Two faceless monks brutally shove Powerwolf keyboardist Falk Maria Schlegel to the centre of the stage, and tie him to a wooden stake. He wails and struggles, but the band play on, watching impassively as another monk steps out with a burning torch and lights the pyre at Falk’s feet. Whoosh!

“I feel like I’m going to die every night – it’s very strange,” he tells Hammer later, perhaps a little singed, and certainly sweating buckets, of the Rammstein-like stunt. Hammer has flown to Stuttgart to catch Powerwolf’s Wolfsnächte Tour 2024. It sees the Germans playing to upwards of 10,000 fans a night in arenas around Europe following the release of their 10th album, Wake Up The Wicked, in July, which topped the national charts. With support from Swedish stalwarts Hammerfall and rising Italian ‘dwarf metallers’ Wind Rose, it’s the hottest – and we’ll whisper this, for reasons we’ll get to later – power metal ticket of the year.

Ever since war-obsessed Swedish power metallers Sabaton started rising to arena level in the late 00s, it’s been game on for any band with a love for trad metal and a flair for the theatrical. Throw a pin at a European festival line-up poster, and you’ll probably hit a name like Finland’s Battle Beast or Beast In Black, Sweden’s Brothers Of Metal, Germany/Austria/Switzerland’s Warkings, or Italy/ Germany’s All For Metal – whose guitarist Jasmin Pabst is hanging out backstage today. But it’s fellow veterans Powerwolf who are helping lead the new pack, their burned-at-the-stake ‘bit’ just one part of a show that has grown to include a flaming organ, fireworks, flamethrowers and an explosive front-of-house rig.

“We want to have even more of these theatrical elements,” Falk says, voice brimming with ambition. “We worked on the ideas for this tour for a whole year. I’m so happy that people have loved it.” He chuckles. “But then, I’m dying and people are clapping along. It’s like, ‘Oh...!’”

It’s 3pm, and already a group of fans are waiting outside the 15,500-capacity Schleyer-Halle in north-east Stuttgart. We recognise Conny, aka Wolfborn Demoness (see ‘Power To The People’ on p.66), who features in Powerwolf’s post- show video from their first date in Hamburg. She’s following the whole tour with her friend, Julia, and is carrying a gorgeous black book that looks like a Teutonic artefact from a long-lost crusade. They’ll fill it with messages from fans, and present it to the band after their last concert.

“I’ve dedicated my heart and soul to them!” she says. “They’re so interesting with the organs and fun lyrics.” Stuttgart is the perfect showcase of just how massive this music is right now. Without the hedonistic reputation of Berlin nor the quaint charm of Munich, Stuttgart is more representative of the ‘everyday’ face of Germany. Oktoberfest means the streets are lined with men and women in lederhosen and dirndls, but for every dozen or so stereotypical costumes we spot, there’s probably three or four metalheads proudly sporting Powerwolf shirts.

Before Hammer can interrogate more fans, we’re ushered away into the labyrinthine depths beneath the Schleyer-Halle, where tonight’s bands are preparing. We spot crew members wearing t-shirts that proudly proclaim, ‘I’m in the crew and I’m digging a hole’, pegging them as belonging to Wind Rose, the ‘dwarf metal’ pioneers. Wind Rose became a viral sensation in 2020, with a cover of the Minecraft song Diggy Diggy Hole by YouTubers The Yogscast. The track has 59 million views on YouTube, and has seen the Italians play sellout shows in Europe, the UK and US, while their subsequent albums Warfront (2022) and this year’s Trollslayer have allowed them to reach more than a million monthly listeners on Spotify.

“It’s a bit of a step down from our headline shows,” grins vocalist Francesco Cavalieri, referring to their status as first support band, as he welcomes us to their dressing room. “We only play for, like, 35 minutes – we don’t even break a sweat!”

Quick with quips, Francesco is a down-to-earth, self- professed nerd who knows how lucky they are to have this opportunity to tour alongside two revered bands. He’s also wearing a t-shirt bearing the slogan ‘I Am A Dwarf’.

Wind Rose started out as a prog metal covers band, pivoting to a more power metal sound when Francesco joined in 2009. The track The Breed Of Durin on 2015’s Wardens Of The West Wind offered a lightbulb moment, and the band created ‘dwarf metal’ – a mix of power metal and folk that Francesco describes as a combination of Symphony X, Turisas and Ensiferum. They’re standouts in a modern scene that offers tongue-in-cheek showmanship.

“If you’re talking power metal like Angra or Stratovarius, we’re not like those bands,” he says. “If you’re talking Sabaton and Powerwolf... yeah. It’s not the power metal we knew in the 90s and 2000s.”

