 1985 and 1986 both had 3 releases, taking up 0.02% of the music that came out in those years. In 1987, the number of power metal releases was  37 - over twelve times as many as 1985 and 1986, and taking up 0.22% of the music from that year!   It'll take me over a month to get through each release, and what's even more amazing is that 37 is a small number compared to the incredible rate power metal releases will be coming out at in later years! Our first release of 1987 comes from Detroit's first power metal band: Raven Payne! (I love that they spelt it "payne" - NWOBHM masters like Tygers of Pan Tang, Tytan and Witchfynde would be proud!) Looking into their history, it turns out that the band was originally formed in 1983 under the name Vampirella - presumably named after the legendary comic book charact...

 It's Omen time again! Today, I'll be looking at the band's third album and second to have power metal as a primary genre on RYM: 1986's dazzling The Curse ! Let's check out the album cover: The serpent from Warning of Danger   is back, and it means business! Keep everyone away from it or else you too will face... the curse!  It's a nice, gory, uber-metal album cover and I imagine it would really stand out if you saw it while browsing through records. Bands like Cannibal Corpse would go way more hardcore with ultra super mega metal gory album covers later on, but for 1986 standards it's pretty violent! It's also uncommon to see covers like this in power metal - usually it's more Dungeons & Dragons type art. Flipping the record over, we get to see the band, all looking metal with cool shirts, long hair, blue jeans and sneakers, and the close-up of the serpent's skin is a killer detail that looks great. On the inner sleeve, we get this kickass ...

It's an exciting time in the history of power metal - we've made it to 1986, and today I'll be reviewing Domine's 1986 self-titled demo tape, the first power metal release to come from Italy! First things first, let's check out the cover: Awesome, awesome, awesome!!! I love the black and white design, and though it might have been that way due to color printing being more expensive, it looks great on this tape. I don't have much background info on this band, but from what I know, "domine" is a Latin word meaning "lord" or "master", and the band formed in 1983 in the town Piombino, in the city of Livorno. This would have given them three years to prepare the material for this first demo, and I can tell a lot of work went into it because this band is TIGHT! The first song, the epically titled "Lords of War", gets right into the action with some powerful guitar chords from Enrico Paoli and Agostino Carpo, which is perfectly a...

IT'S OMEN TIME!!! Who is Omen, you may be asking? Well, they're an amazing band who were formed in 1983 in Los Angeles, California. Their founder, Kenny Powell, was already known for being a fantastic talent within the underground metal scene. He was in Rapid Fire, a traditional heavy metal band who released one single in 1980, "School Days / Show Me Love", featuring future Omen drummer Steve Wittig as well as bassist Roger Sisson, who would join Omen in 2017 and is still with them today. Powell was also in Savage Grace, with whom he contributed guitar parts to their wonderful debut EP The Dominatress , which was released in 1983 on the legendary label Metal Blade. For more info on that label, I highly recommend the book For the Sake of Heaviness: The History of Metal Blade Records, written by Brian Slagel (the creator of the label) with Mark Eglinton. Without Metal Blade and their classic compilation series Metal Massacre , on which Metallica made their vinyl debut, ...