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Rating: Despite my neighbors believing otherwise, I have never been a great admirer of classic heavy metal.
Not so much due to a factor of stylistic immobility (legitimate and legitimized for genres like prog and punk which I love), nor for a hypothetical lack of originality (if I had to listen only to totally "different" records, I would have to give up 95% of my collection) but for a lack of personality.
This is even truer today, within the power scene where most bands are too busy playing at the speed of light to produce appreciable variations in register within the same album or, indeed, throughout their entire career.
Call me nostalgic, but once the phenomenon was less evident. The punk rage of early Iron Maiden, the encounter with the folk of Skyclad, the bootlegs of Rush and Pink Floyd under the bed of Voivod were the winning strategies to differentiate from the masses, simply by looking around.
Paradigmatic is the case of my favorites, Warlord.
The band led by William Tsamis and Mark Zonder debuted in 1983 with "Deliver Us," followed the next year by the equally extraordinary "...And The Cannons Of Destruction Have Begun," both present in this "Best" (with the addition of a previously unreleased track, "Mrs. Victoria"), which thus becomes the best way to get to know them.
The Los Angeles group was unfairly compared to the more simplistic Manowar, Cirith Ungol, and Manilla Road for the epic component of their proposal. In reality, even working in the 80s, Warlord had the same musical approach as the great hard bands of the past.
Imagine a "dry" Uriah Heep thanks to the gift of synthesis typical of an eighties group, or a new prog band revisited in a hard key (my mind keeps thinking of Pallas): these were Warlord.
The song form is never sacrificed to technique, even when stumbling upon an instrumental like "Soliloquy," where the music changes by degrees, without abrupt jolts, so as not to interrupt its pathos.
The appeal does not lack folk elements ("Deliver Us From Evil," "Penny For A Poor Man"), doom hints, and the shadow of some forgotten underground progressive group. Needless to talk about the speed of "Child Of The Damned", capable of making a good impression even when covered by Hammerfall. My favorite songs are "Aliens" and "Lost And Lonely Days", the latter endowed with a melancholy that, in other fields, only Caravan and Sad Lovers And Giants managed to create.
Cult band par excellence, the nostalgia for our Heroes was filled by the reunion and the album "Rising Out Of The Ashes" in 2002, but the magic had vanished.
Their sound was successfully proposed by Falconer, but that is another story...
Tracklist Lyrics and Videos
03 Child of the Damned (04:04)
You made me see right past myself
well beyond my fears
Realized I'm synchronized
far beyond my years
I'm so geared into them
I serve unto their souls
Now that I'm addicted
my hunger only grows
I'm a Child of the Damned
I follow where I go
Rigging to the cross
as holy as a whore!
I'm just a child of the damned
Witches' coven the time is come
for those sabbatical years
Revelation is the message
for all in all to hear
Prophets slayed mankind arrayed
into a mass submission
Evil's here and the lord of hell
gives you the proposition!
I'm a Child of the Damned
I follow where I go
Rigging to the cross
as holy as a whore!
I'm just a child of the damned
Give away your life's goals
your meaning and ambition
It means nothing to you
after all it's superstition!
Do not be afraid
the world is near the end
Is it better to rule in hell,
than it is to serve in heaven?
I'm a Child of the Damned
I follow where I go
rigging to the cross
as holy as a whore!
I'm just a child of the damned
05 Black Mass (05:32)
on the eve of tribulation
before the morrow's wrath
it was then then that the covens gathered
for the final black mass!
the moon it was full
and the time had come for us all
the sun it was gone
and the people awaited their call
the devil was there
with the fire burning in the air
the demons they danced
and drank from the chalice they shared
nobody cared!
now the evil of man
had passed by the act of lucifer's kiss
and the evil broke loose
from the tombs of hell's fiery abyss
the devil was there
with the fire burning in the air
the demons they danced
and drank from the chalice they shared
now the prince knelt down
for communion of the time that he fast
and the father he blessed
his child with the blood of the black mass!
black mass!
06 Lucifer's Hammer (03:49)
It comes through the heavens, on a mission from hell
A force of destruction, that nothing can repel
A story is born that no one will live to tell
The obliteration of man, now encased in its shell
At the push of a button, we all will go to hell
Who will be left to toll the funeral bell . . .
The Hammer will Fall on you!
The Hammer will Fall on you!
Devastation, destruction of all the nations
Annihilation, clouding of all the skies
Raise the dead from their graves, and throw in yourselves and hide
Save us - from ourselves
Save us - from ourselves
Save us - from ourselves
Save us - from ourselves
Save us . . .
13 Child of the Damned (03:38)
You made me see right past myself
well beyond my fears
Realized I'm synchronized
far beyond my years
I'm so geared into them
I serve unto their souls
Now that I'm addicted
my hunger only grows
I'm a Child of the Damned
I follow where I go
Rigging to the cross
as holy as a whore!
I'm just a child of the damned
Witches' coven the time is come
for those sabbatical years
Revelation is the message
for all in all to hear
Prophets slayed mankind arrayed
into a mass submission
Evil's here and the lord of hell
gives you the proposition!
I'm a Child of the Damned
I follow where I go
Rigging to the cross
as holy as a whore!
I'm just a child of the damned
Give away your life's goals
your meaning and ambition
It means nothing to you
after all it's superstition!
Do not be afraid
the world is near the end
Is it better to rule in hell,
than it is to serve in heaven?
I'm a Child of the Damned
I follow where I go
rigging to the cross
as holy as a whore!
I'm just a child of the damned
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