DragonForce is a British power metal band from London, assembled in 1999. The band's style is considered unique due to the considerably high tempo in which most of their songs are played, with extensive use of guitar and keyboard solos.

Biography

The band was originally assembled under the name of DragonHeart, but switched names to DragonForce due to possible trademark issues with a band with the same name. DragonForce's career began with the publishing of some of their songs on the first incarnation of MP3.com, claiming the top of the site's Heavy Metal charts. They have enjoyed increasing popularity over the years, publishing two albums and touring extensively, supporting Helloween, W.A.S.P. and Iron Maiden. Their most recent tour (as of 2005) in support of the Sonic Firestorm album included the band Angra in support, as well as Mendeed during their passage through the UK. On the 28th of October 2005, bassist Adrian Lambert announced his departure from the band to raise his young son. On the 23rd November 2005, it was announced that Dragonforce have signed to Roadrunner Records in the UK, France, Australia and New Zealand. Roadrunner will release the forthcoming album, Inhuman Rampage, on the 9th January, 2006 in the aforementioned territories.

Evolution of Sound

Dragonforce's musical style includes:

• High-pitched vocals
• A general emphasis on a very high speed of playing
• Complex melodies and musical arrangements
• Lyrics relating (mostly) to tales of a fantastic or epic nature
• Subtle use of background choral singing throughout

DragonForce claim that their music is not produced to be wholly serious and the lyrics pertain usually to fantasy subjects such as battles, swords. DragonForce have stated that they base their music on fantasy-related materials such as video games including Wonder Boy in Monster World (a game for the Sega Megadrive (Sega Genesis) console.

• On their first album, Valley of the Damned, the band placed particular emphasis on bombastic guitar sounds and melodies defining an epic sound, through an especially technical mix of bass and drum compositions. This created a somewhat thundering sound which has continued throughout the band's discography to date.

• Their second release, Sonic Firestorm saw the integration of more advanced guitar techniques through the extended use of melody. With the arrival of ex-Bal-Sagoth drummer Dave Mackintosh, the style of drumming known as the blast beat, normally confined to the death metal genre, was brought into DragonForce’s vein.

• Their third release, Inhuman Rampage, whilst currently only listenable through a leaked version of the album, seems to be continuing with even more advances in guitar work. The inclusion of many sound effects similar to those audible in video games (such as Mario) is also evident. This clearly exemplifies DragonForce’s musical inspirations (see above).

Discography

Line-up

• ZP Theart - Lead vocals
• Herman Li - Lead/Rhythm guitars & Backing vocals
• Sam Totman - Lead/Rhythm guitars & Backing vocals
• Vadim Pruzhanov - Keyboards & Backing vocals
• Dave Mackintosh - Drums & Backing vocals

Former Members

• Adrian Lambert - Bass & Backing vocals
• Didier Almouzni - Drums
• Diccon Harper - Bass

Analysis of lyrics

When the lyrics of DragonForce's songs are analyzed, some words can be seen to appear more frequently than others. This is because these words contain more glory than any others. The following list gives the 20 most frequently used words in lyrics from DragonForce's 3 albums (the demo is not included). Please note that the source from which the lyrics from "Inhuman Rampage" were found may not be wholly correct.

(The list is sorted in order of frequency and excludes all "standard" English words such as articles, grammatical conjunctions and suchlike.)

Occurences / Word

57 forever 46 pain 43 night 42 time 41 fire 40 stand 39 ride 38 fight 37 far 35 see 33 sky 33 day 31 more 31 land 30 rise 30 power 30 heart 29 tonight 28 lost 27 one

External links

• Official DragonForce website
• Official DragonForce discussion forum
• Artist profile page at Roadrunner Recordsde:DragonForce