Hammerfall

The NHL's Minnesota Wild have turned to Swedish rockers HammerFall to get pumped up for their games.

Noisecreep reported on HammerFall's Anders Johansson and Oscar Dronjak (seen in the above photo with MMA fighter Josh "The Pitbull" Souder) dropping in on MMA fighter Bas Rutten's gym while on tour last year. We recently caught up with Dronjak to see what he thought about current MMA topics, as well as what he finds so appealing about training and the industry in general...

Dirck Halstead, Getty Images Whether you're a seasoned listener or a heavy music neophyte, if you see some kind of mythological winged creature or a 'Masters of the Universe'-inspired landscape on an album cover, chances are it's from a power metal band...

Many metal dudes – Atreyu's Alex Varkatzas, DevilDriver's Dez Fafara, Converge's Jake Bannon -- dig the world of MMA and particularly enjoy the intellect and singularity that goes along with engaging in hand-to-hand combat. Drummer Anders Johansson and guitarist Oscar Dronjak of the power metal warriors Hammerfall paid a visit to Bas Rutten's Elite MMA Gym on March 27 while on tour in support of

Power metal is a polarizing genre. People love it or hate it, as it borders on self-parody, simply due to the style's bombast and large, sweeping, epic nature. Sweden's Hammerfall make music that can be categorized as power metal -- but they have serious beef with the phrase...

Metal madrigalists Hammerfall have returned to North American for their first tour in five years. There's no particular reason for the chasm between U.S. jaunts, according to guitarist Oscar Dronjak, who told Noisecreep, "We should have come back much earlier than this, but it might have had something to do with having two member changes...

If Hammerfall guitarist Oscar Dronjak wasn't knuckling down on his axe, he'd be working with animals. "I like animals very much and if I chose my career 20 years ago, I would have chosen a zoologist -- to work with animals in the wild and the zoo...

Black metal Swedes Hammerfall paired up with their country's women's Olympic curling team years ago to film the the music video for 'Hearts on Fire.' It was the only single from the band's fourth studio album, 'Crimson Thunder,' in 2002.

Last weekend, this scribe jetted off to Japan to catch the final two dates on Dir En Grey's 'Uroboros' tour, which nearly razed Tokyo's infamous Budokan arena over two nights. But when the shows weren't going down, I had a nice opportunity to see the city...

This is the time of year where music magazines and websites go list crazy and Noisecreep is no different. If you're a regular reader here, you already know how much we love creating top 10 lists about the metal world. With the decade coming to a close, we decided to take a look back at all of the fine music that came out throughout the years...