Warthur
Domine were finally able to put out their debut album after spending over a decade cranking out demo tapes and working on honing their sound, so it's no surprise that it's a particularly strong album which finds the band honed into a potent power metal unit. Showing more grit and aggression than many of the shinier, happier sort of power metal band, the group create complex, brooding songs with a lyrical focus on the Elric stories by Michael Moorcock.
Just as those stories provided a style of fantasy literature that was bloodier and grittier than your average Tolkien rip-off but, at the same time, were a bit more thoughtful and insightful than your standard Conan clone, Domine produce a style of power metal which is darker and deeper than most other power metal, with all traces of cheese conspicuously absent. In other words, it's precisely the sort of departure from expectations any musical genre needs to remain healthy and vibrant.