-The Sword
-Age Of Winters
Age Of Winters is all around a solid piece of work from the Texan quartet. Instead of trying to create something groundbreaking and original the band instead decided pick up the torch that bands like Black Sabbath dropped long ago. From the previous sentence you should get the idea that their sound is a throwback to the days of early Sabbath and with that guess you would have hit the nail on the head. The guitar's will instantly remind you of Sabbath while the lyrics sound like some of Ronnie James Dio's unused material. Whether thats a good or bad thing you will have to decide
Musically, this is a VERY riff heavy album, which provides the album's greatest downfall. The band has a tendency to repeat the same riff over and over again, such as near the ending section in the song
Freya. Even so, they do prove that they can play their instruments quite well throughout the album by breaking out a few soloes here and there. As for the rhytm section, they do little more than carry the beat, and even though the bass is audible throughout most of the album it does little more than follow the root notes of the guitar.
As stated before the lyrics are very "Dioesque". In fact if you close your eyes and listen to them very closely you may get the feeling that you are in a room full of people playing Dungeons & Dragons. The lyrics don't really bother me, but for some people they may be a little to over the top. For others the problem may not be the lyrics themselves, but the mouth they are coming out of. J.D. Cronise's vocals are the kind that you either love or absolutely loathe. Throughout the entire album the vocals stay in the same range, the high notes never actually becoming high and the lows never actually becoming low, so for some listeners his voice may become annoyingly monotinous.
So I think that pretty much sums it up. Will this album change the face of music? No. But if you're looking for an album thats a throwback to the days when metal was just beginning to crawl out of the primoidial soup then this album does the job by providing a straight up dose of riff heavy old school metal.
final rating
3.5
