..that means amazing playing and amazing singing on all fronts

that's an opinion, don't get me wrong, I do agree that most powermetal bands have amazing songs, fast as well as ballads, but I know some people who think their guitarwork is just plain crap, no feeling to it and only fast-fast-fast (dragonforce for example)

next to that, you can expect the discussion 'what defies powermetal and what bands fit in that genre', there is no answer to it, just opinions

if I were to give one example of power metal it's that almost all songs describe 'higher' things, 'fantasies' or 'myths' etc. I imagine a guy who's singing notes way above the vocal capabilities of a normal man and the guitarwork is fast most of the time, the songs have a lot of energy

typical example of powermetal: Hammerfall, if you go extreme: Dragonforce

I listen a lot to Iced Earth, Hammerfall, Sabaton, Sonata Arctica(favourite), though no Dragonforce (my ex-girl loves the band, used to play it all the time, thnx to me, and since the music brings a lot of memories I don't think I could ever enjoy them as much as I did, besides it drives me crazy after hearing it too much :p)

just my 2 cents