Mastodawn

Dec2️⃣9️⃣
Someone finds their independence

#SavageGrace (2007)

A dramatization of the shocking Barbara Daly Baekeland murder case, which happened in a posh London flat on Friday 17 November 1972.
#EddieRedmayne #JulianneMoore

Angry Metal Guy May 8, 2024

Warlord – Free Spirit Soar Review

By Steel Druhm

And the cannons of destruction have begun… anew! Long ago in a very different time, guitarist Bill Tsamis and drummer Mark Zonder (later to become a member of Fates Warning) joined forces to create a new heavy metal project. Warlord was a little band with a huge potential, and their early demos quickly caught the attention of Metal Blade Records. Their 1983 Deliver Us EP made an impression on the scene, offering regal, semi-progressive American power metal with hooks, pomp, and polish. Despite the promising start, lineup issues and the odd decision to use a live performance recorded and filmed in an empty theater as their full-length debut hurt their momentum.1 And though And the Cannons of Destruction Have Begun… was a solid piece of 80s metal with some major high points, it gained limited traction and left a confused public wondering what to make of it. Further lineup issues quickly undermined the band’s resolve and Warlord came to an ignoble end all too soon. The band’s cult mystique endured however, and Hammerfall’s cover of EP track “Child of The Damned” on their Glory to the Brave debut introduced Warlord to a new generation of metal fans. Soon thereafter, Tsamis and Zonder reunited to revive Warlord for the modern age. Since then they’ve dropped three albums of greatly varying quality.2 Bill Tsmamis sadly passed away in 2021, and now Mark Zonder has seen fit to carry on without him for fifth album, Free Spirit Soar. Can Warlord finally live up to the potential they’ve hinted at throughout their strange history?

I’ll say this about Free Spirit Soar – it truly captures the sound and feel of the band’s early output, as does the album art. It makes it almost too easy to imagine that this was the release intended to follow the Deliver Us EP. New vocalist Giles Lavery (Dragonsclaw, ex-White Wizzard) sounds quite similar to original frontman Jack Rucker and the production is so old school sounding it seems improbable it could’ve been recorded after 1985. Opener “Behold a Pale Horse” is a ginormous dose of old school American power with huge NWoBHM influences and it sounds as if it could have appeared on their EP or debut. Think Wytch Hazel meets Jethro Tull meets Atlantean Kodex and you have a sense of what to expect. It’s a great song with a seriously epic vibe, Lavery kills it with a laid-back but vibrant performance, and the keyboard presence provides a rich atmosphere for the guitar lines to play off. “Conquerors” is another ginormous olden metal gem with a classic metal gallop as classy riffs charge forth and 80s-centric keyboards blare away for dated texture. Lavery does a great job here, reminding me of Jiotis Parcharidis (ex-Human Fortress). The guitar work is slick and tasteful, recalling acts like Savage Grace and Heir Apparent, while hints of Keeper of the Seven Keys era Helloween inform the huge chorus. It’s my favorite song this year and I cannot get enough of it.

“Worms of the Earth” is another massive offering for those who buy their glory in bulk from GloryCo. It introduces a darker, more ominous sound with Lavery going for a more gravelly delivery and the music conjures a wonderfully larger-than-life trve metal feel. The same goes for the massive title track with its majestic gallop and Blind Guardian-esque might which get infused with a weird Blue Oyster Cult luster thanks to the 80s keyboard swells. “The Bell Tolls” is another biggum with a sweet blend of anthemic and epic-scale metal and the chorus sticks like Gorilla Glue. Seven-plus minute closer “RevelationXIV” sounds like a heady blend of Iron Maiden, Wytch Hazel, and cheesy-as-fook 70s sci-fi soundtracks, and though it can feel awkward and WAY too preachy, it still works and contains outstanding guitar work. Only “The Rider” feels slightly underbaked, with keyboards that rip the song out of metal entirely into something like 80s goth rock a la Joy Division. I’m madly in love with the production and how 80s it sounds, but at times the keyboards overwhelm the guitars and render them a nullity. This hurts the overall heaviness and drenches everything in cheddar gravy.

I’m highly impressed by the guitar work from the recently recruited Eric Juris (Crystal Viper). He decorates every song with tantalizingly old school metal leads and harmonies that an iron geezer like me just can’t resist. His playing touches on the best of early 80s metal while venturing into rock and folk for inspiration. Giles Lavery does a great job vocally and plays his part in recreating the sounds of a bygone era. He makes smart choices with his vocal placement and patterns, giving the material enough grit while keeping things smooth and classy. Well-traveled keyboard wizard Jimmy Waldo (Alcatrazz, ex-Vinnie Vincent Invasion) brings an ass-ton of 80s sound to the mix, and though he occasionally overdoes it and becomes too prominent, his playing is a huge part of the album’s charm. Mark Zonder provides a sturdy foundation for the castle building and alongside bassist Philip Earl Bynoe (A-Z) brings a rock-solid backline to the crusade.

