I’m not big into power metal (I prefer death, violence and satanism ;)), but let me recommend you an extremely positive power metal band that I absolutely love: Fellowship from the UK https://fellowshipmetal.bandcamp.com/album/the-saberlight-ch...

I grew up on power metal and nowadays I mainly listen to two genres: black metal and classical music. One of the things they have in common is that I can't understand a word in either. I really appreciate that because I find lyrics in songs distracting and most of the time cringy.

I can't listen to music with vocals at work, but I still listen to power metal 20 years later in quite a few contexts - gym, car, walk, simply active listening. I can't argue with the quality of the lyrics being cringey though.

I've always thought it's a combination of the genre being niche and being founded on a set of lyrical themes that are restrictive - and maybe particularly challenging -, and also, the fact that a lot of these bands aren't from English-speaking countries. The bands from anglo countries like Kamelot tend to write acceptable lyrics within the power metal context (Manowar lyrics are hilarious at times and arguably well-written, but they are not power metal IMO). There are some noteable exceptions to non-anglo bands with polished lyrics, like perhaps Nightwish or Blind Guardian, but a common occurrence otherwise is to find shitty English, which at least for me is an instant turnoff.

I can imagine some lyrics can be hard to listen to for an english speaking native. Manowar made a german version of "Heart of steal" it's called "Herz aus Stahl" it's so bad when I heard it for the first time I thought "Oh man I hope we don't sound that bad to all the people who speak english when we're singing english."

I don't know if it's that bad... In my experience the English lyrics from these euro power metal bands are ~98% good, but then there's the odd line that has you reach for a thesaurus to see if that's real English or they've pulled it out of their butts, and most of the time it's the latter. It's pretty off-putting, it would be perfectly OK if that was it, but it often brings your attention to the fact that the lyrics are very weak in general.

Did some dialog work for a German game company when I was younger.

In one of the raw scripts I received from the German side, I remember staring at "medicament" for a long time, before looking it up.

So yes, I know the feeling. :)

FWIW, Kreator, Scorpions, Destruction, Sodom, and basically every other German metal band probably have better English than most native speaker groups for the past 40+ years. Americans in particular seem to do quite poorly at speaking other languages partly because to be American, particularly in cities, one needs to know several dialects given the many different creoles and vernacular groups due to the country being so massive and diverse.

Interestingly enough, I believe while Kamelot was founded in the US, most of the members are from Europe currently.

One thing I learned ~15 years ago was that Nightwish commissioned lyrics from lyricists (one such commissioned person told me himself I believe a year or two after Dark Passion Play was released - they never used what he wrote for them though) - maybe that helps give the polished impression for some.

There's a lot of overlap between metal and classical music (by which I mean orchestral, symphonic, and chamber, not the specific age). Something about the composition and structure of the music activates similar parts of my brain, and both are excellent to work to.

(Of course, there's only so far you can push this—some metal bands are much closer to pop or jazz, and some classical music is quite distinctively its own thing.)

> There's a lot of overlap between metal and classical music (by which I mean orchestral, symphonic, and chamber, not the specific age).

Yep, there's a whole bunch of bands in the symphonic deathcore genre. Shadow of Intent, The Archaic Epidemic, Lorna Shore and Immortal Disfigurement are a few that come to mind.

Fleshgod Apocalypse has a classically trained opera singer.

I often hear the joke that Beethoven wrote the best guitar solos. Moonlight Sonata's 3rd movement on guitar is a fun listen .

Lyrics in metal I assume? Otherwise that's a rather wide brush.

Almost the same for me, It's either blackmetal, classic or some ambient which works best for me when I want to concentrate on something. But sometimes I still need to listen to some good old cheesy Powermetal, sing along and feel like I should start immediately to conquer the world to defeat all the evil that is out there. ;)

I'm the same. Fortunately for me, I don't understand Japanese, and there's some great Japanese power metal - e.g. Marge Litch and Alhambra.

If it's not cheesy, it's not power metal. Eventually you just realize that you're a cheesy person yourself and embrace it.

I listen to mostly non-English European black metal at work for the same reason.

> classical music

Have you heard neo-classical metal? It's shredding at its finest. Yngwie Malmsteen is the OG, but there are many others I recommend like Hizaki and Syu. Guitarists in this subgenre often release solo albums (no vocals) so you won't find yourself distracted by lyrics.

I found power metal when I was a kid because one of the things I like the most about rock and metal are operatic but growly vocals. I consider some of the singers in this list, like Jorn Lande (Masterplan, Ark), Oliver Hartmann (At Vance) and Michael Kiske (Helloween) some of the best singers in the history of rock, period.

What's the genre of Electric Callboy called? Partycore?

See songs like We Got The Moves on YouTube. Music can be really heavy and still all about fun.

Power metal is either brazen ego worship and/or or similarly (to death metal) talking of topics like mass murders and rapes. Though unlike the more neutral/clinical approach of death metal, power metal lyrics usually come from an angle of glorifying these things.

edit: I am merely relaying the common lyrical subjects of the genre. I made no judgment whether its a good or bad thing.

Examples:

"Deathrider" (Omen)

Death rider, you've taken the earth by storm

Death rider, out of sin and hatred you were born

Ride against the wind, shameless killer in the night

Rape another village, before the break of light

Trample down the ashes, grind them with your hate

Take another helpless life, before it's too late

"Harder than Steel" (Jag Panzer)

You put their heads on the grinding wheel

Give 'em hell 'cause you're harder than steel

Oh, you're harder than steel, yeah, ya feel

All for yourself and no one else

-------------------------------

Now of course you can say its just two examples, but it seems to be a decent representative of common themes in power metal lyrics. Obviously the best way to find out would be performing a similar data analysis as the article.

edit: These are both famous power metal bands, in case there was a feeling they were from any other genre:

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/omen/battle-cry/

https://rateyourmusic.com/release/album/jag-panzer/ample-des...

Your experience of the lyrics might benefit from learning about literary devices. For example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Apostrophe_(figure_of_speech)?... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multiperspectivity?wprov=sfti1

The second might be figures of speech, but not the first definitely isn't. Again I had cited the second as an example of ego worship not of murder/rape. Its not like I am saying its bad/good that power metal bands lyrics are of this nature but that's how it is.

I enjoy death metal because it is aggressive and brutal. It also spans everything from just good ol' vengeance music to literally galactic conquest.

Whatever the case, this kind of music helps me CRUSH the problem at hand. When nothing seems to be working, headbang for a little bit or make a solo mosh pit in my office, and then get back to DESTROYING the problem.