Last week, I turned in a 750-word essay about Dragonforce to the Philladelphia Weekly. My editor, rightfully fearing that it needed to be unpacked…chopped the mess in half. Take a read after you are finished scratching your head over that picture. At the last moment, he e-mailed asking if I had any hi-res images of Dragonforce. I didn’t, but took part of my lunch engagement (with a ham sandwich) to Google image search “Dragonforce.” The search yielded a couple of good pics, but to add a little goofiness to our exchange, I searched the term “bong hit.” I knew good and well that the picture that now accompanies that blurb existed within the first two or three pages (thanks to some “research” that Jeff Jensen and I did in preparation for an aborted presentation). I simply wrote, “you should use this one.” My editor became enamored with the photo (seen above w/out eye bar), and miraculously convinced several gatekeepers to run it as the Dragonforce image. In the event you were curious, here is my unedited slop:
How a Power Metal band became so popular.
The popularity of Britain’s Dragonforce is not the no-brainer suggested by the recent cultural aspects that provide a friendly environment for an over-the-top metal band to flourish. Sure, rockists, hipsters, and critics are continuing their mercurial embracement of metal. Indie rockers and younger post-Emo opportunists still make the conscious, overnight decision to make charlatan versions of metal…and why not? They have years of experience throwing devil horns during shows by bands that have very little to do with metal. Commonplace rubes laugh at the metal imagery packaged by Tenacious D, and more discerning tastemakers can nudge each other through episodes of Adult Swim’s Metalocalypse. All music, on some level, is comedic or can be made fun of (and should be…it’s healthy), but metal’s aesthetic trappings have made it easy for just about anyone to ride a good chuckle. As stated, chewing on all of this might bring one to the conclusion that the time is right for Dragonforce to take over the world, and all of the aforementioned variables certainly help, but it’s not quite that easy.
Dragonforce essentially create what is known as Power Metal, a term used in affection as much as it is used derogatorily. The name was coined by the originators of the form (as opposed to critics writing about the form) - early 80’s acts like Anvil, Manowar, Armored Saint, Accept, and to an extent, Metallica – to offer a classification of metal in a middle ground between the New Wave of British Heavy Metal bands (Maiden, Def Leppard, Diamond Head, etc) and the soon-to-be-omnipresent speed and thrash acts. Those proudly wearing the badge also wanted to differentiate themselves from the poofier pop-metal associated with the Sunset Strip. That’s all nice and respectable as long as the progenitors are being discussed, but in the past ten to fifteen years, Power Metal has reemerged as another animal. The bands associated with the newer incarnation, Swordmaster, Iced Earth, Blind Guardian, Primal Fear, Steel Attack, Stratovarius, to name a handful of what seems like thousands, tend to be laughing stocks within the extreme metal community. In fact, stateside extreme metal bible (and Philly-based) Decibel Magazine regularly awards its writers plenty of space to eviscerate Power Metal, and editor Albert Mudrian (author of Choosing Death: The Improbable History of Death Metal and Grindcore) is a known hater of the genre. Aside from the often flaccid and tired sonic approach utilized by many PM bands, the aesthetics and imagery also do very little to help its cause. Barbarians, ice, creatures that don’t exist, lots of fire, faux or real D&D nonsense, boring logos, medieval weaponry, and other crap that was proudly flaunted by metalheads of the 70’s and early 80’s are still regarded as a vital ways to present oneself. And let’s not forget that this type of thing is known to completely alienate the portion of the population that possess uteri.
So how did Dragonforce break out of this? Well, they didn’t entirely. They’ve simply added some tricks that take PM up a notch or two. Dragonforce started life in 1999, and like many Power Metal bands, their members originate from a more extreme form. In this case, it’s Black Metal, with guitarists Herman Li and Sam Totman hailing from Demoniac and drummer Dave Mackintosh from Bal-Sagoth. Name, appearance, and album covers would indicate that Dragonforce are just another Power Metal band, as would ZP Theart’s clear, commanding, and anthemic belting. But the band executes Power Metal at an absurd velocity that surpasses that of most Death Metal bands. Additionally, they rock an overt prog element courtesy of keyboardist Vadim Pruzhanov’s video game-influenced breakdowns and intros. The result is a weird, ridiculous, but furious amalgam of Helloween, Andrew W.K., the Trans-Siberian Orchestra, and Morbid Angel that has more in common with Children of Bodom than it does a garden variety PM band like Swordmaster. With all of this, Dragonforce are a Power Metal band that have managed to pull the coup of garnering respect from the extreme metal community. Appropriately, they consider themselves “extreme power metal” (here we go with another band-coined subgenre).
It doesn’t really matter where you start with Dragonforce, any one of their three albums is going to give you…..Dragonforce, but last year’s Inhuman Rampage somehow succeeded at maximizing all of the band’s already excessive attributes. Naturally, they are immensely entertaining and breathless live, miraculously recreating the speed and dexterity of the albums. Do yourself a favor and see some real metal, repeating this mantra: “Foot On The Monitor Now!!”
–Andrew Earles
