Author: Peter Podbrežnik
Artist: Manowar
Label: Nuclear Blast
Released: 2002
Rating: 1.5/5
For some, Manowar are the “kings of metal”; for others, they’re an incorrigible collection of the worst metal clichés, kitsch, intolerance and over-the-top excess, which has earned them the not-so-flattering title of metal’s biggest clowns over the years. As goofy and laughable as they are, you have to admit they’ve shown more than once that they can play and that they’re capable of surprising people (a good example being their two most consistent albums to date, “Hail To England” (1984) and “The Triumph Of Steel (1992))”. Well, in recent years they’ve obviously been more into bodybuilding than music. Five years after their last album, “Louder Than Hell” (1996), they’ve finally worked up the nerve to put out a new record, “Warriors Of The World”, probably the most anticipated album of the year for many metalheads. Those folks will of course be unconditionally thrilled with any album, even if the band records a total fiasco.
I won’t hide it from the start: this album is pretty much utter garbage. So bad that even the few brighter moments, where they almost seem to take things seriously, completely fade away and can’t fix the awful impression you get just from looking at the always-vehement, this time downright allegorical cover. More than ever, Manowar have played to their intolerant, rabble-rousing, chauvinist ego. Instead of focusing more on song structures, they’ve used a whole batch of cheap, politically correct maneuvers they’ve been torturing listeners with in the past, but this time it’s way more obvious. They’d have done themselves less damage and drawn less ridicule if they’d stuck with their chauvinist iconography instead of dropping to the lowest rung and starting to glorify American nationalism. So the warriors of the world have united under the American flag to fight together against all the enemies of the American way of life, be it terrorism, the “great Satan” in a turban and his helpers. The cover says it all: a proud American warrior will lead his fellow fighters (vassals) out of hell (probably out of communism or Islam) toward victory and establish his total hegemony over the world, tidying up that handful of dissenters who didn’t pin the American eagle to their flags along the way. Just seeing something like that makes me lose all desire to listen, but on the other hand I get a real kick out of the benignity that smells like the lowest possible version of Spinal Tap.
As for the music, Manowar have thoroughly cheated their followers, serving up a mix of pathetic, ballad-like whining, full of cheap orchestral arrangements and dismal lyrics (do I even need to point out their biggest flaw?), none of which can be saved even by Adams’ operatic vocals, which are otherwise one of their few bright spots.
The only thing even vaguely resembling what you’d expect is the opener “Call To Arms” and the last three tracks, though they’re nothing special, even compared to their earlier work. There are examples of bad taste aplenty on the album, starting with the operatic ballad “Nessun Dorma”, which sounds like a metal parody of Pavarotti’s arias. On “The March” they tastelessly imitate elements of Wagner’s opera, and in their hands, of course, nothing good can come of it. The most pathetic and sterile creation on the album, to the fifth power, is without a doubt the pixie-dixie fiasco “An American Trilogy”, a eulogy to WASPs (I don’t mean the band, but the social group of white Anglo-American Protestants) and the order of the Illuminati, where they hit rock bottom and land in caustic mud. The greatest irony is that this desperately sugar-coated dixie fiasco, where they sing arias to God and country, is self-mockery and a tribute to the very thing they so enthusiastically spat on in the eighties: rock ‘n’ roll, wimps and posers. They stir a bit from their slumber with “Warriors Of The World United”, which recalls the old Manowar, though it’s nothing special. The classically conceived “Hand Of Doom”, “House Of Dead” and “Fight Until We Die” do improve the overall state of this sorry product a little toward the end, but that’s far too little to haul it out of the bottom of the muddy pit.
Even though the last three tracks barely rescue the album from the not-so-flattering title of metal’s biggest (self-)parody of the decade, in the end I just couldn’t shake the feeling that I’d just watched some cheesy American movie where John Wayne takes out the villains in the blink of an eye and rides off happily into the sunset with his sweetheart. “Warriors Of The World” is so lowbrow that anyone who values even a little “real” metal (as in their vocabulary) and the classic, old Manowar won’t buy this record, and I won’t even try to convince the handful of biggest fanatics, because they’d probably buy the album even if all it had on it was the rustling of wind, engine noises and a recital of the collected works of American patriots. Don’t let yourselves be fooled, because even though the propaganda claims they offer “pure, the only true” metal, this time it’s wrapped up right at the bottom, under a juicy layer of still-warm cow pies from cowboy cattle.
Lineup
Eric Adams – vocals
Karl Logan – guitar, keyboards
Joey DeMaio – bass guitar, keyboards
Scott Columbus – drums
Production
Joey DeMaio
Tracklist
1.) Call to Arms
2.) The Fight for Freedom
3.) Nessun Dorma
4.) Valhalla
5.) Swords in the Wind
6.) An American Trilogy
7.) The March
8.) Warriors of the World United
9.) Hands of Doom
10.) House of Death
11.) Fight until We Die
