... And the cannons of destruction have begun --- Warlord --- Recommended by The Batlord
I'm currently sitting in a chair with my foot raised and bandaged, in a cast. Why> I'll tell you why. Because in his journal, said Batlord enthused so much over this album that he said I should drop whatever I was doing and check it out. Trusting his recs I hastened to do so, unfortunately the thing I was doing at the time was transporting some heavy paving slabs. Dropping one on my foot has, however, given me the opportunity to listen to this find that so impressed he who sits on the Bat-throne. So, was it worth it? Let's see. And may I say also, ow?
The first thing I noticed was a decent atmospheric build up but it's very overblown; not so much portentous and pretentious --- and yes, I know making that comparison is the height of pretension anyway, but I doubt the universe will implode just yet --- bringing us into the real opening track. Now it's good, heads-down heavy metal with a lot of melody, but there's just one thing bugging me about it: it follows a little too closely the melody and riffs from Gary Moore's "End of the world", and that was released two years prior. Don't believe me? Have a listen.
(Check from about 2:10 on)
I'm not saying they're exactly the same but there are definitely correlations with the melodies and riffs. Coincidence? Maybe. But these guys are the band Doomsword worship and model themselves on, and to quote The Batlord, Doomsword rock! So surely it'll pick up, yes? Well let's see.
So it's a good track but the similarities are too much for me to believe Warlord have not been listening to "Corridors of power" in their spare time. Then they go all Bon Jovi with "Lost and lonely days". Again, listen to this track from the New Jersey lads' self-titled debut, which was at least released the same year so I won't accuse them of copying Jon and the boys, but again it's close and a little uncomfortably so.
And so we're on to "Black mass", with a suitably Sabbath doomy opening but which quickly switches up into a cross between Ten and Manowar. Nothing wrong with any of these tracks but they're hardly coming across as original. Plus the production is awful. Where did they record this: someone's bathroom? The vocalist often sounds flat and the music seems almost muffled at times. "Aliens" is laughable. It's just terrible, almost like a metal band doing a song about aliens because they feel they should. I laughed at Neonfly's "I think I saw a UFO" last year, but this is worse.
Luckily, they rescue it at the death. For the last two tracks, one of which is split into an instrumental called 1984 (but in Roman numerals) and the other half is, as His Batness reminded us, a song that was covered by Hammerfall, "Child of the damned", and it's pretty damned good. The closer is "Deliver us from evil", the last of four tracks that appear on their original EP, so named, and it's brilliant, a great closer.
So then, what do we have? A band who Batty now worships but I see a lot of flaws in. Basically, they seem not to really know what direction they want to go in --- the keyboard intro to "Soliloquy" is almost AOR or even pop, but I'll be kind and say it's symphonic rock/metal --- with pretty dull and flat production and certainly enough self-belief to equip the armies of four continents, plus the talent to back it up. But songs that do not in my opinion display their expertise to its fullest. I say again, "Aliens". Good god.
I have to admit, I expected a whole lot more given the trouser-creaming comments of The Batlord, but as for me, with this album my own skirt is very much still in place and I doubt I'll be pushing further into their short discography. Or if I do it'll be via Spotify. I bought this album --- only cost 35 cents, and who is gonna miss 35 cents? --- as I wanted to give it a few spins before making my decision and I also expected it to be one I would want to keep playing. I'm not saying it was money wasted...
Anyway, that's how I feel about this album. No doubt Batty will call me a stupid clueless little girl, but despite expecting it to be really something of a revelation I'm left with mostly a sense of meh.
And may I also add once again, ow!
Sorry Bats!
Rec rating: rather surprisingly to me, all I can muster is a tentative
6/10