The Sword – Warp Riders

Ever since their debut album dropped in 2006, The Sword has gotten a lot of shit from a lot of metal fans.  Fuck them — not The Sword, but these so-called real metal fans.  I don’t even know what “real” really means.   Apparently one is “real” metal fan if one only listens to lo-fi black metal or only wears white Reeboks or only frequents shows in venues that hold less than 300 people or only plays symphonic progressive doom metal with black tendencies or only who the fuck knows.  As far as I can tell, the most vehement stentors claim that The Sword isn’t “real” metal because their “hipsterish” tendencies.  It would appear the fact that a bunch of emaciated douche-bag fucks, i.e., hipsters, latched onto a sub-genre of metal was too much for metal purists to handle.  Don’t like the fact they’re drinking out of the same water fountain as you (=the metal purist, as I assume you’re a deficient), eh?  Fine.  Disregarding the fact you’re probably a 287lb. (for all the European readers, do the conversion and see that I’m right), long haired, bigoted turd, who lives in his mother’s basement and thinks the burning of religious establishments should be condoned if not adamantly promoted, we can agree that hipsters are idiots.  But following your logic to its conclusion, you should (and I hope you do) suffocate yourself in virtue of the fact that hipsters breath the same air as you.

Just to be clear, I will state three necessary truths that hold irrespective of the purist’s inane and insipid opinions:  1) High on Fire is the best thing to happen to metal since early ‘Tallica; 2) Sunn 0))) crushes live; 3) The Sword is to the modern metal as John Carpenter was to to horror from ’77 – ’88 — the complete fucking package.  As a case in point, listen, love and worship “Warp Riders”, The Sword’s newest concept album (Kemedo Records) due to drop next week.  From the cover art (Dan McPharlin is the fucking man), to the subject matter (umm… channeling Frank Herbert, are we boys?)  to the tunes themselves, this is an illustrious and epic album. (As of right now, it just is making my top three of  2010.) 

To give you a better idea of what we’re dealing with here, according to vocalist/guitarist John Cronise:

And I quote:
“It’s a science fiction story, and it deals heavily with themes of light and dark and perceptions of time. One of the main settings is a planet, which has experienced tidal locking, creating a side of perpetual day and a side of perpetual night.” 
Source: Blabbermouth.Net
And I quote:
“Warp Riders tells the tale of Ereth, an archer banished from his tribe on the planet Acheron. A hardscrabble planet that has undergone a tidal lock, which has caused one side to be scorched by three suns, and the other enshrouded in perpetual darkness, it is the background for a tale of strife and fantasy, the battle between pure good and pure evil.”   Source: Sword Of Doom

Granted, every asshole artist is a hyperbolic, self-aggrandizing twit, who claims their most recent effort is the latest and greatest.  And the only thing worse than a concept album is a double album.  (The problem with digital media is that it robs me the satisfaction of burning “The Guessing Game”.)   But really, in the case of “Warp Riders”, the blatant self-promotion isn’t far from the truth.   I’ve spun this album roughly six times since picking it up the other day, and these guys have managed to lay down the closet thing to “Foundation” a 48 minute rock album can get.  And after  a shitty day at work, coming home, popping in “Warp Riders” and “cross[ing] the universe in hyper-spacial flight” is exactly what I wanted, and needed, to do.  (I suppose I can sympathize with those pathetic souls who killed themselves when they realized they never would be able to inhabit the world of “Avatar”.  Escapism is an underrated but necessary byproduct of a surplus in resources.)

I’ve made it known that I could give two shits less about lyrics (cf. Metallica “Frantic”), but “Tres Brujas” is laden with some of the coolest fucking lines since “From Beyond”:  “Three witches you shall meet, on the path to your fate.  The first will love you.  The second will deceive you.  And the third will show you the way.”  Umm, fuck yeah?  There’s nary a bad tune on here (stand outs have to be “The Chronomancer I: Hubris” and “Night City”) (And for the record, I need to start drinking when I write these reviews, because my descriptions of albums in general are getting a tad bit repetitive.).  I’m sure the album will be criticized for sounding like, well, The Sword.  I never really saw that as a bad thing, as should be obvious.  For someone who likes all things retro,  I appreciated the fact that the album is dripping with more classic rock influences than Sabbath, which is more than could be said about “Age of Winters” and “Gods of the Earth”.  (For some reason, I keep hearing Sweet circa “Desolation Boulevard”, but maybe I’m just tone deaf.)

You know that feeling you got when you saw “The Thing” for the first time, especially when the alien fucking burst out of that fucking dog?  Well, listening to “Warp Riders” for the first time felt almost like that.  Almost.  In conclusion, I conclude you should buy this fucking album. I’m a fucking poor formal semanticist with no real job prospects after my tenure as a doctoral student, and I still managed to shell out $50 for the deluxe-we’ll-throw-in-the-kitchen-sink-painted-with-our-logo package.  It comes next week, and I’m oh so very excited.  And for all you metal purists out there, who will spend the next week bemoaning The Sword and those cut from their cloth, take solace in the fact that, while I’m enjoy spinning my vinyl copy of “Warp Riders” and guzzling down six pack of PBR just to spite you, you’ll still be fucking cunts.

Official Site
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Review Written By A.J Djalali