Cage

Cage is a power/speed metal band from San Diego, California. They play a Painkiller-derived style of metal, lots of heaviness and wicked solos throughout the whole album. If you can imagine a Primal Fear that wasn't mediocre, this would probably be that band. Their lyrical themes range from killing the devil (in metal?!?! This cannot be!) to scientific mishaps (The Philadelphia Experiment). Check 'em out.

Darker Than Black (2003)

Persuader

Persuader are a power/speed metal band from Sweden. Some might have heard of their vocalist, Jens Carlsson, before - he's also the vocalist of Savage Circus, the project started by Thomen Stauch upon his departure from Blind Guardian. I've uploaded their first two albums here - their third album loses most of its speed roots and adopts more of a basic power metal feel, and I feel like it's a lot more average than these two. Enjoy.

The Hunter (2000)
Evolution Purgatory (2004)

Virgin Steele

I figured that the best way to start off this blog would be to begin with my favorite band on the planet, the almighty Virgin Steele. In my opinion, this is the best power metal band to be found anywhere. This is mainly due to the fact that they correct everything wrong with the flood of generic power metal out there - the riffs and solos are well-defined and original, the keyboard melodies are majestic without descending into wankery or overpowering the guitars, and there isn't some androgynous, falsetto-humping asshole behind the mic. VS began as a project of the infamous Jack Starr, but after their first two albums, they became a project of the vocalist/keyboardist David DeFies upon Starr's departure. Since then, they've put out an incredibly solid string of epic power metal albums. Invictus is their heaviest and the album I reccomend everyone to start with - if you like it, move through the rest of the discography as you will.

The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Part One (1994)
The Marriage of Heaven and Hell Part Two (1995)
Invictus (1998)
The House of Atreus Act I (1999)
The House of Atreus Act II (2000)
Visions of Eden (2006)

I N C E P T U M

You can never have too many blogs to download music from, so I decided to add my collection to those already at hand on the Gaian metal forum. This blog will be mainly focusing on power, speed, heavy and thrash metal, with some occasional posts of black and doom. The main reason being that you can find albums of those last two genres fairly easily in the blogs of other users on the forum, while there isn't as much opportunity for the genres I'll be focusing on. I don't know if this will be very successful compared to the other blogs, but it's worth a try. I hope you all enjoy the music, and buy it if you like it (that's what I'm supposed to say to not get in trouble if they find this blog, right?).