Dream Evil - The Book of Heavy Metal (Sweden, 2004)
In 2005 or so, when media consumption was a different animal, I found that sampler CDs were a great way to explore a bunch of bands at once without committing to a whole album of each. I went to my local CD Warehouse and Cheapo and snapped up a couple generations of Identity and Metal For The Masses - most of the stuff that resonated was metalcore and death metal (Heaven Shall Burn, God Forbid, Arch Enemy, etc.), but this weird power metal meta-track also stuck in my head. Also, it turns out the music video is way better than I could have imagined.
EPICA - Consign To Oblivion
YouTube: https://yewtu.be/watch?v=dkqyyUTCMUQ (live) Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/track/5LtbKSsbzCNslhAwFb2AdN (live)
Maaaaaan - this is what’s cool about the huge umbrella that is metal. It includes the stuff I always post on this community, yes, your JFAC, your Carnosus, relentless techy wankery. But it also includes beautiful operatic melodic metal like this. The guitar work makes me want to go explore the ruins of a temple, and the vocals make me want to soar above it. This is what Mods Are Drunk Friday is for, thanks for sharing