Disco de The Sword: “Age of Winters”

I love heavy music, but when you hear something that might strike up some interest and then the singer starts screaming his guts out, it's a complete turn off. What ever happened to good, hard, stripped down metal riffs and vocals. Finally a band that actually gets it. I heard The Sword a few months ago on a comcast music channel and immediatly went out and bought the cd. It's been stuck in my cd player ever since. Last night I drove 3 hours to see them live and it was worth every mile. Alot of people have complained about the vocals on this album, but fot me this was one of the selling points. I'd love to cram the mic down the throat of some of these idiots that do nothing but scream through every song. To me that takes alot away from the music. Heres a frontman who dosnt try to overshadow the instruments with an annoying singing voice. Sure, they sound like Sabbath, but I'm in my 20s and thank god somebody from my generation wants to bring some Sabbath-type metal to modern times. Dont forget, this band just formed 2 years ago and this is their first album, their not rich, so to all of you leaving reviews complanining about recording and sound quality, maybe you should stick with bands that have been out for a while. Support The Sword and bring metal back to where it should be.

I had read some reviews about this album and finally had to check it out for myself. Wow. This band has drawn a lot of comparisons to Black Sabbath, and while the huge riffs of early Sabbath are there, I would draw a closer comparison to Sleep or Pentagram. I can dig crazy guitar theatrics or over-the-top screaming vocals, but for the most part, when I want to seriously rock out I just want HUGE skull-crushing riffs. And The Sword has 'em. You can keep your moshtastic breakdowns and shredding guitar solos. I'll take The Sword. If you own Sleep's "Holy Mountain," any of the first 6 Sabbath albums, anything by Pentagram...you need this disc.

The Sword is the anomaly you've been waiting for: a metal album by nerds who rock huge. Many would-be lovers of heavy metal are put off by the reigning machismo and anti-intellectualism of so many of the genre's dominant bands. (To say nothing of the fans: nowhere is the bottom 10% of your high-school's graduating class so well represented as at a Slayer show.) But when the alternatives to this aggressive dumbness are the inacessibility of avant-garde heaviness-for-heaviness's sake (Sunn O)))) or "music" by and for postapocalyptic cyborgs (Dillinger Escape Plan, Meshuggah) the thoughtful headbanger starts to wonder, "Is there no band that will satisfy both my wizard AND my warrior?"

The Sword is this band. Many reviewers have praised The Sword's Promethean gift of riffs, which will keep me playing air guitar for years to come. But the rare pleasure here is the lyrics. Anybody can churn out rhymes based on pop fantasy and SF, but it takes just a little more energy to quote W. B. Yeats in your liner notes. Just a gimmick to catch college English majors with the honey of literary canonicity? Mabye. But these lyrics deliver on the promise of this epigraph, offering an album-length elegy for make-believe times past. In a scene where most lyricists lack the time to read books because they're too busy lifting weights or watching NASCAR, The Sword's willingness to send you to the dictionary (sibyl, aurochs) and remind you how much of your vocabulary you learned from Dungeons and Dragons (dais, vorpal) is as refreshing as a wind from the forbidden mountains of the Goblin-King.

It would be called The Sword.

The Sword are a 4-piece metal band from Austin, Texas. The members of the band have been playing for nine years in different metal bands before that, and it definetly shows. The professionalism that runs through the album is amazing considering that it is a debut. There has been a lot of talk about their metal status, people saying that they are just "emo wankers trying to be cool." Forget the image, people, this band just plain rocks.

There are many different styles that run through on this album. The easiest to see is the Corrosion of Conformity influence on songs such as "Barael's Blade," "Freya," and "Winter's Wolves" (Gotta love the wolf howl in the middle. Wolves don't howl for anybody.) But, there is also some really heavy doom metal songs in here that remind me of the now-defunct stoner metal icons Sleep, such as the drony intro "Celestial Crown" and the downbeat "Lament For The Aurochs." Also, on the previously mentioned song, and other tracks like "Iron Swan," the band pulls out some thrash metal reminescent of early Testament, Megadeth, and yes...even 1980's Metallica.

In my opinion, if you are just a fan of plain heavy metal, get this album. This band pleases anyone who is a fan of the heavy, and it's subgenres. So, do yourself a favor and BUY THIS ALBUM! These guys can't do wrong.

I love all kinds of music, but I just "dabble" in metal. However, this may be the most fun I have had listening to a new "heavy" album since "Appetite for Destruction" came out in '87. Yes, it is over the top, bombastic, and melodramatic, but isn't that what metal is about?

The Sword sound like Ozzy & Iommi hooked up with some southern girls back in the early 70s and left behind a hybrid sludge-metal / southern-rock sleeper cell waiting for their signal to emerge. Their sound is nothing new or unique, and really doesn't add anything to the overall rock story. However, "Age of Winters" still manages to sound fresh and exciting.

Play "Age of Winters" back to back with Wolfmother's debut album and be thoroughly transported back to the dawn of heavy metal.