Nanowar of Steel have seemingly exploded onto the international scene over the last couple of years, thanks in large part to their partnership with Napalm Records, but also due to their amazing songwriting and quick wits. Comedy in metal is such a thin line to walk but this band have been doing it to perfection recently. I’ve loved their singles so far so when we got sent the album, I had to check it out!

Album opener ‘Sober’ sets the tone of the album perfectly. It’s a fun, heavy sea shanty packed full of cleverly written lyrics and some surprisingly awesome instrumentation. As Mohamed pointed out in our interview (check it out here) the backing music isn’t necessarily as important as the lyrics are in comedy music. However, the band are just as talented as any other power metal band out there today as far as guitars and drums are concerned. The track fits in perfectly with their back catalogue, a fun romp that takes itself equal amounts seriously and not at all. It easily makes our playlist!

The second track features Madeleine Liljenstam of dark symphonic metal band Eleine. It dives straight into a more epic, power metal feel, staying heavy and massive throughout. It has a more serious feel to it than the previous track, and could easily be considered a full on symphonic metal track if it wasn’t for the lyrics. Madeleine’s vocals fit in perfectly and she adds an awful lot to the track. It’s just a great, straight up metal track.

Next up is a single, the infectious awesomeness of ‘Disco Metal’. I’ve had this track firmly lodged in my head and ears since it was released and thought I’d just about escaped it. Now that I’ve heard it again, I fear it’ll be there forever. Disco and metal mix surprisingly and incredibly well, as evidenced by Tragedy and Lordi’s Superflytrap. Now Nanowar of Steel have thrown their hats into the ring and upped the ante even more. My only slight complaint is that the autotune on the higher vocals took a little getting used to. Still, it’s a phenomenal track and easily makes the playlist!

‘Muscle Memory’ is the first slower track on the album. The clean guitar chords to open with the powerful vocals was awesome, as was building up through the vocal harmonies. The chorus is huge, massive guitar chords and vocal melodies that would fill out a stadium with ease. It reminds me of ‘And Then I Noticed That She was a Gargoyle’, and also any of the slower Guns N’Roses tracks blended together. The guitar solo is fantastic and confirms my suspicions, being very Slash. The whole track is amazing and so catchy. And of course it goes without saying that the lyrics are incredible.

One of my two favourite track titles is up next (I’ll let you work out the other one). ‘Chupacabra Cadabra’ is also a proggy, folky, heavy masterpiece. From the ‘Painkiller’ tribute to open to the fantastic, uplifting horns, the track starts strong. It sounds very… well… Italian folk metal, and in the best way! I loved the multiple languages throughout, especially when it came to the spoken work parts near the middle. It all built perfectly in the first 4:20 to an almost Tool-like climax, dropping down to acoustic guitars and a great, western-style whistle. This part ALSO builds perfectly into a great spoken few lines that got a pretty big laugh out of me.

The rest of the track continues as the first part did, finishing off the epic tale. I absolutely LOVED this. From the style to the progressive nature to the frankly ridiculous lyrics, it was the perfect track. Man, I hope we get a video for the track, it’d be excellent. Playlisted.

Next up is another single, this one featuring the legendary Joakim Brodén. Of course this was the most power metal track on the album, but it fit perfectly with Joakim’s vocals and style. And, to have a track so heavy and serious sounding be about the world cup finals nearly three decades is hilarious. Especially with them playing the commentary from the game in the bridge. It’s a damn good song and another huge highlight of the album.

‘Metal Boomer Battalion’ and album closer ‘The Power of Imodium’ are two more straight up power metal bangers. Both have some great comedic lyrics throughout and the latter has a fun, clear tribute horn line that fit surprisingly well. However, it is the two tracks between them that stood out the most.

The fantastically titled ‘Dimmu Boogie’ is a swing rock track that definitely does make you want to boogie! The simple blues lines, call-and-response vocals and the jazzy horns all came together perfectly to make one of the funnest tracks on the album. The guitar solo is maybe my favourite on the album too, it fits so well with everything and the technicality is amazing. I honestly can’t get over how infectiously catchy that horn melody is. It’s so good. Playlisted!

Then, ‘Protocols (of the Elders of Zion) of Love’ is another slower track, this one a clear love ballad. It’s somehow a combination of Bon Jovi and a boy band (not that I’m sure there are those out there thinking they’re the same thing). Heck, I can even hear some Michael Starr in the vocals, both the melody and delivery. It’s cheesy in the best possible way and it’s another track I love. It is so catchy vocally and so simple instrumentally. It’s a pop song and it somehow fits so well on a power metal album. Somehow again, playlisted!

Overall: This was brilliant. The blend of comedy and actually innovative (for metal) was brilliant. I actually found myself enjoying the weirder, less metal tracks than the straight-up power metal just because of how refreshing it sounded and how well written it all was. Everything about this album was amazing, and it’s definitely going to be up there among the albums of the year come December!

The Score: 9/10

German power metallers Hammer King are set to release their fifth studio album this week, Kingdemonium. We managed to get a sneak preview so read below to see what we thought of it!

