MANOWAR – Warriors Of The World

All right; some reviews are longer than others, but some bands are more important than others – that’s a fact, like it or not! (All bands are equal, but some bands are more equal than others.) The most genuine heavy metal band on earth is back. Well, are they? No, they were always here, so why say they are back? Because it’s been 7 years since their last LP, “Louder Than Hell”, and a lot has happened in 7 years. (Remember Def Leppard made T-shirts saying “Don’t Ask” after only 4 years of absence?) So what happened all those years? Manowar gave their fans great live CD’s and videos to chew on, and thank God – not much happened to the band and their musical expression. Manowar always was, still is and always will be pure heavy fucking metal; fuck the trends! “Warriors…” is another compilation of killer tracks, blending performances and war hymns – exactly what the fans await from the band. I wish all musicians would pay this much respect to their fans.

So moving on to the disc itself, “Call To Arms” is nothing but a heavy metal masterpiece, and a close brother of “Blood Of My Enemies”. “Fight For Freedom” is very melodic song with extremely strong choruses, while the third song, “Nessum Dorma”, is an Italian opera first performed by the band at Gods Of Metal in Milan a few years ago (I was there!). We all know Manowar never was afraid to include different aspects of music on their CD’s, as long as it is done in a true Manowar tradition. So is this opera – and it is remarkably well performed by singer Eric Adams. And please note that awesome metal high pitch in the end… “Valhalla” is a short instrumental that kind of goes into “Swords In The Wind” – if I understand my cassette copy right – a slow epic song, with such an incredible melody line. You will play it again and again and again! Then, there’s beeeeeeeeeeeeep, and I will get back to that later.

“The March” is an instrumental that I guess is very much inspired by Wagner, Joey DeMaio’s favorite composer as far as I know. It’s a beautiful piece. As close as anything to a titletrack, “Warriors Of The World United” is one of the best songs I have heard in a long, long time. It’s very simple, and you’ve heard all the lyrics before, but sung by Eric Adams they make sense and are relevant. The anthem is so huge, the riff is such a monster, if you don’t raise your hands to this you’re a worthless piece if shit! This is the perfect Manowar song! And again, note the shrieks of Eric Adams in the end. “Hand Of Doom”, a bit faster than the other songs presented until now, sees Adams show off how he can use his whole register, even the deep and doomy vocals. The song is heavy and atmospheric, where Karl Logan delivers another blistering solo. “House Of Death”, and again we’re speeding up. The song is a relative of “Power” from the “Louder…” album, and that is indeed meant as a compliment. Scott Colombus is a real timekeeper.

And then, to end a great album, there’s “Fight Until We Die”, which is exactly what Manowar always did, still does and always will do! So why didn’t I give this CD full score? Back to that “beeeeeep” I mentioned earlier on; “An American Trilogy”. This is the worst track Manowar ever has cut on disc, which means it can still be good – but it isn’t! I don’t know precisely what this is, but something leads me to Elvis Presley. Singing about Dixieland and “Glory Glory Hallelujah”, the latter even brings back memories from Stryper back in the day. The track shows patriotism and might be good for Americans these days, but it makes me wish that someone made a CD player that has an “omit” button. You can select what songs you want to hear, then program the CD player, but you buy the disc because you like the majority of the songs, right? So why didn’t anyone make a CD player that easily just omits the one track you don’t care about? If I get a player like that, I can skip “An American Trilogy” by pushing once, now I have to program the rest instead, and push ten times. Well, that was a digression. Conclusion, you can count on Manowar (like that is news to the fans?). They have once again made a heavy metal milestone, with nothing new, but who cares? Stripes on a tiger don’t wash away…