Overlords of Chaos

Being a fan of epic heavy metal is not always easy. Sure there are tons of bands playing this style, but unfortunately a vast majority of these bands add an extra portion of cheesy overloaded keyboard layers, annoyingly childish choirs and lots of other stuff (you know, what I mean) as such choking basically songs. Not Ironsword – these guys are definitely carrying the true, epic vibe of metal found on the early Manowar albums (think of "Into Glory Ride" and "Battle Hymns"), Omen and Manilla Road. But with a twist, as Ironsword are definitely darker than their obvious influences. As my review predecessor already mentioned, Ironsword aren’t up to reinvent the genre. Ironsword just stick to the genre’s origins and as on the two albums before they do this nearly flawless.

Ironsword’s sound on "Overlords of Chaos" is once more positively earthern and crisp, leaving not only room for the crunching riffs to hit your ears but giving also enough room for the marching drums and especially for the bass to stand out, which in this galloping way also directly moves into the listener’s neck and spine. "Overlords of Chaos" overall atmosphere is a rather dark one, just fitting to the mostly R.E. Howard (the author of e.g. Conan) themed lyrics and together with the mentioned style of production it should become clear that though labelled as heavy metal this is far from the often found happy-sing-a-long stuff. According to this the vocals of Tann are also more than fitting. He has a rather deep, nasal and a bit hoarse voice which is always pending between actually singing and a form of shouting, perfectly transporting the barbaric feel inherent to the songs.

Of course, what’s really counting are the songs themselves. What use is a framework of fitting production and genre approach when it’s not filled with appropriate content? First of all – there are no filler tracks on this album in my opinion. Either if Ironsword come along in a stomping, mid-tempo way, if breaking into a surprisingly soothing chorus like in “Dark shadows of Stygia” or if they even add a form of slightly punk (yes!) and thrash influenced up-tempo sound like e.g. in “Wrath of Crom” or “Road Warriors”, the songs are great and will bring a grim, barbaric smile to your face directly after the first notes.

But "Overlords of Chaos" also has a minor downside. This downside is that my personal absolute fave tracks on this album, “Death of the Gods” and the title track “Overlords of Chaos”, both being perfect songs with fantastic choruses. But unfortunately these two are the first and third track of thirteen and Ironsword at no point reach the brilliance of these two tracks. Regardless how good the other songs are – by placing these two absolute killer tracks directly at the beginning always leaves a slightly aftertaste for the album’s rest because of not reaching that level again. Speaking in numbers – the two mentioned tracks are def. 100%, while the rest is pending between 70-90%.

Summing everything up, I have to give an absolute recommendation for Overlords of Chaos. This album is a dark shining little gem in the universe of true, epic metal and I’m glad that there are still bands out there like Ironsword, bringing back grimness and barbaric spirit to a genre overloaded by wanna-be metal warriors.