The Sword
Gods Of The Earth

De-Rece Autentica:

Metal!!!!!!1*

(Those who have ears -worn out- to hear, let them hear!)

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*Footnotes:

I vaguely remember the ancient existence on the surface of the globe of a Heavy Metal Band called Sword, coming from Canada, of which I purchased both of their universally essential vinyls ("Metalized" and "Sweet Dreams") published in the second half of the eighties that, if I'm not mistaken, between a metal rampage and another, also opened for the revived Metallica in the tour following the release of "Master Of Puppets".

The web informs me, causing a slight yet somewhat bearable disappointment in me, that those remotely dispersed Metal-Swordsmen have almost nothing to do with these new Heavy-Lancelots here.

Maybe.

But flipping through the second volume of the just metallized Texans, released twenty years after the "predecessor" and second album of the Sword back then ["Sweet Dreams" indeed], to be honest there would be more than something in common: both musically hairy Combos direct their sound and vocal coordinates towards a classically muscular, plump, canicular, stoically para-medieval (themes based on bold knights, noble maidens, flying dragons, sharp scimitars and similar villainies) Heavy Metallo Metallorum D.O.C.

Moreover: the major and real paradox lies in the fact that the concept conceived (oops) a few months ago sounds, in some ways, globally even more old-fashioned than the one generated by the namesakes in the past millennium.

Perhaps it would be worth asking the real sense and the effective usefulness to attribute and derive from the release and listening today of an operation of such a backwards-looking nature, or of the recycled perseverance in proposing for the really infinite time a genre characterized by stylistic clichés so beaten, abused, worn, surveyed, and drained to the bone in every minute detail for more than twenty years now.

But maybe not.

Because the album, despite the pragmatic skepticism towards operations of such ilk, it seems absurd but hosts its positive identity and recognizable dignity; firstly, even considering the very tight stylistic coordinates within which they engage, the assembly does not "sound" calligraphically like any other album/group of the genre (practically a miracle!): it is clear it cannot help but present elusive references, heroic liaisons with something already delved into in the eight hundred and twelve million heavy metal albums produced since the origins (let's say 1970?) to today but at the same time seems to possess its indisputable "why." Secondly, the construction is anything but banal/cursory ("Lords") of the nine tracks it contains, leaving (moderately) satisfied even after multiple/repeated listens; in fourth instance (and the third?) also the choice of sounds seems particularly effective and well-chosen starting from the more turbulent moments with a harsh vaguely semi-Thrash flavor ("Fire Lances the Ancient Hyperzephyrians") of the guitars to the dynamically robust and varied percussive strategy ("The Sundering"/ "How Heavy This Axe") which distinguishes its tungstenic sound-attributes.

In short, O readers who have become unrecognizable fathers of families, unsuspecting white-collars now completely enslaved to the system and the almighty dollar, take a break of a modest forty miserable minutes from your comfortable life, extricate from the old chests the battered biker jacket, the unbearable studded belt, the horrifying skinny jeans, the shriveled/odorous Manowar shirt and proceed towards the liberating, (in)sane, neck-wrecking, maybe last but authentic Headbanging in Peace!   

P.S. personally, I soothed the neck pain [damn: I'm no longer the age for certain things] with the amazing Vegetalluminae