Age of Winters - Dark Publications

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Customer Reviews: Read 61 more reviews...

4 out of 5 stars

Every riff-a-holic's wet dream February 23, 2006
36 out of 39 found this review helpful

There hasn't been an album which is this bursting at the seems with huge, super heavy, rumbling, meaty, crushing, Sabbath-inspired, fret board smoking riffs since Mastodon's "Leviathan" was released in August of 2004. Frontman J.D. Cronise sings melodically (almost in an Ozzy Osbourne-esque tone), so he sometimes takes away from this Austin based band's intensity. But, luckily, the punch the guitars pack is definitely powerful, visceral, and great enough to make up for the vocals. The riffs cascade, groove, and storm like tumbling logs, and the rhythms crunch, crash, and flatten like a truckload of falling bricks and steel bars. The album begins with a brief instrumental ("Celestial Crown"), which has pounding, lumbering riffs. That song is mid-tempo, but some songs, like "Freya" and "The Horned Goddess," are blistering, with speedy, churning guitars (plus, the latter track also has a mini guitar solo.) Track six, "Iron Swan" begins with soft strumming and percussion rattles before rocketing into a fast, propulsive guitar lead and eventually segueing into crunchy, punching riffs. But this disc's best track is probably the epic, very Mastodon-esque instrumental, "March of the Lor." According to the C.D. booklet, this instrumental is divided into eight "movements" (parts). Even if one or two songs get to be kind of repetitive, it only makes sense that the guitarists (Kyle Shutt and the aforementioned frontman J.D. Cronise) would have to recycle a couple riffs when the album is this full of them. All in all, "Age Of Winters" is easily the best doom metal C.D. of the past year and a half, and it is absolutely essential for everybody who enjoys the genre, as well as fans of Black Sabbath, High On Fire, and Mastodon.

5 out of 5 stars

A Metal Snob says: "Buy it! You won't be sorry." April 11, 2006
35 out of 40 found this review helpful

I tend to be a picky listener and I don't always like a band until I've heard them a few times. (Opeth and Coheed & Cambria come to mind.) But from the instant I sat down with The Sword's latest, I was hooked. The riffs, my God, the riffs! These guys come out of the gate swinging their vorpal blades hard. And AGE OF WINTERS combines terrific songs (no weak ones in the litter) with clear, heavy production.

Extra credit for the Scandinavian myth-inspired lyrics and the Art Nouveau cover design. I strongly recommend this album. Get it; you absolutely won't be sorry.

3 out of 5 stars

old fashioned, unoriginal doom metal August 21, 2006
11 out of 25 found this review helpful

The good:

The riffs. They are as good as it gets. This has a riff-a-minute attack that even the best prog-metal acts would be hard pressed to surpass, and The Sword plays them all nice and slow, so we can actually appreciate them. Great guitar work all around. And the production really brings the guitar tone alive.

The lyrics, while rather one dimensional and perhaps over-using alliteration, have a poetic sensibility lacking in the vast majority of bands.

The packaging is beautiful, though Frank Frazetta would have been much more appropriate. Or better, a Frazetta imitator, since this is band is a pure ripoff of another seventies era icon, Black Sabbath.

The bad:

There's not enough variety in the tracks; the disc gets monotonous. The vocal melodies need improvement and the vocals need to be further up in the mix. But the worst thing is that the sound is simply too much of a ripoff of Sabbath. I keep expecting Ozzy to break into "Changes" at any moment.

Last, the band looks like a bunch of poser college kids and the whole thing feels like maybe they're not really that into it. They need to learn that in metal, irony is not allowed: you have to pretend that you are taking yourself seriously at all times, or the whole suspension of disbelief necessary to the artform is lost. With that said, the heavy metal hardcore needs to lighten up. Yes, this band is beloved of middle-class indie-rock types, but so what: hair metal didn't kill real metal, nu-metal didn't kill metal, grunge didn't kill metal. Real metal killed all those lesser derivatives, just as it will kill this new "hipster metal" movement. In the meanwhile, enjoy this album for what it is: a ton of superficial fun.

Bottom line: If your prejudices run towards crushingly heavy doom riffs that dominate all other aspects of the sound mixed with deliciously cheesy sword and sorcery lyrics sung in a chanting style, as I confess mine do, then you will play this album all the time, as I have to confess I do. Otherwise, for some good fantasy doom, see the Candlemass album Ancient Dreams or the Grand Magus album Wolf's Return. Casual or true-metal fans can afford to skip The Sword until they mature, which means dropping the Sabbath imitation, losing their hipster fanbase and acting a little more like they mean what they play. You're quite talented, boys, but don't think we can't tell the difference...

1 out of 5 stars

One of the worst albums ever! March 3, 2007
8 out of 51 found this review helpful

The guitars are ok but are too loud and drown out the vocals. The drums are even louder which drown out the base. Add to that the vocals are terrible anyway so I have no idea why others are into this CD. Also, the whole package just sounds muddy, the production apparently wasn't top quality. If you like a raw garage band sound with amateur talent then get this. If you enjoy professional quality music stay away.

1 out of 5 stars

Demo Quality Junk May 22, 2006
6 out of 34 found this review helpful

After reading about how these guys are the "New Black Sabbath" and so classic sounding, I bought the CD.

It is a bad mix.

Problem 1: harsh, scrappy sounding cymbals, hissy sounding high-end;
Problem 2; dead souding bottom end (like they just boosted the EQ, instead of miking the drums right);
Problem 3: monontonous monotononus monotonous music.

These guys are posers of the worst order -- their sound is flat, the imagery looks way too girly (maybe we'll learn that the guitarist or singer is gay some day). ANd the lyrics are pure fairy stuff -- mama's-boy metal all the way, if there is such a sub-genre.

I don't know what 'The Sword' did in Austin, but they sound like a band that did well at High School battle of the Bands (wher the audience was a bunch of teenagers looking to 'score', and not paying any attention) or maybe an occasional frat party (where a bunch of drunk college students were looking to 'score' and not paying any attention to music). Either that, or they were a Black Sabbath cover band who thought they were really great.

Forget this CD. It's almost unlistenable.

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