Power Quest were formed by keyboardist Steve Williams in 2001, following his departure from DragonHeart, a band that would soon change its name to DragonForce and go on to great success in the realm of power metal.

Power Quest haven't been as commercially successful as DragonForce, but their songs are better.

They're catchier in a classicist, AOR way, with plenty of keyboards and ultra-clean vocals in between the shredding guitar solos.

Power Quest play it pretty down the middle as power metal goes; their songs aren't as speed-crazed as those of DragonForce, Gamma Ray, Firewind, Helloween, or other similar bands, and they don't do epic concept albums about fighting dragons and recovering magic swords from caves or anything like that.

Indeed, it's hard to say what their songs are about -- the lyrics are strings of banal clichés meant to bridge the gap between solos.

Things get a little ridiculous at times -- the synth intro to "Survive" is brain-meltingly cheesy, and the song as a whole just sounds like Williams is trying to make DragonForce take him back, while "Better Days" sounds like it was written to soundtrack a training montage in an '80s movie about a high-school wrestler recruited to battle Soviet soldiers, or something.

But it's all still pretty thrilling, if power metal is your thing.

And that's the key to appreciating Blood Alliance.

It's a power metal record that stays firmly within the stylistic borders of that genre.

There's no olive branch extended to people who don't like endless guitar solos, anthemic choruses about nothing, or fleet-fingered synth melodies.

But fans of all those things will find much to enjoy.