Francesco lets us pick up the band’s ‘armour’. From padded, rubber-like shoulder pads with meticulous dwarven designs, to the heftier greaves and gloves that weigh as much as a small cat, the outfits represent a strong investment in the band’s future – the shoulder pads alone cost in excess of a thousand euros.

“I was talking about it with Pär [Sundström] from Sabaton – we’re both big Blind Guardian fans, but the thing is, when they’re onstage, they wear jeans and t-shirts,” Francesco says. “It’s very normal for bands of their era, but we want to leave less to the imagination and give a theatrical show.”

Even if it means splashing out, and having to strip down to their underwear as soon as they come offstage to avoid overheating – no tighty-whities, Hammer can thankfully confirm – it’s a small sacrifice for the enjoyment of their fans. In Germany in particular, Francesco feels there’s an acceptance the band haven’t received at home until recently.

“If Wind Rose were German, we would be Sabaton by this point!” he jokes. Some fans overseas have gone above and beyond, however. “Every night of our US tour, we would get a report about weapons being confiscated at the entrance – axes, hammers, swords... Real ones!” he exclaims. “Why would you bring something like that?!”

In a side room of the venue, we’re joined by Hammerfall frontman Joacim Cans and guitarist/founder Oscar Dronjak. If Wind Rose and Powerwolf represent dramatic excess, then Hammerfall are the genre at its purest. Formed in 1993, the Swedes have been steadfast defenders of the faith – which is also why they baulk at the idea of being tagged as a ‘power metal’ band.

“Being called a heavy metal band is a badge of honour,” Oscar asserts. “Back in those days, heavy metal as we’d known it from the 80s was just about the most outdated thing you could do – people would snicker at us behind our backs.”

Their efforts eventually paid off, as 2000’s Renegade topped the charts in their native Sweden. But there was pushback. On a night out in 2002, Joacim was glassed by a black metal fan and needed 25 stitches.

“It’s been 23 years since that happened. I won!” he says with a chuckle. Do Hammerfall find it strange, being sandwiched between two more comedic bands? “A little bit. It can be strange for the fans who have no idea what to expect from Hammerfall,” says Oscar. “We don’t do the theatrical stuff – our songs have more speed. People seem to get into it anyway!”

The pair talk with fondness about getting Powerwolf to support on a special one-off gig in Belgium in 2009, when original supports Sabaton weren’t available, and admit it’s great to see the favour returned 15 years later. They’ve even been subtly influenced by this newer generation of bands. “We’ve got ice hockey padding and chains for the first three songs,” Joacim points out. “Aged 54, I’ve finally decided to dress up!”

“There’s room for everyone,” Oscars agrees, adding a caveat that speaks to his investment in the genre. “I want people to mean what they do. If that’s singing about being dwarves, that’s fine. As long as it’s done with soul and conviction, you can make the world believe.”

Earlier today, Powerwolf soundchecked at Schleyer-Halle. Only, they weren’t really Powerwolf. Not without their facepaint and swishy black robes, printed with an orange, stained-glass window design. “It’s so important to be in character,” Falk explains of their live identity, as we chill backstage. “It’s not just a role – it’s something we inhabit. We do the pre-production rehearsals in our usual clothes, and I’ll do my acting and everything, but it all feels a little unreal.”

In full costume, Falk transforms like he’s a comic book character, constantly running, headbanging and acting as a counterpoint to the grounded presence of frontman Attila Dorn.

“My biggest influence has always been Bruce Dickinson, his onstage acting,” he says. “When I was a kid and my parents left the house, I’d turn up the Live After Death album and sing like Bruce in the mirror with a hairbrush!”

Powerwolf have played Stuttgart many times. In some ways, the city has been a barometer of their success; from the tiniest clubs in their earliest days, to the 1,500-capacity LKA Longhorn in 2005 when they headed out on their first ‘proper’ tour, to nearly 20 years later playing a room 10 times that size. Ask Falk when he knew things were really blowing up for Powerwolf, and he’ll reference 2011. They had just released their fourth album, Blood Of The Saints, and went on tour supporting Sabaton. It was the beginning of the modern power metal resurgence.

“At that point, it felt like people were just falling in love with this new style of heavy metal music that both bands were doing, everything just felt like it was getting bigger,” he smiles. “We’d turn up to places we’d played before and get twice as many people coming along.”

The Germans have been growing ever since, one quirky show at a time. Earlier on this run, in Amsterdam, Falk asked a fan why they liked his band so much. “They told me every day feels different, and in a way it definitely does,” he says. “One night Attila pushed me onto the fire organ, so I was screaming, ‘No! Please!’”

