8/10
Is this powerful? Well, I shuffled a handful of these tunes together, played ‘em for my septuagenarian neighbor and cured him of his five-year dependency on Viagra. His twentysomething girlfriend thanked me profusely. (No need to say how profusely.)
Not since Into Glory Ride has the fur on my neck stood up for anything remotely related to Manowar as it did during the opening moments of this little sucker. By the time the guardians of real metal rolled out “Blow Your Speakers” in 1987 on Fighting the World the true Manowar, like the true Raven, was as much a remnant of the imagination as that soup you wolfed down at Granny’s house when you were six or seven. But here, it’s like 1982 all over again with the ultra manly “Blood of Knives,” “Death and Glory,” “Matador” and “Plague of Lies” (reminds me of the time I first heard Armored Saint’s “Can U Deliver”), ‘cept the production is much, much better and I’m not stuck in the attic bedroom freezing my ass of while flexing my prepubescent muscles and pretending that one day I, too, may don a furry loincloth and get approximately zero chicks.
True, some of the material here hits a little too close to the contemporary––“Constantine’s Sword” is a stab at Marilyn Manson that’s only saved by a nod or two to the mighty Manilla Road and “We Will Kill” calls to mind King Diamond at a Harley rally. (Not a good thing, with all due respect to NASCAR enthusiast King.) And, finally, the album might be slightly more solid without the closing “Immortal Son.” But, damn, it’s good to have Ross The Boss still making records.
Death to false metal indeed.––––––––––––––––––––––Jedd Beaudoin
No comments:
Post a Comment