I wouldn’t have imagined it possible after so many years and the passing of Bill Tsamis, but Warlord finally gives the metal world their magnum opus. Free Spirit Soar is the album we should have gotten in 1984 and though it’s got flaws, there’s a lot to love and the high points are HIGH. Better still, the album grows with every spin, revealing hidden layers to its rich soundscape. I can see this having a limited demographic due to its very dated sound, but classic metal fans will fooking love it. All hail our new Warlord. Long may they reign.

Rating: 4.0/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: High Roller
Website: facebook.com/officialwarlord
Releases Worldwide: May 10th, 2024

#2024 #40 #AmericanMetal #AtlanteanKodex #HeavyMetal #HighRollerRecords #May24 #Review #Reviews #SavageGrace #VirginSteele #WytchHazel

Warlord - Free Spirit Soar Review | Angry Metal Guy

A review of Free Spirit Soar by Warlord, available worldwide May 10th via High Roller Records.

Angry Metal Guy

Angry Metal Guy Jan 18, 2024

GardensTale’s Top Ten(ish) Album Art of 2023

By GardensTale

As we drag our bloated stomachs from the dinner table of Listurnalia to the couch of January, it’s easy to forget that dessert has yet been served. Like a Monty Python waiter with a thin mint, the artwork article is here to ensure everyone’s entrails are catapulted across the living room in a shower of vomitus and viscera. Our yearly celebration of metal visuals is a wonderfully diverse one, if I say so myself, with a wide range of color palettes, moods and styles for you to feast your eyes on. This is the latest I’ve ever written this article, but spending a week among the clutches of Transsylvanian vampires held me up in completing it sooner.

The rules, the rules, the rules. Order must be established lest the resultant list means nothing at all.

If we haven’t reviewed it, included it in a filter piece, or wrote a TYMHM article about it, it won’t be included. I’ve made one exception this year, because I can, but mostly because the review has just been sitting in the queue for ages as of this writing. So it’s been reviewed, just not published. Loophole!
One entry per artist. This turned out to be easier than any other year. My stricter and quicker selection process had no doubles at all! Perhaps Kantor didn’t have much time this year.
Original art only. While this does include photography (in vain, I’m afraid), it does not include a painting from 1739 with a logo slapped on. Be better than that, bands!
And a new rule that is guaranteed to bite me in the ass at some point: no AI art! While there are ethical use cases for AI art, album covers aren’t one of them, and if I can at all help it I will not add fuel to that fire.

THE WORST

#3. Eternity // Mundicide — I didn’t want to just do artwork where the band clearly doesn’t give a fuck. That’s too easy. The joy is when a band has put in the effort to make something uniquely idiotic, and that is where Eternity’s cover comes in. How did no one at any point in the creation of this artwork say “Hey guys? This looks incredibly stupid.” The little arms, man. It’s like the world’s worst rendition of “It’s a small world after all.”

#2. Secret Rule // Uninverse — This is the unpublished exception and I’m sure you can see why I felt the need to make it. The amount of unskilled photoshop here is downright grotesque. Band photo album covers are rarely advisable, but with these outfits and poses, peak awkward is achieved several times over. Add the weird band name with overengineered logo and illogical pun of an album title and the cringe is complete.

#1. Savage Grace // Sign of the Cross — This is How Not To Composition 101. Everything on this cover is in the wrong place at the wrong scale. Not to mention, the typefacing is a disaster. Unexplained additional text, fonts that don’t match, vertical text, you name it, Savage Grace has got it. The lady knight in the foreground looks like she’s taking a very satisfying dump, and do try not to spray your drink across your screen when you zoom in on the meme-worthy face on the floor. An unmitigated disaster.

THE BEST

#(ish). Varathron // The Crimson Temple (artist: Paolo Girardi) — Girardi has been doing this for well over a decade and along with Burke, Kantor and Chioreanu is one of the most recognizable artists in the scene. This one is one of his more horrifying scenes, a grisly and visceral mass sacrifice. The many details and surreal horror recalls Hieronymous Bosch, but the clever composition draws the eye back to the crimson pool and the screaming evil god-face.

#10. Hexvessel // Polar Veil (artist: Benjamin König) — I’ve made it no secret that I love surreal art, and this deeply intriguing illustration by Benjamin König fits that bill completely. Both the misty blue sky and the black of night fit perfectly well over the idyllic snowy town, but the way the split forms a curious celestial figure is inspired. The largely monochrome coloration gives the art a sense of cold stillness, hovering between serenity and grim portent.