Two hours before showtime, Powerwolf will ask everyone to leave their dressing room. They’ll put on some music, grab a bottle of whisky, and apply the make-up that will transform them into five unstoppable weird preachers – a process that takes at least an hour. And what do they do before they take the stage? “We scream like wolves!” laughs Falk.

As the doors of Schleyer-Halle open, nuns, priests and dwarves flood in, alongside the standard ‘jeans and t-shirt’ metalheads and battle jacket warriors. As Wind Rose’s set begins, fans hold pickaxes aloft – inflatable, thankfully. The singalong for Diggy Diggy Hole is massive. There’s a rapturous joy in the room, and we spot fans of all ages, including metallers who can probably remember the first time Iron Maiden played venues like this. There are families headbanging together and having the time of their lives; it’s a vision of power metal paradise.

Hammerfall look like they’re trying out for Judas Priest in 1979: they crib more than a few notes from the Brummie book of metal, as they pull off synchronised guitar movements, thundering solos played atop rising platforms shaped like castle turrets, and even a cheeky motorcycle rumble that has us wondering if Rob Halford took a wrong turn at Albuquerque.

But Powerwolf are something else. Although Attila speaks in German, you don’t need a translator to understand Falk’s frantic motions to “Scream for me, Stuttgart!” as he initiates a massive call-and-response during Armata Strigoi. During Sanctified With Dynamite, Falk waves a flag with sparks blasting out the top. For closer Werewolves Of Armenia, fireworks are first shot over the crowd and back, then later triggered in time to a drum fill. It’s the kind of show that screams ‘festival headliner’ – a masterclass in heavy metal maximalism complete with its own larger-than-life characters in Attila and Falk.

The bands might be from three different countries and generations, but their performances transcend linguistic and cultural barriers. Modern power metal offers a sense of escapism and self-belief, that you can be anything you want to be, be it dwarf warrior, demonic nun or heavy metal hero – or anything else in the real world, for that matter.

“My sister came to see us in Luxembourg, and she was like, ‘You just gave us two hours where we didn’t think of anything else’,” recalls Falk. “We love that. Fans are just in the world of Powerwolf. I love the idea that someone can go back to their day-to-day life empowered, going to their boss, like, 'I want a raise!'"

Powerwolf's Wake Up The Wicked and Wind Rose's Trollslayer are out now via Napalm. Hammerfall's Avenge The Fallen is out now via Nuclear Blast

Manorwar guitarist Ross ‘The Boss’ Friedman and bassist Joey DeMaio met in 1980, at a Black Sabbath show at Newcastle City Hall. They were both native New Yorkers, both enthralled by tales of epic fantasy, and both invigorated by the New Wave Of British Heavy Metal at the height of its powers. They resolved to create the ultimate heavy metal band.

“We wanted to look like something never before seen in heavy metal,” Ross affirms, audibly beaming down the line from the States. “We wanted to be wilder than just denim and leather. What would be wilder? Animal fur!”

Debuting with 1982’s Battle Hymns, followed by 1983’s Into Glory Ride, the loincloth-clad quartet’s first years were marred by label hassles and indifference in their native US. Other European countries later took the band to their hearts, but it was us lot who first heeded Manowar’s call to arms, inspiring the title of 1984’s Hail To England.

“Our first shows were in England!” enthuses Ross, explaining the bonds of affection Manowar feel for our rainy homeland. “There were all these bands from England, the NWOBHM – Saxon, Diamond Head, Samson – a lot of bands were underground, then suddenly they weren’t underground anymore. Judas Priest always flew the flag of heavy metal high, and still do. Metal just became the language of that generation. It exploded, and it was a great thing.”

Even the UK rock media were on Manowar’s side at this early stage, although not everyone was convinced by these beefcake Yanks in catskin pants. “A lot of the English critics ripped the shit out of us,” stresses Ross. “They thought we were...” he drops his upbeat New York patter to perfectly channel a downbeat British sneer: “‘Fookin’ bollocks and fookin’ shite!’ But the great ones like [future Hammer writer] Malcolm Dome and others championed the band. That’s why we named the album Hail To England.”

Reaching No.83 in the UK album chart, Manowar resolved to hit this territory hard with 1984’s Spectacle Of Might tour, playing scattered shows on the continent before storming 11 dates across England, blowing the roofs off such unlikely true metal hotspots as Bournemouth, Middlesbrough and St. Albans.

