Angra are perhaps one of the biggest and most accomplished names in the world of power metal. In showing that they still haven't lost their touch even after 30 years on the scene, the Brazilians unleash yet another stellar album; their tenth full-length release, Cycles Of Pain, delivers all the goodness that previous releases managed to provide. The symphonies are superbly arranged, the production and overall sound quality are unparalleled, and the performances from each musician involved are more or less faultless, making this one of the best releases in power metal to come out of 2023.

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All right, you're here in the Best Power Metal Album category, staring at a band called "By Fire And Sword" that has released a debut album called Glory whose cover features a guy standing on a promontory in front of some kind of strange, divine sea. You know where this is going, right? Wrong. There's no belting here, no glass-shattering falsetto, no dragon-slaying, no anthemic choruses about pumpkins or elves or cavalry charges. The "power" is a higher one. No, even higher than Daniel Heiman. By Fire And Sword play the part of evangelical preachers, bringing the good news of Iron Maiden and Blue Öyster Cult - or Judicator and Ghost if you want more contemporary comparisons - with a delivery that's downright calm in spite of its speed and potency. Must be the peace living within their hearts. The Honorable Reverend Tim Tom Jones sings with soothing, mellifluous tones, and naturally there is an organ to take you all the way to the pulpit; Glory is, in its way, as salving and salvific as a church service ought to be. The riffs are here to stomp, though - this is all about power and glory, after all.

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Italy's Frozen Crown suffered from a mass band exodus back in 2021 where more than half the band's members departed, leaving only the vocalist and main songwriter in the band. Quickly filling the vacant spots and coming back with Winterbane, the band was still finding its footing following the massive lineup change. With Call Of The North, that footing has now been found and the band is back to standard with their symphonic power metal sound, with riffs both blisteringly melodious and chunky, soaring vocals, and solos. It doesn't offer anything outside the usual symphonic power metal canon, but within the established canon Call Of The North reasserts why Frozen Crown were so quick to rise in recognition in the first place.

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Isiliel is the new solo project of Japanese idol Himari Tsukishiro. If you're a fan of Japanese metal and she looks familiar, it probably is because she also is a member of the now-paused kawaii metal/alt-idol band Necronomidol. On 月​虹​創​聖​記 (Moonbow Genesis), gone are the J-pop influences, but still this is not a pure power metal album. Isiliel skillfully blends classic power metal riffs with symphonic elements and some Japanese instrumentation and folk melodies. We even get a somber ballad and a closing track that ventures into industrial/nu metal. But the best part though is that all vocals are in Japanese so you don't have to worry about broken English either, and this is where Himari really shines. She has such an enthralling voice and the Japanese lyrics make the album even more captivating. And we haven't even mentioned yet that the album is recorded at legendary Studio Fredman in Gothenburg, so you know the production is flawless, too. So if you're a fan of the Japanese metal scene, this is the album to check out.

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Right now, two bands stand out above all in the Japanese power metal scene: Galneryus and their female counterparts Lovebites. 2023 saw both release new material; however, it's Lovebites who won the hearts of many power metal fans, offering one of the most enjoyable headbanging power metal releases of the year in the form of Judgement Day. The band's fourth full-length release offers exhilarating shredding leads, breathtaking riffs, and a turbocharged, energetic tempo. Lovebites are an act truly on fire right now, and this adrenaline-fueled offering should not be missed by anyone considering themselves a fan of power metal.

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Set down those beers, fellas – it’s time for a hearty glass of pineapple juice, a flight of steroids, and a light dusting of dandruff. As eclectic as they are irreverent as they are epic, Nanowar Of Steel have once again proven that there isn’t much hair to split between doing goofy parodies of already ridiculous music and advancing the possibilities of heavy metal as much as any of our nominees in the Avantgarde/Experimental category. When do you suppose was the last time any of those other bands were actually allowed in the club? Oh, and power metal – yeah, they talk a big game with all their dragons and swords and whatnot, but they couldn’t in a million years write a half-decent song about the football. They certainly couldn’t mash Titanic, Alex Jones, “Eye Of The Tiger”, and Backstreet Boys into the same song and not only not have it sound like complete ass but actually succeed in spinning one of the most danceable hits of 2023. If you want to participate in the bravest crusade ever launched to preserve the glorious name of true metal, then scream loud enough to make Manowar hear you and raise a Dislike To False Metal. And if you’ve enjoyed what you've heard, don't forget to like and subscribe.

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We caught the Roenwolfe tailwind back in 2021 with their long-incubating sophomore release, Edge Of Saturn, and they've followed up efficiently: this new self-titled album doesn't do things much differently from the first two, but it does confirm that Alicia Cordisco is on the up in her post-Judicator life. If there's one big change, it's how much more brutal this album is: Project: Roenwolfe prefers the thrashy formulas of US power metal to the floppy pop of the European school, and nowhere is that more evident than on this release, where you can cut the Artillery influence with a knife. This is near to the fastest and darkest you can get while still being considered "power metal"; tense and ominous choruses and intrusions of synths sprinkle on some of the stellar vibes invoked by the cover, and the whole album sounds like it is poised to crush rather than uplift.

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Towers Of Gold is an intriguing album in concept; not only does it follow up a debut album that arrived 20 years late, but this is the second time in three years that Daniel Heiman has replaced Yannis Papadopoulos as the singer in a Greek power metal band. It was incredible that it happened once; it’s weird that it happened twice. But also still incredible, though, because Heiman’s in as fine fettle as ever, belting out the clearest and strongest pathway to heaven that humans have yet discovered, and what a magnificent suite of songs Sacred Outcry have composed for the occasion. They never relax their dramatic posture across the album, piling on tense bridge after bellowing chorus after blazing solo, leveraging orchestral keys against their overlapping guitars for maximum bombast. Damned For All Time may have taken a generation to realize, but Towers Of Gold slots in behind it with the comfort of a band that has already gotten used to running with a new crowd of power metal, plus the poise and maturity of a band with roots that deep. Towers Of Gold spends all of its 55 minutes building its own name in musical form: Greece didn’t invent the concept of “epic” for nothing.

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Armed with Paladin’s Taylor Washington as a fresh face on guitar, Theocracy celebrated their 21st birthday in style, unleashing over an hour of rampant progressive power metal that is transatlantic in its approach. The evocative vocals of Matt Smith and bombastic vocal harmonies might send one’s mind to acts such as Edguy, while the subtle progginess in the arrangements will likely appeal to Seventh Wonder fans, but there’s also a rampant fire to the instrumentation that owes as much to the American power metal scene. Mosaic soars as it rushes along and flexes its muscles by ending with a 20-minute epic; Theocracy had been away for a while, but they returned in style with this release.

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Scientists are currently working on a way to remove power metal from cheese, but it will always be impossible to remove the cheese from power metal. There’s just no negotiating that, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. What you can do to cut the unscheduled jocularity a bit is graft some extreme metal onto your wings: Triumpher look to the blueprints laid down by Manowar in their heyday and Virgin Steele in their dominion day and draw out some of the latent black metal and thrash DNA within. This could have been the missing link between Manowar and Bathory, melding sky-piercing shrieks, slow-marching builds, and an unquenchable thirst for thundering refrains with smatterings of harsh vocals, aggressive thrash riffing, and some downright frigid melodic digressions. Of course, it leans very heavily on the epic side; after all, what is power metal if not the unflagging pursuit of triumph?

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