A form of metal. Power Metal takes its roots from 80's metal bands such as Iron Maiden, Manowar, and Dio. Power Metal usually employs the use of guitar and vocal harmonies, with the vocals in almost every case being sung cleanly (one excpetion is Demoniac, which is Blackened Power). Drummers in this genre must be very adept with double-bass pedals, for they are almost constantly using them.
Being a very melodic style of metal, Power Metal is very intricate and difficult to write. It is one of the most difficult genres of metal to play, with Progressive (and Neoclassical) being possibly more difficult.
Lyrics commonly found in Power Metal are based around mythology, elves, war, greed, weaponry (most commonly swords), brotherhood, horses, magic, demons, dragons, and other fantasy-based topics. This makes Power Metal a perfect choice for D&D players (sadly, I am one) and people who enjoy fantasy novels.

Power metal is the music genre you will only be able to play if you have 16 hours of spare time each day to practice your instrument and study music theory for a decade.

a really great sub genre of metal. it contains fast (most of the time long) guitar solos and a vocalist who can really reach those high notes

The opposite of black metal.

power metal may be a sub-genre and includes stuff like swords, war, blood, brotherhood, knights..etc
its the exact opposite of being gay, its very inspiring and powerful with power chords and fast solos.
Manowar is one of the best examples of power metal

and i would like to mention for others that Obituary is influenced by manowar, and its not power metal

a subdivision of metal which focuses in melody and precision, often dealing with themes from the Dark ages like fairies, elves and stuff. Looking alike and sounding alike is an unusually common tendency within bands of this genre

true moden day metal, not to be confused as a subgenere

the lyriks are usualy about knights, castels, dragons, swords, or other fancey things

Power Metal:
A cheesy and fast paced sub-genre of metal
Pronounced: Pow-ur met-ahl.
Power metal is a sub-genre of speed metal known as "true" metal by nerdy teens who only listen to it and ignore most other metal bands outside the genre (the irony, of course is that they limit themselves to one subgenre of metal and thusly earn little to no respect from other metallers, as most metal fans love a broad spectrum of metal, and indeed, other music genres, such as blues, jazz, etc), and "cheese" or "bullshit" metal by everyone else and is also reviled by most thrash/death/black (actual) metallers for it's lack of substance and wanton insertion of elves, dragons and other nerdy nonsense into lyrics. Broader fans of metal despise it because they fear people judge metal on the cheesey songs by these bands. This is not to dismiss the genre entirely, as it contains many talented musicians, however, the most (undeservedly) popluar band in the genre, Dragonforce (or, alternatively, Fagonforce) gives the genre a worse name than it deserves, what with it's legion of pre-teen to mid-teen fanboys, frothing at the mouth over insinuations of artificially sped up songs, little variation between songs, terrible vocals, overrated guitar work and drummer of unnotable worth. People are, however mislead, into believing dragonforce is the b-all and end-all of power metal, just because it's on guitar hero. As much as power metal is disliked among many metallers, even among broader metal fans whose taste includes power metal, Dragonforce is often cited as being mis-representative of the sub-genre and is similarly hated.

The most irritating genre of metal to ever grace this planet. The bands steal from Iron Maiden's and Dio's catalog and add cheesy Lord of the Rings and other fantasy bullshit to their music. The music consists of a bunch of repetitive power chords, some guy who does a shitty job at falsetto vocals and sounds like he's getting raped in the ass, and a bunch of other transvesdites. Possibly the most hated genre along with nu-metal, metalcore, and emocore.