The album starts off strong with ‘Invisible King’. An awesome power metal riff is backed up perfectly by some solid drumming. It drops down to drums and bass for the verse, the powerful, higher vocals fitting great over the top. The guitars come back in for the pre, harmonies adding perfectly to the vocals and it all having a huge, epic sound to it.

It then opens up even more in the chorus, it reminding me of Iron Maiden’s ‘Longest Day’ in that the pre is big enough to be a chorus on its own, but the chorus itself takes it to even huger heights. The call and response backing vocals in the chorus make it even catchier, too. We of course get a fantastic guitar solo because power metal, it also reminding me a lot of modern Maiden. The a double chorus takes us home. A simple, straight to the point, awesome rock song. Playlisted!

Another single, ‘Pariah is my Name’, is up next. After another fun, epic metal riff it boarders on thrash territory for a fast verse. It reminds me more of Sabaton when they speed up. The pre feels like it’s building to something huge again but instead it drops back a bit, hitting hard with a straight-forward chorus. It’s still catchy as anything thanks to the great vocal melody and heavy instrumentation. A great riff follows out the second chorus and again leads to a fantastic technical guitar solo. The short bridge leading into the final chorus was also awesome, adding in some chanted vocals that would go down a storm live. Hammer King are two for two so far, another great song playlisted!

‘We Shall Rise’ opens on an extended, awesome harmonic guitar riff. It then heads into exactly what you’ expect from power metal, and it’s awesome. This is similar to the opening track in terms of structure, building more and more epicness throughout the track. The chorus is catchy as anything, especially with the ‘rise’ chants. Pointing out the awesome guitar solo feels redundant at this point but yep, there’s one here too! The rest of the track is again awesome power metalness through and through.

‘Live Long, Die Nasty’, alongside ‘Guardians of the Realm’, ‘Mark of the Beast’, ‘Other Kingdoms Fall’, ‘The Four Horsemen’, and the title track all follow similar formulas. Don’t get me wrong, they are all great songs. Songs that I’ll be listening to a lot still moving forward. They just all abide by the typical intro, (verse + chorus)x2, bridge/solo, chorus end, structure. Lumping them all together as they are all fantastic songs, especially the album closing track. It simply makes this review a nicer read so you aren’t reading the same thing over and over. All good songs, I’ve just already said what I’d want to say about them in previous paragraphs.

‘The 7th of the 7 Kings’ opens straight into vocals, a beautiful clean guitar behind them. The band wear their Maiden influence on their sleeve as this whole thing reminds me so much of Moonchild. And of course, for those who don’t know, go look up what album said song opens. It explodes into a HUGE metal riff after the opening verse before dropping back a bit again for more vocals. The drums and bass were a nice touch this time though, adding some dynamics and layers.

The epicness of course builds through a catchy-ass pre until an absolutely massive chorus comes in. Both sets of vocals, the lead and backing, are catchy as hell and make it all sound Homeric. The duelling lead guitars were fantastic, as were the operatic-style vocals in the background between the solos. Yes, solos. There is more than one and they’re all awesome. The outro is amazing too and I know I’m using the word too much but this whole track gives a new meaning to the word epic. Power metal done very right. Playlisted.

Finally we have the prog track of the album, the near 8-minute epic ‘Age of Urizen’. Opening on a short acoustic guitar riff it soon drops into a huge heavy one. It stays quick and heavy for the riff, again the backing vocals adding an epic edge to it with all the ‘oo’s and ‘oh’s. The chorus opens up into slower, effortlessly catchy vocals.

After a short bridge out of the second chorus we get an amazing duelling lead guitar line, the harmonies sounding excellent. The band do a good job of filling out the sound behind it too, a lot of bands leave it to the low bass and it sounds like a big empty gap, but here it filled out well. The soloing continues for a bit, making me not at all jealous of their talent. We then get another verse and chorus before a catchy-as outro takes us home in style. This didn’t feel like 7:30 at all. It followed the typical structure but gave everything such space to breath that it felt massive. Good stuff!

Overall: This was awesome! Being so up and down with power metal I didn’t expect to like this as much as I did, but I loved it. The band are all insanely good musicians and their songwriting is off the charts. I’m going to have to check out their older stuff now and hopefully they tour in the UK sometime soon!

The Score: 8/10

Did you like the review? Keep up to date on all of them from our Instagram here.

Powerwolf has been around for a while now, releasing eight studio albums throughout their nearly 20-year career. In that time they have established themselves as one of the powerhouses of the genre and a must-see band live. Their latest album, Call of the Wild, is under our microscope today for New Music Monday. Having not listened to this band too much aside from their bigger songs, I have to say I’m pretty excited as I always need more power metal in my life!