One bizarre rumour claims that Manowar began the tour as support band for Mercyful Fate, but the billing switched when Manowar garnered the best audience reaction. Ross is happy to shoot this down in flames, with garrulous New York intensity.

“We were always gonna be the headliner,” he says. “What happened was, Mercyful Fate were our special guests. We got to England, and we had all of our brand new equipment – we called it the Wall Of Voodoo. It was so huge, and so new, it was gleaming like a brand spanking new battleship! And they walk into the venue and go, ‘Can we play through that?’ and we go, ‘Er, can we fuck your wife?’”

Ross falls silent and waits for Hammer to stop laughing. “I mean… no! Y’know? We bust our asses the last few years to get to this point, we’ve spent record advances and expenses and stress, and we’re just gonna turn over our Wall of Voodoo? Joey said, ‘Go get every piece of gear you got, and play through that.’”

After playing one show with scaled- down production, Ross says, Mercyful Fate never turned up again. “They never called us to say they were quitting, they never told the agents or promoters, they just fucked off the tour after that first night. This is the damn truth. And they said - they said,” emphasises Ross, still sounding genuinely astonished, 36 years on, “we denied them lights and sound. That was a bad thing to say, because every writer in England was at that first show, and they said ‘That’s bullshit! We were there! You had full lights and full sound, they just didn’t hand you the accolades of their audience.’ Which was none of their business. You gotta earn it.”

Drawing breath, Ross’s tone softens. “I have nothing against them, I love that band,” he says. “I’m friends with the two guitar players, [ex-band member] Mike Denner and Hank Shermann, they’re great guys. I asked them ‘What happened to you that night?’ They’re like, ‘Oh, I dunno…’ Yeah I know. That’s OK, we know…!”

This ‘Wall Of Voodoo’ was clearly very special; this was the superpowered stack that saw the band enter the 1984 Guinness Book Of World Records for the world’s loudest performance, superseding The Who’s 1976 record. “Right!” exclaims Ross. “Our onstage cruising volume was something like 135 decibels. We called the sound that we produced ‘Divine Wind’. But it’s very clean and clear, unlike the Motörhead sound; theirs was very distorted, everything’s in the monitors. The only thing in our monitor system was vocals and drums. No guitars or bass, they were too frickin’ loud!”

One of the most important songs on Hail To England, Army Of The Immortals was Ross’s ode to Manowar’s growing legion of fans, already developing the sort of passionate commitment that would later manifest as the cult of the Manowarrior. There was a richly motivational, unifying fervour to the tune, exemplifying Manowar’s philosophy of making a disparate and scattered fanbase feel part of a worldwide brotherhood.

“We said no matter what country you’re from, whatever colour or race, if you’re into Manowar, we are united in blood, united in metal,” he explains. “The whole genre is like that now. There are bands in Africa, there’s Mongolian metal, we’re all brothers and sisters, and we preached that at our concerts. Metal is the thing that binds us all together; Manowar definitely was the first to say that.”

Although the band’s first two albums were no slouches, Hail To England was the breakthrough, finding the band at their manliest and heaviest. Ross is keenly aware of how influential this album has proved over the years. “We invented this thing and they called it power metal,” he observes. “All those musicians that followed Manowar from the beginning, they all became successful. Amon Amarth, Hammerfall, Blind Guardian, Sabaton – Sabaton, my God, they worship us, I mean worship!”

Sabaton’s Joakim Brodén bought Hail To England based on its cover, and it didn’t let him down. “I had never heard the band before, but damn, how heavy and mighty it seemed to me,” he says.

There’s a pride and gratitude in Ross’s voice as he fondly recalls the potency of this unit (rounded out by singer Eric Adams and drummer Scott Columbus). Now touring in his eponymous solo band, Ross just got back from touring Australasia, playing Hail To England in its entirety.

“People really love it,” he emphasises. “It’s a top metal album, one of the top metal albums ever,” he enthuses. “Those first six records are untouchable; I don’t think a metal band will ever do it like that again.”

Originally published in Metal Hammer 332, February 2020

Returning with their most ambitious outing yet, these ascendant Canadian power metallers arrive hell-bent on proving that the many accolades rained down upon 2020’s Abyss were both richly-deserved and an augury of future output. With Phantoma, Unleash The Archers have pointedly succeeded on both counts.

Phantoma not only scales metal’s towering peaks with majestic riffs, exhilarating solos and Brittney Slayes’ powerhouse vocals, but it delves into the shadowy depths of a more sophisticated and electronically-infused sound. Thematically, Phantoma is a concept album centred around the idea of AI gaining sentience in a bleak, dystopian world. It’s a plot as old as computers, but Phantoma transcends such dogeared tropes by melding actual AI into their songwriting process, yielding a multi-faceted modern metal soundscape with intricate thematic nuances and a sonic depth that speaks directly to today’s techno-existential dilemmas. 

