THE SWORD - GODS OF THE EARTH (LP)

The Sword Gods Of The Earth on LP

The Sword's Gods Of The Earth is a continuation of Age Of Winters' assault on eardrums, while a step forward in sheer relentlessness, grabbing you by the devil horns and dragging you through the headbanging mire. Combing thrash, doom, hardcore, and speed metal, this Texan quartet has torn through singer/guitarist J.D. Cronise's tapestry of wizard-and-warlock-imagery and evaded silly cliche by imbuing the songs' bombast with eerie drama and dead-serious urgency. Where there would normally be solos, there are double-tracked riffs; where a drummer would generally keep the beat during a twin-guitar harmony, here Trivett Wingo drops some double-bass and cymbal crashes.

Gods Of The Earth follows the template of its forefathers but strangely inverts all the expected dynamics, ultimately allowing rhythm and lead to trade-off on the evil, never relenting on the heaviness, no matter who's at the fore. Waves of powerful riffs and low-end thunder dominate songs such as the immediate “Maiden, Mother & Crone,” “Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians,” “Under the Boughs,” and the paralyzing “The Black River."

The Sword Gods Of The Earth Track Listing:

1.  The Sundering
2.  Frost Giants Daughter
3.  How Heavy This Axe
4.  Lords
5.  Fire Lances Of The Ancient Hyperzephyrians
6.  To Take The Black
7.  Maiden, Mother and Crone
8.  Under The Boughs
9.  The Black River
10. The White Sea