Twilight Force, metal or not?

I'm sad you know that.

We don’t talk about the adult male My Little Pony fans…

Listened to a couple of TF songs last night, sure it’s cheesy but fun as well

How about the adult male Regular Show fans (points to sig) ?
(and that show has played Savatage, Dragonforce, and early Crue, I'd say that's pretty undeniably metal)

Airola wrote:I listened a bit to their Dawn of the Dragonstar.

It immediately reminded me of Rhapsody's Legendary Tales.

Of course it's metal. Lots of double bass drumming with fast tremolo guitar picking. It's like a carbon copy of a late 90's symphonic power metal band. The guitar and drums are buried under the mix but so they were in that Rhapsody album too.

How dare you. Rhythm (and lead) guitar has always played a prominent role in (pre split) Rhapsody albums. With TF it's a Disney soundtrack slapped on heavily dialed back metal instruments, Rhapsody actually let the metal instruments and classical music complement each other. Just listen to the song below, it's way too sophisticated to even fit on TF's debut.




[end of power metal nerd rage]

Andreas89 wrote:

Airola wrote:I listened a bit to their Dawn of the Dragonstar.

It immediately reminded me of Rhapsody's Legendary Tales.

Of course it's metal. Lots of double bass drumming with fast tremolo guitar picking. It's like a carbon copy of a late 90's symphonic power metal band. The guitar and drums are buried under the mix but so they were in that Rhapsody album too.

How dare you. Rhythm (and lead) guitar has always played a prominent role in (pre split) Rhapsody albums. With TF it's a Disney soundtrack slapped on heavily dialed back metal instruments, Rhapsody actually let the metal instruments and classical music complement each other. Just listen to the song below, it's way too sophisticated to even fit on TF's debut.




[end of power metal nerd rage]

Hey, you picked the album's heaviest and most metally track, not fair!

It's like saying Gamma Ray's Somewhere Out in Space is a thrash metal album because the title track has a five second thrashy moment in it!

Joking aside, Legendary Tales is a fantastic album, but you can absolutely hear where Twilight Force got their probably biggest influence from. And there's no denying that most of the tracks in Legendary Tales have a high emphasis on keyboard, choir and orchestra music with guitar buried rather deep in the mix and the drums buried even deeper. It's not a bad thing though as it gave the band a rather unique sound for the time and the songs are mostly very good.

Four out of ten tracks don't have electric guitars at all and a song like Rage of the Winter pretty much has clearly audible guitars when it's time for the solos with a couple of guitar licks here and there, with the verses being completely void of guitar. And a lot of the final track guitars are just power chords with a solo lead here and there, and a lot of it has no guitars at all.

Here's the last track of the album:




I love the album anyway and Flames of Revenge is one of my all time favorite metal tracks!



Even with that song the chorus is stylistically basically the same that can be heard in Twilight Force. Tremolo picking and power chords. Where it seems to differ from Twilight Force is the ability to make instantly hooky melody when the lead melody kicks in. With Rhapsody though I think this is their only album with that catchy and beautiful melodies. I actually found their later albums become increasingly hard to get into. This album has tons of instantly hooky melodies all around.

I find this album to be the pioneer of modern symphonic power metal.

Of course, just about any fantasy themed symphonic power metal band is influenced by Rhapsody. Of course there's gonna be conceptual similarities like uptempo/high speed melodic metal with ample symphonic elements. But TF lacks the neoclassical touch that makes Rhapsody so interesting still after all those years. TF slaps the symphonics upon the metal instruments, Rhapsody lets them complement each other. Fundamentally different approach. TF is closer to a band like Fairyland in that regard, with the difference that Fairyland is way better and more dynamic in the storytelling.