‘Faster Than the Flame’ starts with some epic chanting and strings, immediately setting an awesome tone and feel to it. It then descends into the opening chorus, the vocals sounding powerful and great with some huge guitar chords and drums behind them. A quick verse riff follows afterwards – the drums’ double bass working overtime behind it. It drops down a little, some more chanted vocals in what I assume to be German, before that awesome catchy chorus comes back again. It’s already stuck in my head for the rest of the day and I’ve only heard it twice. We get a short bridge before a pretty great guitar solo, fast and technical for the first half before it slows down a little in the second part to match the rest of the instruments. It drops down again into another bridge with some catchy chants that build perfectly into a final chorus. This was a good song and a great start to an album, making the playlist!

The lead single of the album, ‘Beast of Gevaudan’, is up next. It opens on another build-up of chanting, this time it heads straight into a fantastic guitar and keys riff. The epicness definitely remaining from the previous song. Most of the instruments drop out for the verse, leaving just the powerful vocals and some basic drums. It builds up perfectly into the heaviness of another catchy chorus, though it wasn’t quite as good as the previous one. A lot was going on in it and even though there were more great backing vocals and harmonies, I think it was just a tad too wordy. We get an awesome breakdown after the second chorus with the strings and chanting coming back, easily signalling the pyro cue for live shows. The bridge between it and the solo sounds like it could have been ripped straight from a Maiden song, but that doesn’t take away its awesomeness. Another great solo leads to a dropped-down chorus, one that builds into a huge, epic final chorus. It was a good song overall, but I preferred the opener a fair bit more.

Another single ‘Dancing With the Dead’, is next. It opens on another epic power metal riff, the drums soon coming in to add the fast driving force behind it. It again drops down for the verse, mainly focusing on the vocals, strings, and keys. It builds well into the huge, heavier chorus – this one being a little simpler and catchier vocally. The second verse and chorus have a little more instrumentation to them, adding some great dynamics to the song. The more I hear the chorus, the more I fall in love with it, and it is going to be another track stuck in my head for days to come. The solo in this song is slower, re-treading the vocal melody for the most part, but it sounds awesome. If anything, it may be better than their crazy fast playing in the last two songs. It then heads into a final double chorus to end another fantastic song and one that rather easily made the playlist.

‘Varcolac’ opens on some more choir-style vocals and I have to admit it’s starting to wear a little thin on me already – not a good sign for a power metal album. Still though, the riff that proceeds it is pretty great. It’s a little steadier than I’m used to from the band so far. The verse maintains the same steady speed and riff, although they mention the song title so much in the lyrics that I was worried I’d gotten it confused and it was the chorus instead. I’m still a tad confused, but I think the higher, double-based parts are considered the choruses of the song. Either way, the chanting of Varcolac is catchier than any other part of the song so it may as well have been the chorus! A riff seems to come out of nowhere for a moment after the second chorus before it is quickly hidden by the vocals and epicness again, which was a little odd. It would have been nice to give the riff a little more time to breathe. We get a high bridge part again before it heads into a verse/chorus part again to finish it off. This was a good song, but man did the structure confuse me a little!

‘Alive or Undead’ starts slower than the others with a beautiful piano melody, but all I could think about was how much the choir at the start sounded like the Halo song. Karsten “Attila Dorn” Brill’s low vocals fit surprisingly well over the top of the piano, somehow adding even more beauty to the track. This song is a slow build; the strings and other accompaniment swells more and more as the vocals do and it takes over a minute and a half for it to finally break and the drums and guitars to come in. They only add to the epicness of it all – this feeling like a fantastic power metal power ballad… there must be an easier way of saying that! It all drops out again for a slow, brief guitar solo that builds up again for a huge final chorus and outro, even managing to squeeze another great guitar solo into it too. This was just the sort of change of pace this album needed after the first few tracks being a little similar and it worked perfectly, I loved it!

‘Blood for Blood’ opens with enough accordion that for a moment I thought I was listening to a Dropkick Murphys song. The heaviness is soon built in around it though as it turns into a power-folk-metal song, somehow. Unfortunately, outside of the interesting new instrumentation, there isn’t too much difference in this track that I haven’t already heard before on the album. Also, unfortunately, it is the same for the following track ‘Glaubenskraft’ and the album’s title track. ‘Call of the Wild’ has a damn catchy chorus, don’t get me wrong, but they are all fairly similar to the opening few tracks – enough for me not to have much to say about them!

The final three songs are again more of the same. I want to stress that it isn’t at all a bad thing; a band is going to have a distinct sound that they stick to, especially in such a niche sub-genre, it just means as a reviewer I have less to gush over. ‘Sermon of Swords’ has an awesome duelling solo and some fun chants, ‘Undress to Confess’ is silly, comedic brilliance that I wasn’t expecting to hear from an otherwise serious-sounding band and ‘Reverent of Rats’ is a pretty strong closer. However, outside of that, I can’t say much that I haven’t already said when talking about other songs. 

Overall: This was a damn enjoyable album packed full of great instrumentation, epic feeling, and some very catchy vocals. It is another review that has immediately made me want to check out more of their stuff, as well as see them live as it is the sort of music that would be even better to see in person with the whole stage show backing it. One of the best new release this year!

Score: 7.5/10

Did you enjoy our review? Keep up to date with them all on our Facebook page here.