The Sword - Warp Riders

Release Date: August 24th, 2010
Label: Kemado Records

TRACK LISTING

1.  Acheron/Unearthing the Orb
2.  Tres Brujas
3.  Arrows in the Dark
4.  The Chronomancer I: Hubris
5.  Lawless Lands
6.  Astraea's Dream
7.  The Warp Riders
8.  Night City
9.  The Chronomancer II: Nemesis
10.  (The Night the Sky Cried)
       Tears of Fire

Total playing time:  48:31

September 22, 2010

Reviewer: Lynora

“You don’t age when you live out of time,” seems to be the most appropriate quote from The Swords new album The Warp Riders.  The Sword continues to live out of regulated time, because when I close my eyes and listen to them, everyone around me has handlebar mustaches, corduroy pants, and long hair.

How they manage to come out with an even more impressive album then the 2008’s Gods of the Earth is beyond me.  This albums jerky southern rock, 70’s heavy rock and the contemporary sludge and doom vibes will keep your head bobbing especially to my pick of the litter “Lawless Lands.”  On The Warp Riders the sound is no less epic then previous albums, but the pace seems faster and more energetic.  The album is themed and I was concerned it was going to have a trippy futuristic vibe and stray from the great sound of past albums.  As a matter of fact, I was afraid to hear this album, because I didn’t want anything to tarnish my view of this great band.  But, was I ever shocked on my first listen. While it seems to be more about time and space cowboys then mythology, they haven’t strayed too far; this definitely still feels like The Sword.  And it sounds even better then before!

From the opening track “Archeron/Unleashing the Orb,” The Sword will snatch up your attention and completely satisfy your need for heavy.  It opens with a hard, fast, and relentlessly driven guitar line beckoning you to delve deeper into the album.  Immediately after such a gratifying opening instrumental is “Tres Brujas” which was the first song I heard off of the album and it is still one of my favorites.  This album has elements of southern metal found in Corrosion of Conformity and Nashville Pussy, but still sounds like doom metal.  Truthfully though, categories should be ignored because this sounds most like The Sword.  More importantly too, it sounds like a perfect progression forward. 

“Astraea’s Dream” is another gift to me ears, and the title track “The Warp Riders,” is another perfect Sword track.  “The Chronomancer II” seems to frame the album perfectly and I love that Sword isn’t afraid to play giant chunks of music and not sing.  It’s a skill to know when things are and are not called for.  They don’t just write A to B to C music, they write well-structured songs and it’s very intelligently done.  Now, don’t get me wrong, but there are songs on the album I find a little too-well its hard to say.  No, they aren’t radio friendly or trendy or light to the standard person, but I guess to a metal standard, I feel this way.  Like “Night City,” the riffs I adore but the refrain and the vibe of it I do not.  I only bring up this concern because I don’t it spreading or bleeding into other work of theirs. 

In the metal tree there are so many branches it’s almost hard to keep track, but they still all pull from one place.  Bands like Black Sabbath, Motorhead, nestled at the trunk of the tree, and old blues down deep in the roots.  Bands that go further out in the branches are affected by different parts of the supporting root networks.  Like the hardcore branch that is hanging far out there, comes from punk influences in it’s correlating roots.  The Sword’s The Warp Riders made me think that in the tree of heavy metal, The Sword’s roots are directly beneath the tree.  After running through the base, they stay centered and grounded in the heart of heavy metal.  Despite being rooted in heavy rock, and a 70s sound, the sound production of this album utilizes the recording capabilities of contemporary metal to make a full, enormous, thunderous sound.  So far, The Warp Riders is my favorite The Sword album to date, and it is definitely worth a listen to anyone who enjoys heavy, heavy, heavy music.

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