The Review - The Sword, High Country & 5 Songs to listen to NOW
The Sword is back! After receiving high praise from Metallica drummer Lars Ulrich, and after myself subsequently seeing The Sword open for Metallica in 2008, I started to check out their albums. The latest from The Sword, High Country, opens differently than you would ever expect a Sword album to start and maybe that’s the point. It’s like they’ve used the 50-second opening track (with the very Sword like title of ‘Unicorn Farm’) to completely cleanse any memory and your palette from previous Sword records. It almost delivers a dance-like-beat in those 50 seconds and you immediately realize High Country is going to be different.
Sadly, different isn't always good. This album lacks the teeth and over-powering groove-strapped guitars I’ve come to love from The Sword. Look, I know (and always hope) bands change and find different sounds. Experimentation is important for a band's survival and in an increasingly busy music landscape for not only streaming/downloading but seeing bands live, you’ve got to grow and expand to keep your audience engaged. But High Country sounds limp. There are good moments and sounds of promise but overall disappointed after what felt like a steady build of strength going back to 2008’s Gods of the Earth (my personal favourite) to 2010’s Warp Riders and 2012’s Apocryphon.
October 28th at The Rickshaw you’ll have chance to see them live for yourself. Click right here for more info or checkout: www.rickshawthearte.com
Stand out tracks for me are: Blizzards, Early Snow (the horn section!!!), Mist & Shadow and High Country.
And here are 5 tracks to listen to now!
Destroyer ‘Times Square’ Local guy comes back with catchy, can’t miss song. Click the image below to hear it now!
Trouble Knows Me ‘From Trouble They Know Me’ You get the (awesome) lead singer, Sam Herring, from Future Islands spitting raps.
Deafheaven ‘Brought To The Water’ Sunbather introduced me to this band and this track has me looking forward to their next offering due in October.
FIDLAR ‘Drone’ Straight ahead punk rock song, perfect to crank loud for summer. TURN IT UP!
Foo Fighters ‘My Hero’ 'Cause Dave Grohl continually amazes and his fan interaction at a Foo’s concert this week was too good.