Epidemia (Эпидемия) is a Russian Power Metal band, formed in 1993. Their name means "Epidemic" in Russian, but their songs are mostly Heavy Mithril, set either in Middle-earth, or their own Standard Fantasy Setting.
Main gimmick of the band lies in their "metal opera", set in said fantasy setting. So far four of their studio albums were part of this story. Epidemia also sometimes carries out theatrical performances of this opera, complete with several guest vocalists.
Current members:
- Yury Melisov - guitar
- Dmitry Krivenkov - drums
- Ilya Mamontov - bass
- Dmitry Protsko - guitar
- Evgeny Egorov - vocals
Discography:
- На Краю Времени (On The Edge Of Time) (1999)
- Загадка Волшебной Cтраны (The Quest Of The Magic Land) (2001)
- Эльфийская Pукопись (Elven Manuscript) (2004)
- Жизнь в Cумерках (Living In Twilight) (2005)
- Эльфийская Рукопись 2: Сказание На Все Времена (Elven Manuscript 2: Saga For All Times) (2007)
- Дорога Домой (Road to Home) (2010)
- Всадник из Льда (The Ice Rider) (2011)
- Сокровище Энии (Treasure of Enya) (2014)
- Легенда Ксентарона (The Legend of Xentharon) (2018)
- Призраки и Тени (Ghosts and Shadows) (2021)
The band has an official website
, which also contains full recap for all of their story albums.
The Elven Manuscript setting provides examples of:
- All There in the Manual: The song themselves provide only basic narrative, and almost everything else can be found either in booklets that come with certain physical editions of albums, or on the band's website.
- Big Bad: Subverted with Deimos, he's just a Well-Intentioned Extremist and acts as Disc-One Final Boss. Demon queen Minatrix, however, plays it straight.
- Later ice dragoness Blizzard takes over this role.
- Big Good: Elven Manuscript 2 has the First God, the creator of Xentharon. He gives Desmond his magic staff and later prompts dwarves to help the heroes. He doesn't help them personally for some never-defined reason. The full story explains that he already fought demons long time ago and was defeated, and is now confined to physical form. If he was captured now, demons could use his power to become even stronger.
- The Cavalry: The final battle of second album has two. Dwarves, gathered by the First God, come to relief of Deimos' Black Tower, used as stronghold by the heroes. When their strength proves to insufficient, and Torvald dies in battle, Desmond figures out how to use the First God's staff to awaken golden dragons. When the latters arrive, they deliver a Curb-Stomp Battle to the demons.
- Cue the Sun: In song "Saga For All Times" Desmond uses First God's staff to invoke this trope, destroy undeads and awaken golden dragons.
- Dimensional Traveler: Anyone who can cast "star portal" spell.
- Heel–Face Turn: Deimos, after being betrayed by blue dragons. It helps that he wasn't really evil in first place.
- Interdimensional Travel Device: "Gates", stationary devices that can send whole caravans to another world.
- Interquel: Inverted. The Legend of Xentharon is set both before before and after both Elven Manuscripts.
- Names to Run Away from Really Fast: Deimos, Greek for "dread". Justified, since this name was a result of Meaningful Rename.
- A Planet Named Zok: We have Enya, a planet that is a home to protagonists, that has a reasonable name, and we have Xentharon. Bonus points for resembling the word "Xeno".
- Sealed Good in a Can: As of the second album, golden dragons are in magical hibernation. Desmond wakes them up by using the First God's staff.
- Standard Fantasy Setting: let's see… Elves, dwarves, dragons (both good and evil), demons, and a song that's literally named "Sword and Sorcery". About the only part that is not standard are interplanetary travels, but their method is explicitly magical.
Other works of the band provide examples of:
- Heavy Mithril: They mostly sing about their own Standard Fantasy Setting, and have several songs about Tolkien's Legendarium, among other things. Par for the course for a Power Metal band. They do sing about other things, like (a Lawyer-Friendly Cameo of) Batman in the "Dark Knight" song, but fantasy is their main theme.
- Out-of-Genre Experience: Their 2019 "Beyond the Rules" single is a song about modern war, with a music video to match. The lyric is a first-person reasoning about the nature of war. This is, of course, sharply contrasts with Epidemia's normal Heavy Mithril themes.
