Artist: Manowar
Title: Warriors of the World (10th Anniversary Re-mastered Edition)
Genre: Epic Metal / Heavy Metal
Release Date: 28th June 2013
Label: Magic Circle Entertainment
Album Review
It is interesting to see either in retrospect or in hindsight why this mediocre album signified the beginning of the fall for the MANOWAR. All the more so since the band decided to re-release it with the only obvious differences being the quality of the sound plus a live version of the ‘House of Death’. DeMaio’s ability to write catchy music and with Adams’s vocal skills along with those of the rest of the band members surely didn’t lose anything of their lustre. Neither did for the matter of fact their live shows. But there are quite a few reasons for the aforementioned fall. The first was the feeling of permutation of lyrics and catch phrases that were recycled from their previous albums and by that time they’ve turned into what Orwell used to call ‘dead metaphors’; clichés that lacked any emotion or thought in them. Second and not completely unrelated to the first one it was the world of fantasy they’ve created.
It is not only that Fantasy as such is a retreat or an intermission from reality. The problem the band faced unaware of its consequences is that the world had changed dramatically from the early 80’s which partly due to the defeats in Vietnam, partly because of the increased consumerism, witnessed an increase of the amounts of public narcissism. MANOWAR seemed to be in the right place at the right moment. The band became the idol of all the wannabe Conans, the Barbarians. It was an epoch where the war was seen as the continuation of the politics by other means and it afforded, nay it demanded, this conjunction between reality and fantasy if not for other reason as a cover up of the realpolitik. In the 80’s it was still conceivable for the one-dimensional Norse gods to be seen as the reflection of the one-dimensional man, to remember Marcuse.
But after 9/11 all this changed. There were layers of emotion regarding the response to the terrorist attacks and it wasn’t just an old fashioned war. What this situation pushed the MANOWAR into? To sing something about “where the eagles fly I’ll soon be there... we’ll fight for freedom again”. And with a sword at hand. Nonsense. Say hi to the drones. Fantasy? Probably you haven’t watched enough of news. The use of Norse imagery made things worse since these gods became the personifications of the cultural divisions between the West and the East. Unfortunately, or now that I’m thinking about it, fortunately, the band wasn’t eager to embark early on to a project like the one Frank Miller did in the ‘300’, that is to remind us that we’re facing the “hordes of barbarians” who want to “destroy our way of life”.
Still it is interesting a year after the movie was released MANOWAR returned with the ‘Gods of War’, a LP more closely connected with the Norse mythology than any previous work of theirs. And since I’ve started with MANOWAR and gone into the movies, the last of the obvious reasons of MANOWAR’s failure was the rise of the CGI that altered the landscape of imagery forever. These changes, cultural, political, social, and technological seem to have influenced negatively the band as it couldn’t keep its pace with the times. DeMaio in an interview thinks that the ‘Warriors of the World’ was the beginning of a new era. For some it was. The rest remained under the “sign of the hammer and with a spirit of honour and unity that is second to none”. And as you’ve noticed he uses the clichés even in his interviews. How brilliant is that?
Tracklist
01. Call to Arms
02. The Fight for Freedom
03. Nessun Dorma
04. Valhalla
05. Swords in the Wind
06. An American Trilogy
07. The March
08. Warriors of the World United
09. Hand of Doom
10. House of Death
11. Fight until we Die
12. Bonus Track – House of Death (live)
Line-up
Eric Adams– vocals
Karl Logan – guitar, keyboards
Joey DeMaio – bass guitar, keyboards
Scott Columbus – drums
Websites
www.manowar.com/ / https://www.facebook.com/manowar
Cover Picture
Rating
Music: 5
Sound: 9
Total: 7 / 10
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