Andreas89 wrote:Of course, just about any fantasy themed symphonic power metal band is influenced by Rhapsody. Of course there's gonna be conceptual similarities like uptempo/high speed melodic metal with ample symphonic elements. But TF lacks the neoclassical touch that makes Rhapsody so interesting still after all those years. TF slaps the symphonics upon the metal instruments, Rhapsody lets them complement each other. Fundamentally different approach. TF is closer to a band like Fairyland in that regard, with the difference that Fairyland is way better and more dynamic in the storytelling.

FL is more dynamic in your opinion. 
TF is very good with letting the symphonic/orchestral elements and the guitars feel like they belong, not forced. The drums are very audible also. TF is very interesting and good with their storytelling and universe. Every character has a backstory and lore. They are also very good at writing awesome melodies and choruses.

Andreas89 wrote:Of course, just about any fantasy themed symphonic power metal band is influenced by Rhapsody. Of course there's gonna be conceptual similarities like uptempo/high speed melodic metal with ample symphonic elements. But TF lacks the neoclassical touch that makes Rhapsody so interesting still after all those years. TF slaps the symphonics upon the metal instruments, Rhapsody lets them complement each other. Fundamentally different approach. TF is closer to a band like Fairyland in that regard, with the difference that Fairyland is way better and more dynamic in the storytelling.

Oh, for sure Rhapsody is better than Twilight Force, no question about it.

I mostly just wanted to say that Twilight Force is metal just as Rhapsody is metal too. What makes Twilight Force "unmetal" for some would make Rhapsody unmetal too because they have pretty much the exact same metal elements mixed with essentially the same kind of non-metal elements. And what makes Rhapsody metal makes Twilight Force metal too.

Christian Thrash Rules wrote:FL is more dynamic in your opinion. 
TF is very good with letting the symphonic/orchestral elements and the guitars feel like they belong, not forced. The drums are very audible also. TF is very interesting and good with their storytelling and universe. Every character has a backstory and lore. They are also very good at writing awesome melodies and choruses.

Well yes absolutely. With a little exception on their debut, TF hasn't written any music that invokes tragedy. It's all various degrees of cheerfulness, the lyrical content notwithstanding. Of course the good guys will win in the end, but at least give us the impression that a different outcome was ever a possibility.

Don't get me wrong I love TF and I own all their albums on CD, but as far as I'm concerned they're not in the upper echelon of this niche subgenre. There are numerous better bands out there in that regard.

Airola wrote:Oh, for sure Rhapsody is better than Twilight Force, no question about it.

I mostly just wanted to say that Twilight Force is metal just as Rhapsody is metal too. What makes Twilight Force "unmetal" for some would make Rhapsody unmetal too because they have pretty much the exact same metal elements mixed with essentially the same kind of non-metal elements. And what makes Rhapsody metal makes Twilight Force metal too.

TF is and has always been metal.

The people who think TF isn't metal are the people who don't have the ability to look past cheesyness. This also includes stuff like The Gift of Music by Theocracy. I personally don't think TGOM or TF is chessy, just fun. TGOM has a legit awesome message, and TF is just some great fun in an era of metal where most stuff is trying to be darker, heavier and more evil than the last band.

My favorite metal band is Earth Wind & Fire. Listen to this barnburner:

https://youtu.be/Gs069dndIYk?si=e4_ZRzBaJtiHBsjp

Fun and cheesy aren’t necessarily mutually exclusive. And the ending of Gift of Music is undeniably metal. That outro wouldn’t be out of place in a thrash or death metal song

Too bad you’ve gotta wade through such thick syrup to get to it.

I love fun and cheesy. I love power metal. I still maintain TF is not metal.

Don't like cheesiness? I enjoy a lot of cheesy European power metal. TF is abusing the privilege.

^^ what he said

How are they "abusing" it any more than a band like Rhapsody?

Rhapsody are the kings of flower metal.

This is real flower power:

https://youtu.be/QrJlyapt6OY?si=F_HV4gDAfqx9GNJy

In my eyes, Twilight Force is like Diablo III.

Both are "Disney-fied" takes on things that were previously established as "darker" or "edgier" in nature.