After what
seems like an eternity, Manowar’s new album is upon us. Joey De Maio is
typically superlative about the reasons behind the delay: Manowar never release
anything unless it’s ready to blow people’s heads/balls/speakers (delete where
appropriate). Unfortunately, Lord of Steel does none of this.
The title
track starts promisingly. The opening riff is one that, well, Ross the Boss
would be proud of, but the joy of anticipating a new lease of life for the
legend that is Manowar is brought to an abrupt halt when we are introduced to
De Maio’s new bass tone. His trademark valve-driven sound has been replaced by
what sounds like a cheap fuzz pedal. Perhaps he has had to sell his Marshall
stacks to fund the album, but, for the life of me, how any professional
musician could possibly see this tone as a sensible progression to the sound
that has served Manowar so well for the last 30 years is anyone’s guess? I can
only hope that his hearing has been impaired to such an extent from years of
aural abuse that he isn’t actually aware that his bass sounds like a fart from
a duck with its arse sewn up. Fortunately, Adams is there to rescue the song,
showing that he’s still up there with the rest when it comes to vocal ability.
Manowarriors is there early on to appease the
‘true’ into believing that the album is going to get better, but one can’t help
but think it was written for a laugh on the back of a beer coaster after a few
pints in the pub. And it’s this theme of regurgitating old lyrics so
predominant throughout Lord Of Steel, combined with amateurish song
writing that makes it such a gargantuan stretch for anyone to believe that this
album is some 7 years in the making. In reality, it sounds as if it was thrown
together in someone’s bedroom in a few weeks. Certainly not the fare you’d
expect from the self-proclaimed kings of metal.
Things
improve somewhat with the riff that begins Born In A Grave. There’s some
nice harmonies going on from Karl, but this album only serves to emphasise how
weak his guitar sound is compared to Ross – all digitally compressed and
processed within an inch of its life, where the rawness of Ross’s sounds could
have breathed life into many of the songs. Sure, he’s an accomplished and
technical musician, but his guitar is set up for speed and his sound is so
digitally manipulated that there is no room for nuance or style.
Righteous
Glory is the
compulsory ballad and does what it says on the tin. Like Gods Of Metal,
there are insinuations in the lyrics that Manowar may be coming to the end of
their road and you find yourself contemplating that this might not be such a
bad thing. Mind you, it’s a perfectly fine song, albeit without any of the
magic found in the likes of Courage or Heart Of Steel.
Touch
The Sky sees that
dodgy bass sound back to ruin an otherwise good song with an infectious chorus.
Black List follows, a throwaway track, which feels like it was tacked on
just to make up a nice even 10 tracks. It’s a slow, plodding, pedestrian effort
sitting in the middle of the road like a frog waiting to get hit by a truck.
Expendable is Manowar’s first big effort at getting on a
soundtrack. Apparently Stallone is a big fan and Joey wanted to see if he could
get the track included on the new Expendables movies. However, I don’t think it
made the cut (although I could be wrong yet). It’s a fine track, but, made for
the screen and not made for Manowar fans.
El
Gringo, on the
other hand, did make the soundtrack cut for the movie of the same name. And
it’s a good track that reeks of Triumph Of Steel era Manowar. It’s
cheesy and repetitive but that’s those are the requisites for an action movie
soundtrack.
Annihilation is a fine track too. There’s that
word again – ‘fine’. And that’s what pretty much sums up the album – fine,
okay, nothing special! It sounds like Manowar; it just isn’t exceptional and
certainly hasn’t been worth the wait.
Hail,
Kill & Die
finishes the album off in similarly clichéd Manowar style with lyrics written
by the Random Manowar Lyric Generator V 2.0. And I’m left genuinely wondering
if the title is a pisstake.
But the
biggest question every Manowar fan will be asking is why did we have to wait so
long for such mediocrity? What happened the circle of albums and the Asgard Saga
that Joey ranted about for all those years? As usual, there is no explanation
forthcoming from the Manowar camp. The sad reality is, no matter how much spin
De Maio puts on it, no one can seriously believe this album wasn’t written and
recorded in a more than a few months.
And what
everyone is asking now is: Is that it? What happens next? Do we have to wait
another five years for a follow up? If that is the case, I say to Joey, just pack
it in now. Leave with some dignity while you still can. Put in a full and I
mean ‘full’ world tour with dates in every country (not just Germany) with
reasonable ticket prices and leave with your heads held high. You can always
come back every few years to wow us with a live festival appearance somewhere.
Either do that, or get Ross back in the band and write a classic Manowar album
for release next year!
As it
stands, Lord Of Steel doesn’t deserve more than a very average 3 out of
5. And even the most die-hard fan knows that in their heart of hearts.
