Track Of The Day - The Guardians Edition

A massive 12-minute epic with killer riffing, synths, and vocals by a few of the guest vocalists:

And there are some more of those splendid vocals from those vocalists and a couple more in the bonus track:

The Chronicles of Eden is one of the most essential compilation albums for a band, with the first disc consisting of bonus tracks for their first 5 albums, including this awesome cover of a James Bond movie theme:

And the second disc having two full songs per album; one greatest hit and one 8+ minute epic, the latter including one of the most melodic epics I've heard in my over a decade of listening to metal:

A grand majestic 10-minute epic summarizing all this album has:

A highlight by these masters of war-themed power metal, sounding both catchy and epic:

Breaking boundaries further is this standout featuring the Stimmgewalt choir, sounding similar to Moonspell's more symphonic works:

Once again, my return to The Guardians has caused my heavy/power/symphonic metal interest to be reborn and rapidly expand. Here are 6 bands of those genres that I've heard of when I was still completely in that zone 10 years ago (except The Dark Element), but didn't start listening to them full-time until I rediscovered them in the playlists that I've assembled in the last few months:

An absolutely epic and emotional highlight with no breakdowns, basically extreme power-ish symphonic metal, enough to qualify in this thread:

The outside-world friend of mine who showed me that song from the Sonic Frontiers soundtrack, featuring Kellin Quinn of Sleeping with Sirens, showed me two more songs from that soundtrack, and I really dig both of them. This one sounds closer to DragonForce-style power metal:

A true anthem of power metal from this band formed by former members of Helloween and other well-known bands:

Lots of catchy emotion in this radio-potential highlight:

One of the most awesome songs by this band is this heavy highlight that I would consider their own theme song:

Everything's so beautiful including background strings, while smashing through with guitars, proving that some of the best closing tracks don't have to be a long epic:

An awesome 10-minute journey that you just gotta hear to believe:

Helloween's music is given quite an enchantment by Masterplan in their cover album, as proven by this magical highlight:

My favorite track of this Fates Warning album on the US power metal side, with the best vocals from John Arch:

German heavy/power metal with their albums covering a sci-fi space saga similar to Mechina lyrically:

Epic symphonic/folk metal from Finland, though they can sometimes have fun with cover songs like this one:

A massive live rendition of a catchy speedy highlight has planted the seed for international power metal bands like Stratovarius:

Still expanding my reborn heavy/power/symphonic metal interest, here are 5 bands of those genres that I've heard of when I was still completely in that zone 10 years ago, but didn't start listening to them full-time until I rediscovered them in the playlists that I've assembled in the last few months:

Stevie T's power metal AI experiment has become an accidental hit sensation. So much so that someone else actually made their own full cover of that track. Really getting some X Japan/Galneryus/Stratovarius vibes from this one:

A magnificent 9-minute epic with the power metal-ish heavy metal sound similar to other bands from my early days of metal, especially in the chanting chorus:

Another magnificent 9-minute epic with the heavy/power metal sound similar to Crimson Glory and Helloween:

I'm glad to finally be fully interested in these bands that I've somehow missed out on when my power/symphonic metal taste was in an all-time high around a decade ago. I can especially say that about these German power metal pioneers:

Along with these two stunning female-led symphonic metal bands:

This will be my last time posting in the Track of the Day and Stinkers threads. As much as I enjoyed sharing the highlights of the albums I've reviewed and the bands I've discovered, I was getting burned out due to the lack of response over the years. With that, I'm going to end that habit with a slow bombastic epic that, funnily enough, is about the beginning of the universe, The Big Bang: