It’s been a good week for music.
On Wednesday I took in a New Pornographers concert which was pretty good. It
didn’t blow me away, but they played well and it was a fun time. The opening
act was Born Ruffians who were also solid. The crowd seemed to appreciate both,
with many fans singing along every word, which was cool. It is always great
when you see someone enjoying their favourite band.
New Pornographers aren’t my
favourite band, but I like them. I’ve got two of their albums and their new one
is solid and will soon grace my collection as well.
On to the next review as I
continue to renew my love of heavy metal.
Disc 1055 is…Age of Winters
Artist: The Sword
Year of Release: 2006
What’s up with the Cover? An Art Nouveau-style painting of
a beautiful blonde woman reclining, sword and shield nearby. Perhaps this is a
Valkyrie on a coffee break? If so I hope she puts on some leather boots before
she heads back out to collect the souls of those fallen in battle, because
battlefields can be littered with all kinds of sharp objects.
How I Came To Know It: About ten months ago I was looking
something up on Youtube (I don’t remember what, but some metal album) and “Age
of Winters” popped up as “recommended for you”. I gave it a chance and loved
what I heard.
How It Stacks Up: The Sword have five albums, and I own four of
them (yeah, I fell for them pretty hard). Of those four I put “Age of Winters” third;
Solid, but two others are that much better.
Ratings: 3 stars
Ever
wonder what had happened to good old straight forward heavy metal? Well about a
year ago, I did. Sure there are other kinds of metal that was birthed out of
those early years. Doom metal, thrash metal, speed metal and death metal to
name just a few. Lots of good stuff in there, but I was looking for that pure
stuff – like what if eighties metal hadn’t died, but had just grown louder?
“Age of
Winters” is the trunk of that metal tree, still alive and kicking. Called by
some “the New Wave of Traditional Heavy Metal,” this is music that takes
eighties metal riffs and makes them thicker and crunchier than ever before. No
one does it better than the Sword, and “Age of Winters” is the album that got
them started.
Musically,
this stuff is three chords and a cloud of dust. Drums shake the earth, and guitars
pound out basic riffs and assault your ear drums. When you think you’ve had
your fill of riffs, the Sword shoves a few more down your throat. Eat it! Like
it! If that sounds aggressive, that’s the point. This is music to mosh to.
Plant your feet and sweat through your t-shirt while you let it soak into your
spine and organs until it becomes part of you.
Care for
a guitar solo? Well, there aren’t many of those on “Age of Winters,” just a
series of competing riffs playing back and forth off each other. The boys play
so tight, though, that you don’t miss any of the usual digital wizardry of
other metal bands. Instead they focus on deep blues riffs, electrified and
infused with iron ore and blood.
Care for
some vocal gymnastics? Not much of that either. Writer and lead singer J.D.
Cronise doesn’t have the operatic vocal range of a Rob Halford or Bruce
Dickenson. However, he does know how to write a song that suits his more rhythm
driven style. The influence of Ozzy-era Black Sabbath is obvious in Cronise’s
delivery, but he adds a doom metal grimness that makes it all his own.
The
whole thing is gloriously heavy, chugging along without ever descending into
the stew that is Doom Metal, never furiously noodling its way into Thrash Metal
but finds a nice common ground with both. Slow and heavy wins the race, my
friends.
Lyrically,
“Age of Winters” is all about fantasy, sorcery and – yes – swords, all of which
painted with ridiculously majestic language. Here is some good stuff from the
opening of “Lament for the Aurochs”:
“Laboring in the liquid light of
leviathan
Spectres swarm around the sunken cities of the saurians
Rising from the void through the blackness of eternal night
Colossus of the deep comes crashing down with cosmic might.”
Spectres swarm around the sunken cities of the saurians
Rising from the void through the blackness of eternal night
Colossus of the deep comes crashing down with cosmic might.”
I’m not
sure what’s going on here, but it sounds really fucking important, and more
than a little Lovecraftian. Even the instrumental “March of the Lor” has eight movements. These are:
- Through the Breach
- Iron Ships on Seas of Blood
- Invocation of Halora
- The Black Web is Spun
- Misery of the Plague-Born
- The Spiders’ Descent
- Conquest of Kingdoms
- Age of Winters
This
list of themes could cover a whole prog album for an hour but “Age of Winters”
sorts it all out in a single instrumental in less than five minutes.
Despite
the rather ambitious mythology the Sword is trying to create, there isn’t a lot
of complicated arrangements going on with “Age of Winters.” This is straight
ahead punch-you-in-the-nose metal, thick and heavy like metal should be. While
later albums by The Sword would be more musically interesting, there is a lot
to be said for “Age of Winters” pure and furious energy. I liked it a lot and
if you enjoy metal, so will you.
Best
tracks: Freya,
Winter’s Wolves, Lament for the Aurochs, Ebethron
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