#9. Sanguine Glacialis // Maladaptive Daydreaming (artist: Alex O’Dowd) — This is probably the most meta we’re going to get today. I love the contrast of the dark, bleak room and forlorn painter with the glowing, overspilling painting full of warmth and life. The logo and title placement are uncommonly nice as well here. It’s such a lovely work of art I can even overlook the fact that the woman is clearly not dressed for the job at hand.

#8. Raider // Trial by Chaos (artist: Mitchell Nolte) — It’s difficult making art that’s purposefully crowded but still easy to read. Mitchell Nolte, who was featured here with last year’s excellent Dawnwalker art, manages with ingenious color use, creating contrast with the warrior’s fiery aura to spotlight him in the center of a writhing mass of monsters. Wielding a broadsword in one hand and strangling a multi-eyed monster snake with the other solidifies the subject’s status as one of the most badass bastards in metal art this year.

#7. Fire Down Below // Low Desert Surf Club (artist: Christi du Toit) — Comic style illustrations are a rare treat in metal, and those done well are rarer still. Christi du Toit clearly has a knack for wondrous, intriguing layouts. I love the sharp shading and color palette, and the atypical, adventurous feel the illustration exudes. I read a lot of webcomics, and if I saw this on a cover page I’d already be hooked.

#6. Grant the Sun // Voyage (artist: William Hay) — So many metal covers are grim, dark, foreboding or violent. The art for Voyage, on the other hand, is a quirky and colorful affair. The diving panda and the anglerfish make for an interesting dichotomy, a collision of worlds that are never supposed to meet. But the wink and smile belies the beautiful details, such as the streams of air escaping the panda’s mouth or the various level of refraction in the turbulent waters.

#5. Wormhole // Almost Human (artist: Adam Burke) — Adam Burke is usually the go-to guy for sci-fi cosmoscapes, but his strongest artwork this year graces the cover of Wormhole, or as I’m told the correct pronunciation is, WWWOOORRRMMHHOOOOLLEEE. What I especially like about this art is how much story it suggests. Either something that wasn’t human is in the midst of becoming gradually more so, or someone is shedding their humanity (as well as skin). Either way, it has something to do with the rhino beetle, and I can’t wait to find out what.

#4. Evile // The Unknown (artist: Eliran Kantor) — Few artists could make me include a cover that is like 75% black. Kantor can, though. The slim beam of light cast by a cracked cellar door is the only light for the father and son, surrounded by inky blackness. Kantor is an expert at expressive faces, and this pair ooze fear and despair. It’s an effective and haunting image that uses black as a tool to tell a story. If only the album were as great as the artwork.

#3. Slomatics // Strontium Fields (artist: Ryan Lesser) — I knew this had to be on the list the moment I saw it. I’ll even forgive the lack of album and band titles. The breathless figure reminiscent of the Statue of Liberty, her eyes beaming and her hair waving as if underwater, stands in stark contrast with the glistening embodiment of cosmic horror behind her. A clever trick that enhances that contrast, besides the clash in color, is the difference in shading. The flesh monster has been rendered in angry blotches, the statuesque woman in more marble-like tones. Don’t forget to check out the full-size art in the review!

#2. Harm’s Way // Common Suffering (artist: Corran Brownlee) — This stark, haunting piece makes it abundantly clear that “It’s Raining Men” is a horror scenario. The dreamlike surrealism and the apocalyptic climax clash into a nightmare depiction that took my breath the first time I saw it, and still fills me with an appropriate excess of dread when I look at it now. Rendering it entirely in black & white and cleverly constraining the cloud of people with a frame makes the scene feel both immense and claustrophobic.

#1. Deadly Carnage // Endless Blue (artist: Alexios Ciancio) — Though this list is ever a contentious one, I don’t think much protest will be levied at the winner this year. Graphic designer Alexios Ciancio is the vocalist and guitarist for Deadly Carnage, making this the rare treat of a band member designing their own album’s cover. Inspired by traditional Japanese art, Ciancio has created an absolute feast for the eyes. Though the portrait-oriented illustration leaves a lot of blank space on the sides, the dynamic composition that spills out the frame grants sumptuous life and vitality. The spectral nature of the cresting whale elevates the scene above the earthly and into the ethereal, which the music inside encapsulates. And whereas many artworks suffer from zooming in too much, the crisp lines and myriad beautiful details keep me scrolling endlessly across the canvas, from the swans flying out of the frame to the upended rowboats. A visual masterpiece.

#2023 #DeadlyCarnage #Eternity #Evile #FireDownBelow #GrantTheSun #HarmSWay #Hexvessel #Raider #SanguineGlacialis #SavageGrace #SecretRule #Slomatics #Varathron #Wormhole