Sonically, the band again synthesise multiple metal genres into a powerful collection that’s both melodic and at times, gaspingly brutal. Human Era introduces the futuristic wasteland as a vision of desolation, building into the relentless surge of Ph4/NT0mA — a showcase of blazing metallic precision, with the guitars locked in ferocious interplay alongside Slayes’ commanding vocals. As the narrative arc darkens, Buried In Code emerges as a call-to-arms draped in power metal finery, while pulsating synthwave tracks like Gods In Decay cut an evocative contrast to Give It Up Or Give It All, an arresting ballad that serves as a vessel for the emotional complexity of the human-AI nexus. Phantoma ends with the chest-pounding trilogy of Ghosts In The Mist, Seeking Vengeance and the triumphant Blood Empress — a tapestry of defiance, melancholy and revelation.

Phantoma is a rare beast in the metal kingdom — a concept album that manages to be both intellectually stimulating and emotionally resonant, a whirlwind journey through a digital dreamscape that reflects our fractured world back at us, distorted, yet undeniably real. Packed with endless riffs and rousing choruses, Phantoma dares the listener to consider a future forged in the crucible of technology, where the question, “What does it mean to be truly human?’ becomes increasingly difficult to answer.

Phantoma is out Friday May 10 via Napalm

German power metal cult Powerwolf have announced their next studio album, Wake Up The Wicked.

The followup to 2021 album Call Of The Wild and 2023 studio/compilation release Interludium will be released on July 26 via Napalm Records.

Select physical versions of the album will come with the additional release Manhattan Metal Mass – Live In New York City: a live recording of the band’s first-ever US show at the Palladium Times Square in New York on February 23, 2023.

A two-CD release of Wake Up The Wicked and Manhattan Metal Mass – Live In New York City also comes with a bust of a werewolf in a crown.

Powerwolf will follow the release of Wake Up The Wicked with extensive tours of Europe and North America.

The band will start in the US at Los Angeles’ The Hollywood Palladium on August 29 and finish the leg at Place Bell in Laval, Canada, on September 15. Support will come from special guest Unleash The Archers.

Powerwolf will then hit Europe, starting on October 4, for a run of shows where support will come from power metal act Hammerfall and ‘dwarf metal’ favourites Wind Rose.

The full list of dates that Powerwolf are playing in 2024 is available below, and tickets are now available via their website.

The full track listing and artwork of Wake Up The Wicked is also below. Preorders are now available.

Metal Hammer gave Wake Up The Wicked’s predecessor, Call Of The Wild, a glowing four-star review.

Journalist Holly Wright wrote of the album: “[W]hile Call Of The Wild is hardly a reinvention, it writes another chapter in their unerring yearning for the top tiers.”

No news yet on when the first single from Wake Up The Wicked will be released.

Powerwolf – Wake Up The Wicked track listing:

1. Bless ’Em With The Blade
2. Sinners Of The Seven Seas
3. Kyrie Klitorem
4. Heretic Hunters
5. 1589
6. Viva Vulgata
7. Wake Up The Wicked
8. Joan Of Arc
9. Thunderpriest
10. We Don’t Wanna Be No Saints
11. Vargamor

Powerwolf 2024 tour dates:

Aug 29: Los Angeles The Hollywood Palladium, CA
Aug 31: Denver The Ogden Theatre, CO
Sep 03: Chicago The Riviera Theatre, IL
Sep 04: Cleveland The Agora Theatre, OH
Sep 05: Silver Spring The Fillmore, MD
Sep 07: Tampa Jannus Landing, FL
Sep 08: Atlanta The Masquerade, GA
Sep 09: Charlotte The Fillmore, NC
Sep 12: Philadelphia The Fillmore, PA
Sep 13: Worcester The Palladium, MA
Sep 14: New York City Brooklyn Paramount, NY
Sep 15: Laval Place Bell, Canada

Oct 04: Hamburg Barclays Arena, Germany
Oct 05: Amsterdam AFAS Live, Netherlands
Oct 06: Antwerp Lotto Arena, Belgium
Oct 09: Nantes Zenith, France
Oct 10: Esch Sur Alzette Rockhal, Luxembourg
Oct 11: Stuttgart Schleyerhalle, Germany
Oct 12: Frankfurt Festhalle, Germany
Oct 14: Milan Alcatraz, Italy
Oct 16: Zürich The Hall, Switzerland
Oct 17: Paris Zenith, France
Oct 18: Oberhausen Rudolf Weber Arena, Germany
Oct 19: Berlin Velodrom, Germany
Oct 21: Krakow Tauron Arena, Poland
Oct 22: Budapest MVM Dome, Hungary
Oct 23: Vienna Gasometer, Austria
Oct 25: Munich Olympiahalle, Germany
Oct 26: Prague Sportovni Hala Fortuna, Czechia

Swedish power metallers Sabaton are launching a special new project in collaboration with museums around the world, including two special events taking place in the UK over the coming days.

