Catalog entry: "Beach Episode", by Atomic Guava
Thoughts
This pleasant little EP crept into my Spotify discovery feed a couple weeks back and it's been on regular repeat since then. It's a riot. The flavor of the band itself seems lighthearted--plenty of fun evocative anime artwork, silly lyrics and themes, but under the veneer of the fun is some killer music. The band refers to themselves as "alternative metal," though I'm tongue-in-cheek referring to it as "power math," and I think it's apt enough. The style fits pretty squarely between a few crossroads of subgenres, with Elizabeth Hall's vocals capable of some really excellent aggressive (but still clean) vocals akin to power metal, while just as easily descending into some gnarly harsh vocals when the music calls for it. Previous albums have the band singing about stealing ships, space cowboys, and more. I'm excited to both dig further into this group's discography and keep an eye out for future releases.
Tangential
Power metal is one of my musical guilty pleasures. I tend to get tired of it quickly, but when the mood strikes me, it really strikes me. To be clear, I don't think Atomic Guava are really a power metal group, but I figured I'd use this tangential to focus on the genre since I haven't touched on it much in previous posts.
One of my favorite current power metal acts is Unleash the Archers, and I dig Atomic Guava in large part because their sound makes me think of UtA.
If you're looking for something a little more vintage, some of the first big names in power metal (that I enjoy; I'm excluding some that I don't) include Helloween, Demons & Wizards (hell yeah, that name), and Blind Guardian.
One of the only other modern big names in the space is Gloryhammer, and they are 110% bought into the camp. I would almost argue they are camp first, music second (but it's still good music).