D’s Take: My metal-nerd boner almost cut a swath of sweatpants.
The Sword is back with a third album. By now you know what to expect from these guys — Sabbathy stoner metal about shit that metal nerds love. “Age of Winters” — wizards and shit. “Gods of the Earth” — er, Gods of the Earth and shit. Now “Warp Riders.” Quite frankly, I’m not sure what “Warp Riders” is about. I know it’s a sci-fi concept album. I think it’s about time travel. But there’s archers and orbs and witches and space pirates and Chronomancers…and shit.
Musically, “Warp Riders” offers up pretty much what you’d expect from The Sword. The album starts off with Acheron/Unearthing the Orb, a pretty rocking instrumental, because that’s just how these guys go on about shit. In fact, I think it’s the best track on the whole album — the buildup is intense. From there on, it’s the same fare you’d expect from The Sword, except a bit more polished than anything they’ve done to date. All things told, the album rocks. I’ve drawn quite a few laughs from onlookers as I have rocked out to “Warp Riders” in my car. So pick it up, you will rock out.
It’s a damn good album. It would have been a great album if the concept story made a lick of sense. It doesn’t. Like I said, it’s about an archer, time travel, pirates, androids, orbs, and other assorted sci-fi stuff, but any attempt to tie them all together into anything resembling a narrative is stroke-inducingly frustrating. The band’s website claims that the story is about the battle between good and evil. Well, congratulations. So is every other story ever written, you hipsters. Shit, this review is about the battle between good and evil. (T Frankenstein is evil).
So try not to make sense of the story. You will fail. Enjoy each song individually. After all, the next best thing to a cohesive metal concept album about witches, space pirates, orbs, archers, and time travel is a rocking metal album with individual, stand-alone songs about witches, space pirates, orbs, archers, and time travel. While your metal nerd boner might not cut the sweatpants, it’ll stretch them to their limits, my friends.
T’s Take: This album does not give me an erection (sorry D, if that makes me evil so be it). That’s not to say I don’t dig this album. I do. I just feel like it should have come with a bag of microwavable popcorn. Take any cheesy sci-fi movie you can think of, throw some metal behind it and voila you get “Warp Riders”. I told D earlier in the week that “anyone that takes this shit seriously needs to take a good long hard look in a mirror”. Fucking geeks. Look I can geek out with the best of ‘em. My favorite movie is Empire (Strikes Back… geeks can abbreviate this one). I play video games. I read comic books. I watched Battlestar fucking Galactica. But at the end of the day I know all that shit is just mindless entertainment. I don’t take it seriously. I’m not gonna get worked up and argue over plot points and character motivation. Just let me sit there in peace and veg out with some popcorn and watch a spaceship explode. So yeah I dig “Warp Riders”. It’s entertaining as fuck. I have no idea what it’s about though. Don’t really care either.
The only thing that could have made this album better is if the Mystery Science Theater guys came out in the middle of it and made fun of it. The album cover reminds me of something out of Flash Gordon. Remember that piece of shit!?! So no I don’t take this album seriously. Again you may think by the way I started my review that I don’t like it. I do. I like it for the same reasons I like Nicolas Cage. It crosses the line between ridiculous and awesome (for the sake of argument I drew a scaled down version of my rendition of said line).
If you like Black Sabbath type metal get this. If you like corn-ball sci-fi about orbs and witches and hyperspace warps and archers and people with names like Acheron get this. If you like song titles like The Chronomancer II: Nemesis, you’re a fucking geek, but still you should probably get this since you need something to fill your endless hours of not getting laid. If you like vinyl, again, get this. It sounds fucking phenomenal on wax. The copy amazon sent me is clear orange and hand numbered out of a 5000 copy run. And yes it includes a download code. Just don’t stop me in the street and argue the plot with me. I don’t fucking care.
Tres Brujas
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while i love the Sword, and the new record is awesome… i dont care about the story either. UNLESS…it ends with the singer cutting off his stupid fucking mustache.
Yeah man. He needs to give that ‘stache back to the dude from Torche.