The band will be screening their epic new history movie, The War To End All Wars, based on World War I and featuring songs from the Sabaton album of the same name as part of its soundtrack, at The RAF Museum in London this Remembrance Sunday, November 12. As well as the film screening, band members Pär Sundström (bass) and Joakim Brodén (vocals) will take part in two special Q+As with fans at 1pm and 3pm. Tickets and more info can be found here.

On Monday November 13, meanwhile, The Tank Museum at Bovington Camp in Dorset will host another screening of The War to End All Wars, with Sundström taking part in another Q+A and meet and greet with fans soon after. Tickets for that event can be found here.

The screenings are part of Sabaton's History Rocks project, which aims to bring more awareness to the historical context of the conflicts which have inspired much of their music. As well as the two above British museums, there are dozens more taking part around the world, with museums everywhere from Europe to the United States to New Zealand getting involved.

"The idea of this movie was initially to show journalists the stories behind the song of the latest album The War To End All Wars," says Pär Sundström. "Over the years we have met a lot of museums and talked to a lot of museums who have informed us about the difficulties of operating. They always have a constant struggle to find a new audience. A lot of them have asked us, 'Is there’s anything Sabaton can do to help us, can we collaborate on something?', and here we go. With the History Rocks project, we have come up with an idea where local museums can benefit from all our fans.”

“At the RAF Museum we are always keen to embrace new and unique ways to inform and educate our audiences," says Barry Smith, the Director of Visitor and Commercial Development at the RAF Museum. "We are really excited about working with Sabaton on the History Rocks project, which combines music, animation, and storytelling with First World War history.”

“We are delighted to offer an extra special screening of The War to End All Wars film and to welcome Sabaton’s band manager and bass guitarist Pär Sundström to the Museum," says Tank Museum Events Manager Tom Holmes. "Pär will also be taking part in a meet and greet with fans and will be signing limited edition Sabaton T-shirts, which can be purchased on the day."

See the trailer for Sabaton's The War To End All Wars movie below. For the full list of museums taking part in their History Rocks campaign, head to the official Sabaton website.

Although their fur-trimmed, woad-painted uniforms appear to scream ‘notice me’, Brothers Of Metal’s formative ambitions were surprisingly humble and insular.

“All of us came from different bands that tried to make it, and be on those big stages, but never really succeeded,” admits Mats Nilsson, the hairiest of the octet’s three vocalists. “This band was more just, ‘Let’s get together and make fun music’, with never even a plan to play live or make an album. Eventually we realised we had enough good songs to record, but I think within that mentality of just having fun, you drop the notion of how to be successful.”

This 16-legged Viking war machine was forged in Sweden’s beautiful Dalarna county more than 10 years ago, just eight mates entertaining themselves in isolation for half a decade before sharing it with the world.

“The first thing we did was a really bad lyric video of our first song Son Of Odin, which was just clips from the first Thor movie with lyrics in a really bad font,” laughs Mats.

“We did no PR, just put it on YouTube and forgot about it. Then a month later we checked back, and we’d had 30,000 views! There were tons of comments, and we were like, ‘How did people find this?!’ Since then, we’ve been growing organically through word of mouth. All this attention and the cool things we’ve gotten to do, we’re just lucky.” 

Entering Germany’s Top 10 with their second LP, 2020’s Emblas Saga, proved it wasn’t just luck – though it doesn’t hurt that they have hometown connections to friends in high places. The Sabaton guys and Brothers Of Metal go way back, drummer Hannes Van Dahl even recommending the Vikings to the German label - and power metal specialists – AFM.

“The first contact I had with Sabaton was in a regional music competition for teenagers,” recalls Mats. “They were great, obviously – not as great as they are today! But they played heavy metal, and it was super-fun. I’ve followed them ever since. Pär [Sundström, bass] and Joakim [Bróden, vocals] are a couple of years older than us, so we looked up to them. There is a great music scene here - Sabaton, us, Civil War, Twilight Force, Astral Doors. There are so many talented people, it’s very fertile soil for musicians. It’s a small community, so if you’re not into sports, or doing vast amounts of illegal substances, you end up making music!”

