While I’ve always struggled with some of the band’s earlier works, I’ve been very pleased with their past three releases, especially Maximum Overload, and so I always look forward to hearing more from them. Jokes aside, though, while the band is certainly an acquired taste, they picked up a rather large fan base over the years, releasing seven albums to date, with each of them being highly enjoyable.
I would say that “Strangers” is my favorite song off of the album strictly due to how catchy the chorus is.“Extreme” and “Power Metal” generally aren’t words one would expect to see placed together, as the genre is generally known to be on the light, catchy and fun side of things, as far as metal goes, and yet one band has deemed themselves as being so daring, so adventurous and so far ahead of the pack, that their music is worthy of being called “Extreme Power Metal.” That band is, of course, British band Dragonforce, who has always been a very divisive band, most notably for the fact that their first big success came when their song “Through the Fire and the Flames” was included in Guitar Hero III. However, when a song is a little slower paced, it gives more room for melody and the catchiness of Marc Hudson’s vocals to shine through. Again, it’s not bad, it’s just that it’s a little too familiar. The opening track “Highway to Oblivion” is so DragonForce that it would be at home right next to “Through The Fire And Flames”.
The bulk of the album’s tracks fit into every DragonForce stereotype, particularly “Cosmic Power of the Infinite Shred Machine”, which is at a raging fast speed, has a lengthy solo section, and clocks in around 6.5 minutes. On Reaching Into Infinity, and Extreme Power Metal as well, they seemed to have slipped into a bit of a lull. They have pushed the envelope and the boundaries of power metal constantly, even if it wasn’t particularly popular. Not that there’s anything wrong with consistency, but I don’t think that’s what made DragonForce remarkable in the first place. It’s a similar issue I experienced with Reaching Into Infinity. But as a result, many if not all of these songs could be mixed into other albums and you’d never be able to tell the difference. Are the lyrics of power metal, fantasy-type lore? Yes. After a short while, this album becomes everything that we know from DragonForce several times over. There’s so much familiarity on Extreme Power Metal that it can quickly become detrimental to your enjoyment.
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