Powergod

any fans of this German power/speed metal band? they play a more traditional raw power metal, no wimpy stuff. they also put out a couple of covers albums that pay tribute to some awesome, less covered metal bands like Warlock, Savage Grace, Hirax, Tank & many others.

anyone else a fan?

http://www.myspace.com/powergodmetal

I only have one of their original CDs and like it enough. However, I
love their two "tribute" CDs. Great choice of covers. They do the more
obscure stuff instead of the usual Judas Priest, Black Sabbath, etc.

Sounds like a band I'll have to check out one of these days.

I have their first covers album ("Bleed For The Gods/That's Metal Lesson 1") and dig it immensely. I've been on the lookout for the second covers CD as I understand they covered Loudness and Raven tunes on that one, with guest appearances by Minoru Niihara AND John Gallagher on each track! Never heard any of their original material though.

The singer in this band is also in Winters Bane, isn't he?

Of course i like them. I have their debut + the two cover songs albums that i love very much. I still have to buy their second and thirt album. UNDERRATED even in the underground.

Yeah the singer is in Winters Bane, and the guitar-player used to be in Sodom.

I recently reviwed the second tribute disc for my site. Killer stuff. I bought it from www.nuclearhell.com

Wow, pretty good stuff. Thanks for posting the link! I'll have to add'em to my ever growing CD want list.

The only Powergod cds I own are the two tribute discs. Both o those are great. I need to check out some of their original music.

I have never heard these guys, but I saw them cheap on a German site, and just bought all 5 of their albums, used. €23.

Anyone else have 'em?

I have them all, excellent stuff.

It was the track listings on those cover albums that sealed the deal for me.

A band with musical taste like that just can't be bad. Well, LOL they can, but these guys seem like apt musicians, what with their other bands and stuff. I expect gritty power / classic metal, a bit like US power metal, but with modern production values. Am I far off?

Right on the money actually.

I've been listening to the first two Powergod albums now for a little over a week.

The first one left me disappointed. Seemed quite generic, especially stuff like Into the Battle and Gods of War. Why even record those songs?    
I guess in 1999 it wasn't done to death too much, but damn, I can't listen to them. Makes me feel Powergod contributed to the over-saturation of galloping metal with gang chants.

And there was hardly a hint of the dirty, raw, classic style metal I was hoping for. It is heavy, certainly not flower metal, but I was hoping for a little bit of grit. Rough edges. Something wild and dangerous. This was not it. I went to rateyourmusic and gave it 2/5 stars for a nice try.

But after I put that Evilution I disc down and moved on to the second one, I was pleasantly surprised. There's a new vocalist (yay!), and a lot more versatility in the singing style. Some rough grunts and screeches mixed in. Some parts work, some don't, but at least it's interesting. The music is a lot more unpredictable, and there's even a Loudness cover!

The only thing Evilution I has that's better than Back to Attack is the closing epic. Both "Evilution" tracks are pretentious and uninspired, but the one on Back to Attack is awfully disjointed and almost non-sensical. There's an operatic bit, then fast thrash-riffing and power vocals, then a pseudo-doom break and grunting vocals. I don't even know what I'm listening to. Maybe I just need to spin it more to "get" it?

It's still better than the first one. Next week I'll get to the first covers disc and hopefully the rest of the catalog.

I have Evilution III and both Bleed For The Gods albums. I still listen to both covers albums frequently and I really enjoy them. I haven't listened to Evilution III in years and I don't remember anything from it.

Observatör is such a great track. I'm really enjoying the second album.

And I just gave some of the tracks from Evilution I yet another spin and they seem to grow on me. Even the more generic ones. If you just put down your nerd glasses, stop analyzing and rating the music, put on your denim vest, pound your fist, drink beer and feel the music, it can all be a hell of a lot of fun.

I just looked at the booklet and all those liner notes from the first covers album (Bleed for the Gods), and that's one hell of a CD package! All those pictures and stories and commentaries. If everyone released albums like this, we wouldn't have a problem with illegal downloading! With effort and passion put into a simple jewel case booklet, you don't even need elaborate digibooks and -paks and pop-up gatefold earbooks.

Witchfinder wrote:

I have Evilution III and both Bleed For The Gods albums.  I still listen to both covers albums frequently and I really enjoy them.  I haven't listened to Evilution III in years and I don't remember anything from it.  

Nemesis has the same singer as Back to Attack. I guess that's a good thing.

Dig up your copy, give it a spin and let us know what you think. It's not like there's too much Powergod discussion going on.

Witchfinder wrote:

I have Evilution III and both Bleed For The Gods albums.  I still listen to both covers albums frequently and I really enjoy them.  I haven't listened to Evilution III in years and I don't remember anything from it.  

Those are the same three I had. I eventually ditched the Evilution/Nemesis album, but I still have both cover cds. 'Bout time I game them a fresh spin.

I haven't gotten past the Bleed For The Gods 1 CD yet. It's awesome! I didn't know half these songs (at least seven or eight), so it's a great compilation as well. Steel the Light, Bound to Be Free, great stuff! And the ones I did know already are also performed well and are worth listening to.

Some of the liner notes are inexplicably in German, so those classes I took back in college came in handy.

I've been playing it for two weeks now. I also got a bunch of other CDs that are taking some time away from Powergod, so that explains my slowness. But maybe by this coming weekend I'll have tackled Evilution III as well.

Good stuff, anyway. The tribute CD is probably more enjoyable than the first two original albums.

Nemesis is a ripping record!

Faster than any of the previous discs, and that alone appeals to me. But there's also a different kind of fury in the band performance this time around. It's a speed metal album, where the focus is not on making epic sounding perfect melodies. The first album especially was a little too much like Hammerfall. But this one is a little dirty, a little nasty - trying to channel some of that Nasty Savage they covered in the tribute album? Still very tight, though. Can't complain about musicianship.

And this time the closing epic is actually almost worth listening to. Still probably the worst track on the disc (how else? It seems like a Powergod trademark by now. It's almost hilarious).

Yeah, I gotta check into these guys but just have so much other stuff to listen to at the moment. I will definitely file the name away for future research after glowing praise from people I trust.