An introduction to Dragonforce

“If you are a fan of all those lads who play guitar really fast… Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert and even fat-legged pouting Swede Yngwie Malmsteen you’ll love the guitar work, and be very envious of guitar-man Herman Li. ”

“If you are a fan of all those lads who play guitar really fast… Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert and even fat-legged pouting Swede Yngwie Malmsteen you’ll love the guitar work, and be very envious of guitar-man Herman Li. “

Dragonforce – an introduction.


 


So where do you actually start with a band like Dragonforce? Well you’re better of starting probably about now unless you are a fan of heavy metal music…which I doubt you are because I can’t imagine you will be looking at Incendiary wearing an Iron Maiden t-shirt and listening to Megadeth’s Rust In Peace LP. (If only – ed)


Let’s get back to the matter at hand though. Dragonforce. You could call them the metal Arctic Monkeys; starting in 1999 posting their songs on www.mp3.com and climbing to the top of the websites heavy metal charts – but don’t be scared by the words Heavy Metal. When you think of heavy metal your head conjures up images of angry men in leather shouting uncontrollably about being raped in the dungeons of Satan’s hell pit, because Dragonforce lyrically are the complete opposite of that.


With song titles like Fury Of The Storm, Where Dragons Rule and Cry For Eternity a lot if not all of the band’s tracks have a fantasy subject similar to that of Lord Of The Rings with battles, swords, quests and heroes being the norm.


You’ll more than likely either love them or really hate them. If you are a fan of all those lads who play guitar really fast… Steve Vai, Joe Satriani, Paul Gilbert and even fat-legged pouting Swede Yngwie Malmsteen you’ll love the guitar work, and be very envious of guitar-man Herman Li. Awarded the Dimebag young shredder of the year award or something. But if you aren’t into all the finger-burning fret-shredding and various other verbs used by Total Guitar you’ll find it a load of widdly noise with some passionatebloke who played too much Dungeons & Dragons when he was younger singing over it. Burning fires burning lives on the long distant roads/Through the lost mountains endless so far away from homeThe words printed above are the introduction to Soldiers Of The Wasteland, replete with a Queen – Fat Bottomed Girls style vocal. One minute and 30 seconds later the rest of the lyrics start. That’s after an instrumental part with keyboards straight from a Playstation game where your main objection is to battle the king ogre with your level 10 dwarf. I can’t say I really like this band but it’s quite impossible not to like them. They wont be appearing on any 100 greatest album lists soon but if your in a stupid mood you wont bother turning them off. It gets a bit tiresome after a while though there are only so many keyboard solos you can hear before you get very bored of them. There you go. Have fun.


 


Words: Morgan Lane.