2010 has been a weird year for metal; there’ve been a ton of really good releases but so far none that are like OMG WOW THIS RULEZ! [except for Ratt's phenomenal comeback Infestation, of course]. Finnish epic metallers Kiuas released Lustdriven back in March and at the time I was all up on its nuts, but I haven’t really listened to it since… I guess that means ultimately it’s another of those “really good but not great” releases. I’m re-listening to it now for the first time in months, and I do stick with my original assertion that this album is really fucking good.

I bring this up now because loyal reader Ross King has alerted us to the fact that Kiuas lead singer Ilja Jalkanen has left the band.

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The Finns in Kiuas are quickly becoming my new favorites in the burgeoning Epic Metal micro-genre. If clenching your fist and raising it to the sky in a display of power and triumph is something you enjoy doing while listening to metal, I highly recommend Kiuas’ new record Lustdriven which came out a couple of weeks ago. It’s epic. It’s big. It’s powerful. It’s just the right amount of cheesy, which is a hard balance to strike.

Kiuas just released a video for the track “Of Lust, Love and Human Nature.” As the title portends, it’s dark, gothy and full of cliche, just the way we like it. It’s also got a naked chick in a bathtub with plenty of side-boob and a couple of brief shots of nipple at the end. What else could you ask for in an Epic Metal video?

-VN

As I delve head-first into my recent exploration of the modern power epic metal scene what I’m learning is this: there’s a LOT of perfectly competent but ultimately mediocre bands in this genre but few very good ones. Thanks to Suckalo Max Dohmeyer I’ve found a new favorite in Kiuas, “an awesome thrashy, power-esque, melodic metal band from Finland” as he describes it. This is definitely the best power-ish band I’ve heard since Mercenary, who appear likely to jump the shark.

A day after Max’s email we got an official press release about their new album Lustdriven (coming March 31st), so presumably something good’s percolating around Kiuas. What’s interesting is that this band really isn’t all that cheesy; they’re just good. It’s like the best parts of In Flames, Children of Bodom, Mercenary and Firewind — from their respective best albums — all rolled into one with some other kind of thrashy element that I can’t put a finger on. They’re all great musicians, natch. Kiuas have a new song called “The Visionary” posted today, but I don’t like it as much as I do the older new song “Aftermath.”

Furthermore, I’m done using the word “power” to describe this kind of music because it’s truly so different from Rhapsody, DragonForce or even Manowar or Iron Maiden. From this point forward this kind of metal shall be called Epic Metal. Copyright Vince Neilstein 2010.

-VN

It’s hard to believe that Dime has been gone for five years, but December 8 will be the anniversary of one of metal’s bleakest moments. To cash-in on commemorate the event, Metal Hammer have enlisted a bunch of well-known acts to record Pantera covers (but not Damageplan covers, because, y’know, let’s get real here) for a CD that will come with the magazine. Metal Hammer has done this a few times in the past – I remember they had they entire Master of Puppets album re-recorded by various bands, including Mastodon, Machine Head, Chimaira and Trivium when that album reached its twentieth anniversary, and some of it was pretty good.

Get the complete track list for Metal Hammer’s Dime tribute disc after the jump, along with my thoughts in bold.

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