One Dull Sword

Austin, TX isn’t home to just hippies and country boys. There are more exciting and innovative metal bands popping up in this town each week – Pack of Wolves, The Roller, and Baron Grod are but a few. And of course there is The Sword, every hipster’s favorite metal band. The Sword is one of those uber-cool buzz bands everyone is talking about post-Coachella, with a buzz made louder by the recent announcement of a string of dates opening for Metallica overseas. Oh and having a song on Guitar Hero II certainly helps!

Gods of the Earth is The Sword’s second full length, again released on every stoner rock fans favorite label, Kemado Records (Saviours, VietNam). Littered with the themes of sci-fi and fantasy novels, driven by pounds of the good stuff, with riffs that shred and breakdowns that are nothing short of brutal, Gods of the Earth is… well, it’s pretty fucking typical and exactly what I expected.

Now excuse me while I ask but one question: what the fuck is all the fuss about? I want to love this band, not because everyone else seems to but more because they are from Austin; I’ve seen the dudes around town plenty and I want to be down with what they are doing. I just don’t get it. Yes they can shred (“The Frost-Giants Daughter,” “How Heavy This Ax”) and there are certainly some gems buried in this record (“Maiden, Mother and Crone,” “The White Sea”), but in all it’s just typical stoner rock, doom metal, 70's shit.

All the references are obvious – clearly there is a fair share of Black Sabbath-isms in there, a little bit of slowed down Motorhead, Kyuss of course, and nods to contemporaries like High on Fire and Mastodon. “Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians” is a jam and a half but nothing to cream your pants over. The acoustic guitars on “To Take the Black” are nice, but DUH every stoner metal album HAS to have one acoustic guitar jam.

Throughout Gods, Cronise’s voice sounds strained – shit is just painful to listen to honestly. The worst part is I know for a fact that it’s the way Cronise is choosing to sing these songs, in a baroque and grandiose fashion, and not necessarily his voice in and of itself, that sucks. This past SXSW, Cronise led an all-star Faith No More cover band and fucking wailed in place of Mike Patton – what a rad show! Dude can sing, without a doubt.

The Sword’s best piece is buried ten songs in. “The White Sea” is largely instrumental and epic as fuck – I mean, come on, listening to this you can’t help but imagine you’re some ancient Norwegian warrior, covered in furs and armed with, well, a big fucking sword, ready to do battle with the Grendel or some shit…

That’s another thing that bugs me about this record – I mean, I guess I just never really got into J.R.R. Tolkein and George R. R. Martin or whatever. I'm just not into Norse mythology, anything about dragons, dwarfs, or swords for that matter. Maybe I am missing some grand metaphor, but if this shit is literal, grow up. Sing about girls. That’s way more awesome.

Gods of the Earth is the sort of record you’re gonna get into because either a) you are already an avid fan of stoner rock or b) every other cool kid is listening so you should be too. This sword is, frankly, dull.

myspace: www.myspace.com/thesword
mp3: "Mother, Maiden and Crone"