Rage

The German heavy metal band Rage was founded in 1984 under the name Avenger. Since the band's first rehearsal in Herne, North Rhine-Westphalia, bassist and singer Peter "Peavy" Wagner has served as the group's leader. Performing a mix of speed metal and progressive metal, Rage began releasing a new album nearly every year, with highlights including Reign of Fear (1986), Perfect Man (1988), Speak of the Dead (2006), Strings to a Web (2010), and The Devil Strikes Again (2016). The group also embraced elements of classical music, even collaborating with the Prague Symphony Orchestra on the symphonic metal album Lingua Mortis in 1996. This combination of progressive metal and classical elements made Rage one of the pioneers of power metal, and the group maintained its iconic status during the 2020s, releasing Afterlifelines -- the twenty-sixth studio album in the band's long-running catalog -- in 2024.