Emerging in the mid-2010s, Serious Black is a star-studded international power metal troupe -- they claim Germany, United States, Greece, Austria, and Czech Republic as home lands -- with ties to genre greats Helloween and Blind Guardian, among others. Serious Black was founded in 2014 around the talents of Roland Grapow (Helloween, Masterplan), Thomen Stauch (Blind Guardian), Mario Lochert (Visions of Atlantis), Dominik Sebastian (Edenbridge), Jan Vacik (Dreamscape), and Urban Breed (Tad Morose). The band headed to Munich in late 2014 to lay down tracks for their debut album. The resulting As Daylight Breaks was released the following year via AFM Records. The band showed little interest in slowing down, splitting their time between tour dates and studio sessions, and in 2016 they dropped their sophomore long-player, Mirrorworld. A third full-length effort, the ambitious concept album Magic, was issued the following year, with the bombastic, fist-pumping Suite 226 arriving in 2020. ~ James Christopher Monger