I'm a Systems Reliability and DevOps engineer for Netdata Inc. When not working, I enjoy studying linguistics and history, playing video games, and cooking all kinds of international cuisine.
I've got a long (currently 51:10:12) playlist I shuffle while I work. Primary artists include:
Sabaton: European power metal with a strong focus on military history, plus some really good tribute songs. Their songs 'The Last Stand', 'Bismarck', 'The Red Baron', and 'To Hell and Back' are all good places to start if you just want a sample of their music.
Falconer: European power metal with a medieval focus and crystal clear vocals. 'The Past Lives On', 'Northwind', 'Stand in Veneration', and 'Carnival of Disgust' are all good songs for a sample of their work.
Elvenking: European power metal with a heavy Celtic/Gaelic influence, plus some really good acoustic stuff too. Their music is more varied than most of the other groups on this list, ranging from pretty strongly Celtic-neo-pagan songs ('The One We Shall Follow', 'Invoking the Woodland Spirit') to more conventional power metal ("The Wanderer', 'Draugen's Maelstrom'), to stuff that's just plain different (for example, 'Through Wolf's Eyes' is a retelling of the classic Red Riding Hood fairy tale, from the perspective of the wolf).
Twilight Force: Symphonic metal with a high-fantasy focus. They don't have a particularly large discography yet, but are still rather good. 'The Power of the Ancient Force', 'Made of Steel', and 'Riders of the Dawn' are probably some of the best songs to start with.
Turisas: Viking metal with some symphonic and power metal influence. 'The March of the Varangian Guard', 'To Holmgard and Beyond', 'We Ride Together', and their remix of 'Rasputin' are all particularly good places to start.
Hammerfall: European power metal and heavy metal. Lots of good music. Their recently released song '(We make) Sweden Rock' from their new album is especially good.
DragonForce: Power metal with heavy techno and EDM influence. Probably best known for 'Through the Fire and Flames', other good songs include 'Ashes of the Dawn', 'Cry Thunder', 'Soldiers of the Wastelands', and their metal remix of 'Ring of Fire'.
PowerGlove: American instrumental power metal with some techno/chiptune influence with all of their songs being metal remixes of songs from video games, cartoons, or movies. They've got particularly interesting remixes of 'Under the Sea' and 'This is Halloween', as well as a lot of good Final Fantasy music.
Big Giant Circles: Instrumental chiptune by a guy who actually does music for triple-A video games. I honestly feel that there's no bad place to start with his actual chiptune albums ('The Glory Days' and 'Imposter Nostalgia'), though he's also done some stuff beyond just chiptune that's pretty good too.
There's some other stuff in there too, but most of it is isolated cases of specific songs I really like from outside my typical preferences.
I'm a Systems Reliability and DevOps engineer for Netdata Inc. When not working, I enjoy studying linguistics and history, playing video games, and cooking all kinds of international cuisine.
I've got a long (currently 51:10:12) playlist I shuffle while I work. Primary artists include:
There's some other stuff in there too, but most of it is isolated cases of specific songs I really like from outside my typical preferences.
Have you tried Rhapsody of Fire?
I'll have to look into them. I'm unusually picky about my music, so I often have a hard time finding stuff to add to my playlist.