One gripe I've always had about Sweden as I'm sure many of you know is that although they can produce amazing Melodic and Hard Rock records, albums focused specifically on Heavy Metal have never been their strong point but what about the other end of the spectrum with Power Metal? That's something completely different so I'm here to find out if the Swedes can do Power Metal to make up for their short falls on Heavy Metal focused albums.

The band I am featuring today is SHADOWQUEST who are a brand new six piece Power Metal band from Sweden and because they are new, there's not that much information about them that I can talk about so I'll skip straight to the part where I talk about their debut album "Armoured IV Pain" which is out now.

Power Metal may not be a genre I am a massive fan of but there are some that I do occasionally like but there are some I am a bit weary of as often the production can put me off and sometimes the melodies do as well as it can often sound a bit too samey and similar to something someone else has written. Fortunately though, things do get off to a good start with this album as surprise surprise, the music actually sounds well produced for a change which I am actually quite surprised by but that's not a bad thing by any means.

The melodies are quite well mixed as well as they sound quite heavy, powerful, melodic and on a couple of occasions have an epic sound to them which is sort of expected from a Power Metal album but here it sounds different and unique to anything else I've heard before but it's hard to explain why so you'd have to listen to this to roughly understand what I mean. The only gripes I do have with this is that at times the melodies can sound a bit too repetitive and the vocal performance can sound a bit off and a bit out of place at times but the singer does redeem some points for adding in a bit of extra punch to the performance which makes up for any quality issues.

Bottom line, "Armoured IV Pain" by SHADOWQUEST is actually not that bad for a debut from a new Power Metal band and the fact that this comes from Sweden is quite a surprise too but I still maintain that Melodic and Hard Rock are their forte as there are a couple of things that I mentioned which do put me off but for the most part it's good and you know, I am always open to hearing music in other genres from Sweden aside from Melodic and Hard Rock including Power Metal and maybe one day a Heavy Metal album from Sweden that sounds good. Until that happens, I'll leave it at that and finish up by saying this is an album and a band you may want to check out if you are a fan of Power Metal.