A Grove of Ashes and Aspens

Now Playing: Neverending Nights by Elvenking

“But wait, there’s melody centric metal? That’s a thing? I thought metal was all just really angry screaming and growling and walls of noise!” I hear you cry. And yes, a lot of metal is just screaming and growling and walls of noise. But there’s a lot more to metal than that.

There are subgenres that hold focus on the melody, the story, and other more traditional elements of music. For example, we have melodeath (Amon Amarth), bringing a melodic twist to death metal; power metal (Sabaton, Powerwolf), bringing together a larger and more epic sound that has its focus on the vocal melody, the lyrics, and the story contained therein; symphonic metal (Epica, Nightwish), doing as the name implies and adding orchestral parts to their metal; folk metal (Bloodywood, Korpiklaani) focusing on the inclusion of traditional folk songs and instruments; and combinations of said genres, like symphonic power metal (Twilight Force, Moonlight Haze) and powerfolk (Elvenking, Wind Rose).

Many bands that fit into these categories have a particular emphasis on an individual part, often as a result of wanting to emphasize some part of their sound. Many power metal and powerfolk bands have a particular emphasis on bringing forward the story within the song through the vocals and giving epic guitar solos to bring in more intensity. Many folk metal bands will have a focus on instrumental parts as well as vocal parts, bringing the folk songs and the inclusion of traditional instruments.

So yes, folk metal has the classical (in a way) influence of folk songs and tales from a specific region to distinguish it from other genres, though it can of course be blended with other subgenres of metal. But what about power metal and symphonic metal?

The classical influences in symphonic metal is also pretty obvious, in that it has a lot of classical instruments used within the backing instrumentals. But what about power metal?

Power metal is a lot less obvious with any classical influences. There are, however, songs that directly take from classical pieces. The best example that comes to mind is Hearts of Iron by Sabaton. The guitar solo there is Bach’s Air on the G String. This isn’t the only example from them either. Their song Red Baron (in the original studio version and the soundtrack version) starts with Bach’s Fugue in G minor. Rhapsody of Fire is another band that takes inspiration from classical music.

Basically, classical music has a lot of influence on melodic metal. It certainly doesn’t help that a lot of metalheads have some level of classical training, at least in some capacity. It’s a very interesting duality and I enjoy being in the scene with others like me.