With the express exclusion of Na, Mg, K, Ca, Cr, Fe, Cu, W, Hg, etc.

EP, full-length albums, & single song picks from a Guy Who's Not Really into PM... Yeah, I should have put up Viron's cover art as the image but that Dokken single (theme song of Nightmare on Elm Street movie #3) just looks far more interesting. Whether or not that was a PM addition to a Hollywood soundtrack may be a point of [ir]relevance, but to me it's immaterial. Go listen to the music!

Created by:

Syk | 01.12.2012

	1.	Eidolon - Nightmare World Canadian. Speedy, almost thrash-hybrid. May or may not call it heavy/prog... Probably nothing really groundbreaking, from an objective standpoint, and not one for those who're ALL ABOUT atmosphere... anyway, I really love what they did here. Choice picks: "Repulsion" (that guitar!), "Fortress of Red", "Dreamscape" (5½, 5, 13 mins with stellar intro, midriffs AND outro (if I may... liken its highlights to all the best bits of 2112 and Anathema's Judgement... oh, it's good.))
	2.	Tad Morose - Modus Vivendi Swedish. Choice tracks: "Take On the World" (not a Priest cover), "Mother Shipton's Words", "Life in a Lonely Grave", and certainly "Anubis" which got a video almost as cool as the song
	3.	Brainstorm - Soul Temptation German. Choice tracks: "Nunca Nos Rendimos", "To the Head", and "Highs without Lows" which got a slightly less impressive video
	4.	Blind Guardian - A Night At The Opera German genius strikes again. None More Glorious? :p Yeah, this is perhaps TOO PM for me. Some really good choruses here, nice hooks and intros. Most times I attempt it, the album is a bit too over-powering (*cough* over-produced? over-bearing) to take as a whole and come out smiling on the other side (or could the argument possibly be made, they relied on formulaic, similar structures for most of these songs? maybe that's it... with full/thick production on top)
	5.	Nightwish - Wishmaster Finnish. Title track is a classic, in my mind mainly for the "Fishmaster" parody vid made a number of years ago. "Crownless" is my ultimate pick, actually all of 4-9 works rather well; I found their following album 'Century Child' closer to just decent, a little cool but a little boring... more storyteller-type pop-oriented kind of style, not so much my favoured driving, spirited metal
	6.	Jag Panzer - Mechanized Warfare US power! Is this where I belong? "Take to the Sky" is excellent. "Frozen in Fear" pretty good, too, though they might both be trumped by "Battered and Bruised" from this album's follow-up
	7.	Viron - NWOGHM German. Not on this site yet, unfortunately. "Blow the Fuse" rocks ? hard ? and "For Her Majesty" on their earlier, self-titled EP wraps up VERY nicely. DragonForce-esque? Maybe
	8.	Manticora - Dead End Solution Danish? Hmm. A great early EP, 4/5 tracks having found their way (individually) onto reissues of their first albums, as bonus tracks. I grabbed the free d/l in 2009 (click the band name, & scroll down to the News section) ? very pleasing, largely fast, almost thrashy like Eidolon up at #1. The vocals aren't quite spot-on, but I suppose it fits. Me like!
	9.	Children Of Bodom - Downfall Finnish. Heh, I typed Children of Boom... this single was also promoted with a not-bad video. The B-side owns pretty hard, too (a cover of classic Finn thrashers Stone) and can be found as a bonus, following "Downfall" on some issues of 'Hatebreeder'
	10.	Sonata Arctica - Wolf & Raven Finnish, again. Don't know why this single isn't linking... Easily the best song I've heard from this band, it also had a video made for it. Subsequent vid "Don't Say a Word" had similarly awesome solo-work but the song's a bit hum-drum
	11.	Metallica - Power Metal Demo Come on. "Come on?/!" Well... What'd I say? Fine... sub in whatever Maiden or Priest might fit the bill... 'Powerslave', 'Somewhere in Time', 'The X Factor', 'Painkiller'; whatever it is would sit around the top of this list, if all here's presented in order of personal preference
	12.	David Shankle Group - Ashes To Ashes American 2. This title track from the band of a guy who used to shred for Manowar had a video I quite liked (wonder why?). The song's great; well-written, catchy without straying out of metal into pop (unlike some other poor bastards), and of course sprinkled with some sweet soloing in all the right places. Comparable to "Wolf & Raven" and perhaps some DragonForce but thankfully not quite as flowery
	13.	Dark Illusion - Beyond The Shadows Swedish. Like with #14 below, my knowledge of this group goes back to their blessed submission of "Night Knight" to MS for the 2005/6 downloadable sampler 'Follow the Storm (Vol. XV)'. Apparently the cover for this '05 release was designed by an old hand of Metal Storm, monowasp whose work also graces the 2013 albums of both StoneLake and Crashdïet
	14.	Wolfcry - Warfair Greek (here for just the one song I've heard ? the track "On the Edge". They seem to have lifted a tiny bit from "Goblin's Blade" on Heathen's 1987 opus. Still - a pretty good song). Along with "Piercing Evil" by Italians Rainspawn, I've never found out any more about this band I discovered on MS' 2006 downloadable compilation/sampler. '06... good times...