Playlouder - Music is the Network

Heavy metal has had a long and illustrious association with the gods! Gods of war, gods of the underworld and of course merry old Mr Satan who in this form isn’t a god as such but has the best tunes. The warrior archetype continues to loom large, a necessary antidote to the mounds of dead-eyed smiling bullshit piled up around the contemporary psyche that insists that its true will is to buy things, obey whatever rules society has deemed appropriate this century, have some children and then wither away into discontented bitterness. Listening to The Sword as you walk to your mind-numbing employment past myriad words and images expressly designed to pierce their way to your unconscious fears and desires and prod them with a taunting beckoning finger if you only just succumb and be a part of it man, is to be transported to a part of the human psyche that don’t take no shit from anyone and knows what it is to be oh so free.

The Sword didn’t invent this of course, they’re the latest in a long line successfully riding the current that’s been active in this form for 30 years, a necessarily destructive drive that cuts through the crap in order to determine what is worthwhile and what isn’t. Mythic imagery certainly ain’t nothing new in this most D&D of genres, but recently it’s commonly been the preserve of the more theatrical end of the spectrum, those of the tight leather trousers and painstakingly realised fantasy worlds with airbrushed double-gatefold vinyl persuasion. While this is naturally a valid and worthwhile pursuit, it’s still exciting to hear a song called Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyper Zephyrians that mentions “evil wizards unholy to behold” that is also a fucking heavy riff pummelling old school classic with no badly synthesised violins in sight.

Yeah we’re in Black Sabbath/early Metallica territory, but they do it so very well with enough ballsy riffage, playful pauses, and bouncing pounding bounding drumming to ignore the fact they’re from the terminally hip Austin, Texas and just enjoy the feeling. It's that feeling you get but they don't any more, it's where you stop analysing the music and its social context and everything that’s led to it now, where you put down your Sunday supplement with the witty little paragraphs subtly reinforcing the paper’s preferred worldview, it's where you forget all the constructs around you that you use to instil meaning into your life and just absorb that primal throbbing head nodding sound that can take you to a part of yourself that hasn’t been conditioned and trodden on by the cares and corruptions of the world. Heavy shit, man.