"No One makes music like this anymore!" It's a smugly earnest claim frequently made by self-conscious, aging music snobs unsolicitedly bemoaning the current state of popular music whilst trying to convince some arguable novice that, because of their small years, they "missed out on the good stuff." I've caught myself assuming this tone and speaking this very phrase when trying to persuade my thirteen year old nephew to snap his Good Charlotte discs in half in favor of albums by bands like The Clash and Minor Threat. Becoming imperiously dismissive of the next generation's music is part and parcel of losing the lease on your comfy perch on the cutting edge. There was an arrow-slit sized window of time in the 80's and 90's when I could effortlessly hold my own in terms of staying ahead of the curve, music-wise, in knowing what was new, hip, hot, happening and worth paying attention to. But time, to quote the otherwise entirely lamentable Steve Miller, keeps on slipping into the future. Before you know it, a decade and a half has gone by, and there's been a shifting of the tectonic plates of youth culture. Suddenly, you find yourself on the wrong continent; one populated by folks in unfashionably weathered leather jackets and increasingly ill-fitting concert t-shirts that aren't being worn ironically. In short order, you've morphed from an MTV viewer into a hapless disciple of VH1 Classic. Your favorite music, cultural touchstones and idenfitifiers are now considered vintage artefacts and objects of nostalgia. You become more excited by commemorative box sets and re-mastered editions than you do about debut albums by new artists. Congratulations! YOU'RE OLD! So, what do ya do? You critiscize the new stuff and pine for the good old days, making doubly sure to mention that you actually saw X band when they played at since-demolished Y venue in the Spring of 19somethingorother, back when Z city had yet to be gentrified and blah blah blah...
Further enabling this particular syndrome is the reliable crop of retro-wannabe artists who surface every few years. Nothing fuels the fire of insufferable oneupsmanship in greying music geeks more than bands like, say, Interpol or Rancid who clearly and unmistakably model themselves and their respective aesthetics on forebearers from a decade or two earlier. This gives we oldsters the opportunity to cite the bands being "ripped off" and gives us a chance to once again lord over our youngers the arguable truth that try though they may, Interpol will NEVER match the intensity of Joy Division and that Rancid will simply NEVER MATTER in the same way the Clash continue to do. These statements are often delivered with a barbed and brazen patina of comtemptuous territoriality.
So suddenly last week, I'm sitting at my desk at the Job, and out of nowhere comes a blast of gloriously stentorian, metallic monochromania that swings like a concrete pendulum of head-denting DOOM. I look around and it's coming out of venerable rock journalist Kurt Loder's office of all places. It uncannily bears the sonic hallmarks of classic Black Sabbath. Lots -- if not all -- Heavy Metal bands have aspired to the Sabs' patented strain of weighty proto-metal riff-mongering, but few have come close to credibly replicating it. But this....this sounded amazing! I'd later learn from my colleague, savvy metal writer and excitable n'erdowell, Chris Harris, that the album in question was Age of Winters by a Texan combo dubbed The Sword. Practicing a thick, impenetrably heavy yet still strikingly melodic brand of ultra-weighty guitar rock in seemingly its rawest form, the Sword eschews the stealthy shenanigans of latter-day thrash and speed-metal in favor of an oft-ponderous groove that manfully strides like a marble titan instead of franticallly sprinting like a horny hyaena. Mercilessly brutal, yet executed with a sinister elegance, the Sword sound disquietingly similar to the dark majesty of Black Sabbath's first three albums, but that's a feat that has been so difficult to adequately master that they absolutely cannot be faulted for it. They do it so brilliantly that any cries of stylistic plagiarism are entirely moot. Age of Winters boasts the sound and aesthetic Dave Grohl was probably trying to achieve with Probot in 2004, yet manages to do without sounding contrived or self-conscious. Unlike Probot, this band plays as if the era of classic metal never ended and as if they'd never even heard of Hip Hop or Nu-Metal or anything recorded after, say, 1983. The Sword's music punctures silence like a bowling boll lobbed through a stained-glass window. As they declare on their own MySpace page, they sound like of "a bunch of bison being pushed off a cliff" (c'mon -- are these guys freakin' awesome or what?).
Curiosity piqued, I later learn that Kurt had first heard the band courtesy of a fellow colleague named Monty (it's always the guys named Monty, isn't it?) who gamely passed the album onto me (Age of Winters didn't hit store shelves until this past Tuesday). Upon first hearing the record, I pictured the band members clad in chain mail and wearing viking helmets ala Manowar or Armoured Saint. But no, the dudes in The Sword look like Johnny Average indie rock dweebs (albeit with a few more flame tattoos) who just happen to have spent inordinate amounts of time playing Advanced Dungeons & Dragons (and believe me, I know of what I speak -- myself having logged many hours behind the dice in my acne-speckled youth, waging figurative battles with half-orcs, before breaking gamer taboo and discovering the joys of copious beer consumption and women. I even once flew to TSR Games' stronghold in Lake Geneva, Wisconsin and had long since-deposed Gary Gygax autograph my Dungeon Master's Guide. BEAT THAT, YOU TATTOOED FANBOY GIMPS! But I digress...)
One of the things I love so much about this band -- beyond the unmistakable Sabbath homage -- is that there is absolutely *NOTHING* ironic about their music. They SO mean it and are entirely unaplogetic about it -- as ridiculous as "it" is. In terms of the swords and sorcery stigma, these boys shine it up and proudly wear it like a shimmering breast plate. The Sword are entirely no nonsense about their.....er...nonsense. Consider these lyrics to the fourth track on the album, "Winter's Wolves"...
May the Mountains Rise Against You
May the Forests Block your Path
May Your Axes Chip and Shatter
And Know It is My Wrath
I Would Mount Your Heads On Bloody Spears
Outside Your Palace Gates
And Watch As Crows Peck Out Your Eyes
And Your Cities Are Laid to Waste
I mean, really, what's not to love? Couple this endearingly ludicrous fixation with axe-wielding medieval tomfoolery (less Tolkien, more Moorcock and Lovecraft) with their strikingly faithful approximation of vintage Sabbath, and you have a recipe for metal perfection. If I have any complaint with Age of Winters, it's probably only with the cover art, depicting a deceptively placcid Arthurian tableaux better suited to collection of harpzichord concertos than implausibly hefty, doomy metal. In this regard, I'd suggest they take a lesson from their similarly-inclined peers in stoner metal ensemble, High on Fire, who endearingly choose to disregard all semblance of subtlety. If anything, the sleeve art of Age of Winters (designed by fellow Texan, Conrad Keely, drummer of the equally volatile-yet-not-at-all metallic combo, And You Will Know Us By the Trail of Dead) looks like it was pulled right from the card game, Magic: the Gathering, which is too geeked out even for the likes of me.
In any event, I suppose the fact that this youthful gaggle of beardy indie goobs can make music that sounds as genuinely behemothesque as Paranoid by Black Sabbath (inarguably the blueprint for all that dares to allign itself with Heavy Metal) proves that there is still hope for the younger generation after all.
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