Pantheon is a power metal band that originated in the town of Karlskoga, Sweden. They are not to be confused with the death metal band also hailing from the same country. The band pulls together a neo-classical sound with a great vocalist, all-consuming keyboard work, and melodic underbelly.

Pantheon has a light happy feeling I don’t always expect from a power metal band. Not that that is a bad thing at all, I have heard worse from the pop metal.  It is very melodic and I thoroughly enjoyed listening to their album Empire of Madness. Not one piece of this album could be broken apart for me to enjoy more without knowing the whole. The singer pulls out no stops in expressing his lyrics and is very ‘on key’ (a lot of the ‘power metal’ bands these days have screeching hoot owls for vocals) and the neo-classical keyboard really threw me for a turn in the good direction. I find it relaxing and adventurous all at once. I hope the bands sticks together and makes another album. You can bet though on those days when I want to chill with some awesome easy metal tunes I will definitely keep Pantheon’s Empire of Madness in my CD book (yeah I still use one of those). Just bet all odds you aren’t present while I sing it… screeching hoot owl…

Kelly Kruel for Metal Master Kingdom