With four recent standout albums to their credit, Jag Panzer have fully re-established themselves as leaders in the field of traditional power metal. The Colorado band first came into prominence with the release of their epic Ample Destruction in 1984, still regarded as one of the best pure power metal albums of the decade. But the succeeding years were not kind to Jag Panzer, as they struggled with lineup changes and direction shifts (though both interesting in their own right, neither Dissident Alliance nor the never-released Chain Of Command (a somewhat Queensryche/ Warlord-inspired affair) carried the same weight as Ample Destruction), and by the mid-nineties the band was almost forgotten. Finally, the Destruction lineup reunited and released their comeback album The Fourth Judgement in 1997, and they haven't looked back since. They've been particularly busy in the last year or two, re-recording several past songs for a new compilation (Decade Of The Nail Spiked Bat), releasing the aforementioned Chain Of Command as a limited European release, as well as another stellar album in Casting The Stones. They have been at the top of their class for several years and show no signs of letting up.

RIP: former vocalist Daniel J. Conca, March 2004.