After playing Bloodstock Open Air Festival for the first time in August, the Brothers will be putting the finishing touches to their as-yet-untitled third album. On that front, Mats isn’t giving much away; asked if any particular inspirations have informed the creative process, he hesitates.

“It’s so hard to pinpoint specifics. We’ve been writing this album over several years now, and we have so many people writing, all of us are involved. Obviously Norse mythology is still a big part, but the range of songs is very diverse; we find inspiration in the weirdest places. Sailing under the flag of Brothers Of Metal is nice because some say we’re a power metal band, some say we’re symphonic or epic, but we figure we’re just a metal band, so we try to have fun with the different styles of metal and make them our own.”

‘Having fun’ is perhaps the most important factor in the band’s appeal – both for audiences and bandmates, as attested by the remarkable feat of maintaining the same eight-person line-up for more than a decade. Even so, Mats is keenly savvy when it comes to navigating the fine line between a ‘fun band’ and a ‘silly band’.

“That’s probably the trickiest part of Brothers Of Metal,” he concedes. “Obviously, some people will find us silly. Especially, old-school ‘true’ black metal fans don’t like us at all! So, the key for us has been to do whatever we do 100%. That’s been our motto the whole way. We had the leather armour and make-up and everything at the first gig that we ever played, because we always knew that playing our songs in a t-shirt and jeans is not the way to go. We need to do this all-out. Allowing yourself to be that eccentric onstage and believing what you’re doing is the best thing in the world, that creates a lot of joy. I’m a hardcore Manowar fan, but I’m also allowed to think their style is over the top and fun!”

Given that Brothers Of Metal find themselves on an upward trajectory that none of them planned for or imagined, have they started thinking more ambitiously now?

“You need to have goals, but we’re on different levels about what they can be,” Mats ponders. “Obviously supporting Iron Maiden or Judas Priest would be super awesome - or standing onstage and shouting ‘Scream for me, Hammersmith!’ We’re still fanboys of metal, that’s what we grew up with, so meeting a lot of the people we idolised as a kid has obviously been great. We don’t have goals like, ‘Oh, we need one million Spotify listeners’ [the band currently have more than 932,000 monthly listeners] – that’s useless, it’s not something that can drive you to be better. It’s more about playing cool places and meeting cool people.”

As one of the most internationally active acts to come out of the J-rock scene, Lovebites have stood out as purveyors of old-school power metal in Pleaser heels. They’ve sought to channel the most European sound possible, and under the guidance of Finnish mixing/mastering maestros Mikko Karmila and Mika Jussila, they’ve undoubtedly found it. 

That’s no different on their fourth offering, as is immediately apparent the second We Are The Resurrection kicks in. It’s an all-out shred-fest from the get-go, powered by the outrageously talented guitarists, Miyako Watanabe and Midori Tatematsu – a duo with the virtuosity and showmanship to rival Dragonforce’s Sam Totman and Herman Li. With equally talented new bassist Fami, Lovebites have perfected the power metal recipe. 

Judgement Day is a relentlessly fast-paced ode to the likes of Helloween and Stratovarius (try humming the chorus of Black Diamond over almost any of these songs, and it fits), with ear-shatteringly high harmonised vocals from singer Asami, drums that could induce carpal tunnel syndrome just by listening to them and soaring, triumphant choruses. 

What’s perhaps most interesting about Lovebites is how this young band all but reject modernity in order to replicate the sound of NWOBHM and power metal. In many ways, Judgement Day is timeless. The galloping riff in the intro to Wicked Witch could have been written any time between 1980 and today, while standout track Stand And Deliver (Shoot ’Em Down) evokes Girlschool and Warlock. 

Asami’s final, hair-raising wail of ‘Judgement daaay!’ on the title track would make Doro proud. Theirs is a curious journey, but they’ve more than proven themselves. With the pace of the album never varying, however, the second half sounds rather samey. Now that they’ve mastered the power metal formula, some divergence from it would be welcome in future.

Judgement Day is out February 24 via JPU Records.

If you just Rip Van Winkled the past 35 or so years, I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is that the oceans are about to boil over and we’ll all be dead in a decade, but the good news is that Ronnie Atkins and Ken Hammer are still at the helm of Pretty Maids’ sturdy power-metal longship, and they still basically sound like they did on 1984’s landmark Red Hot And Heavy album, which is to say sorta glammy but heavy as fuck in the right places. So, even-stevens, really.

