The Sword
Warp Riders
Kemado
First ever concept album from Texan metal monsters The Sword, which, as you might guess from the cover, draws its cosmic inspiration from old bargain bin sci-fi novels and creased issues of Heavy Metal magazine. Warp Riders, then, is a conscious thematic shift for the band, which has set its lyrical sights this time on the great beyond, tackling planetary forces of good and evil instead of the more earthly doom and gloom of battle axes and black magic. The narrative, in brief, is about Ereth, an archer who has been banished from his tribe on the planet Acheron, which is stuck in a tidal lock, meaning that half of it is shrouded in darkness while the other half is burnt by the heat of three different suns. Got it? Good. Warp Riders is also a bit of a musical departure for The Sword as well, who have surround their space-world narrative with some freak-fried, 70s-infused boogie doom, and the whole thing kind of sounds like Witchcraft and Year Long Disaster gigging biker bars on Mars. Dig the thick, red rock n’ roll on “Tres Brujas,” “Lawless Lands,” “Night City,” and “(The Night the Sky Cried) Tears of Fire” for the best examples. But listen, the faithful needn’t worry because The Sword haven’t completely abandoned their head-banging aesthetics; they’ve just fused some asteroid-splitting riffs with their old pro stoner thrashing for a massively dope ride through the outermost limits. And it really is some awesome stuff.
Listen to “Night City” from Warp Riders!
Posted by Jeff on Aug 23 2010 in Reviews
Tags: '70s, (The Night the Sky Cried) Tears of Fire, Acheron, archer, Asteroid, battle axe, biker, black magic, boogie, burnt, concept, cosmic, darkness, doom, dope, earhtly, Ereth, evil, force, freak-fried, gloom, good, head-banging, heavy metal, Kemado, Lawless Lands, massive, narrative, Night City, planetary, red, riff, rock n' roll, sci-fi, space-world, stoner, Texas, The Sword, thick, thrash, tidal lock, Tres Brujas, Warp Riders, Witchcraft, Year Long Disaster
Year Long Disaster