Kingmaker is the Danish metal institution’s 15th album and it’s a real bolt of lightning, regal in stride and majestic in scope, anchored by Atkins’ still-agile yelping and the crunch of Hammer’s relentless riffola.

This band are at their best when they twist all of the knobs to the right, and that’s just where they keep it here.

“I made a rock n’ roll sin when I tried givin’ in” - All Men Play On Ten

If heavy metal is all just some extravagant alpha-male pissing contest to see who is the loudest and heaviest in the land – and it pretty much is – then Manowar are the undisputed King of Metal, now and forever. They are so sure of it they invented the term “false metal” to call out any band that’s not as heavy as they are, which is basically every other band. When we’re all dust and bones and the only survivors of the plagues, robot risings and mass extinctions around the corner are Mad Max-esque desert-trash motor-psychos, they will march into battle blasting Manowar, I’m sure of it.

Nobody understood the magnificence and absurdity of heavy metal as well as Manowar, and no one ever will again. And it would be heresy to suggest that they ever blew it or (god forbid) created any False Metal themselves, but we have to talk about Sign of the Hammer nonetheless, because its opening tracks are so hilariously out of character and so close to glam I can almost smell the hairspray.

But first, let’s give the legends their due. Manowar are the heaviest band that has ever existed and Black Sabbath are the first true heavy metal band, so it makes perfect sense that they formed in the looming shadows of Sabbath. In 1980 original Manowar guitarist Ross the Boss – of NYC proto-punks The Dictators – was in Shakin’ Street, who were opening for Sabbath on their Dio-fronted Heaven and Hell tour. Bassist Joey DeMaio was handling the pyrotechnics on those shows and hit it off with Ross. After the tour, they formed the band. Black Sabbath and explosions. That’s how that band was forged, and that’s how the band sounded.

The first few albums established a pattern of mixing chugging biker rock with proto-power metal epics. 1982’s debut Battle Hymns was basically a metallized rock’n’roll album littered with story-songs about battle-damaged Nam vets and heartless lady killers, but by their landmark follow-up Into Glory Ride in 1983, their crazed excess-is-best template was set. They wore loincloths like cavemen and sang seven-minute songs about Viking funerals and wrote anthems about how metal they were right down to their fucking gloves and boots. There was no going back for these dudes. They were taking this shit all the way.

Hail to England was released in early 1984. Manowar had planned to tour the UK – British rockers were nuts about them – but the tour fell through, so they basically wrote the record as an apology. But regardless of wacky origins, it was a stunningly heavy and intense album. The entire B-side is basically a bloodbath. They could’ve just ridden the year out on Hail, but ten months later they returned with the incredible Sign of the Hammer, perhaps the most gonzo metal album of the 80s.

I’m not even going to dive too deeply into this record, but DeMaio’s bass solo Thunderpick is a jaw-dropper, Mountains is essentially an eight-minute self-empowerment anthem/power-ballad doom-metal dirge, and just when you think things couldn’t get weirder, album closer Guyana (Cult of the Damned) is about the 1978 mass suicide of 500 men, women and children at the behest of cult leader Jim Jones. They drank poisoned Kool Aid. Manowar wrote a song about it with lines like “Be good to the children and old people first/Give them a drink, they’re dying of thirst”. All with leather-lunged lead singer Eric Adams treated the whole sordid affair like it was a night at the opera.

So already, you know, completely fucking nuts. But not as nuts as the album’s openers, All Men Play On Ten and Animals. First of all, O gods of metal, I mean no disrespect when I say this, but All Men Play On Ten is kind of a rap song. It is. It’s not like there wasn’t a precedent for NYC rockers to try their hand at rapping in the 80s – see Wendy O Williams, Dee Dee Ramone and Debby Harry for prime examples – so it’s not out of nowhere, but still, writing a song about how they’ll never change their sound and then changing their sound in that very song is some serious next-level shit.

And Animals is straight-up horny teenager glam metal. No way around it. It’s a fantastic wad of mid 80s bubblegum for sure, but “true metal” ? That might be a stretch, even for the Kings of Metal.

But I mean, that was it. Right after it was back to head-chopping business, and they never looked back. Europe discovered them and exalted them as gods and they spent the next thirty years living up to their reputation. The only remnants of their flirtation with mainstream glam are two goofy-but-great songs in 1984 and a handful of regretful beefcake photos they took around the same time dressed in skin tight strips of leather, glistening with battle-sweat.

Incidentally, Manowar recently announced their swansong tour. It’s almost over, so if you haven’t seen them yet, it’s your last chance. Don’t blow it.

Oh, and PS: death to false metal. Except for Animals. That one gets a pass.

Next week: Southern-fried and finger lickin’