Magic Circle
2007
1. Overture to the Hymn of the Immortal Warriors
2. The Ascension
3. King of Kings
4. Army of the Dead, Part I
5. Sleipnir
6. Loki God of Fire
7. Blood Brothers
8. Overture to Odin
9. The Blood of Odin
10. The Sons of Odin
11. Glory Majesty Unity
12. Gods of War
13. Army of the Dead, Part II
14. Odin
15. Hymn of the Immortal Warriors
16. Die For Metal
It's been 5 years since a full length studio album from Manowar has seen the light of day and the wait for that album was like 6 years. Productive is not the first word to spring to mind when thinking of Manowar. Actually the first words to come to my mind are 'cheese' and 'loincloths' and I'm sure it's the same for many of you. Love them or hate them though Manowar has made a considerable mark on the scene with their brand of 'true' warrior metal.
It's time (if not long past time) to start questioning Manowar's relevance in the here and the now however. With 2 albums put out in the last decade and the last with mixed reviews a lot is riding on this release. Manowar fans have been waiting a long time for a straight up slab of Manowar warrior cliches with solid traditional music and I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell you to keep waiting. What we have here is the most pompous, over the top and completely unnecessary load of fluff I've ever heard.
To even call this a metal album seems a stretch at times considering 7 tracks of this album do not contain metal music. What we have here is 9 metal tracks packed between so much classical interludes and spoken word tracks that I just wanted to shut this fucker off and forget it ever existed. I actually had to scream 'Get to the fucking song!' at my computer to vent my frustration listening to this one. The only reason I made it past track 4 was that I felt the need to write this damned review. Track 1 is a 6 minute classical intro and track 2 is a classical interlude with some spoken word... an intro into an interlude... are you fucking kidding me? Then it gos into one song before you get ANOTHER FUCKING INTERLUDE and the album more or less gos on like this.
To top it all off, the payout for sitting through this pompous nonsense isn't even that good. The first few ACTUAL songs have a pretty decent upbeat rocking Manowar approach, even if they're absolutely nothing new, but the songs lose steam as you get deeper into the album. Each metal track seems more ponderous and slow than the last and geared toward sounding majestic and epic. To me though they just succeed at sounding really boring. Oh and some of the songs have INTROS and OUTROS within them. MORE FLUFF... yay! If the songs were at least worth listening to and made for some 'hits' I could at least call this album tragically flawed. As is, it's a brutally boring and filler ridden album with zero redeeming features.
Just in case you haven't gotten the gist of this review yet... this album blows. Actually that's an insult to women working corners everywhere. Manowar seems to think they can make up for a lack of metal songwriting ideas with loads of orchestration and conceptual lyrics about Norse gods. Think again Manowar... think again.
Highlights: King Of Kings and Loki God Of Fire are passable, but not great.
Rating - 0.5/5
2. The Ascension
3. King of Kings
4. Army of the Dead, Part I
5. Sleipnir
6. Loki God of Fire
7. Blood Brothers
8. Overture to Odin
9. The Blood of Odin
10. The Sons of Odin
11. Glory Majesty Unity
12. Gods of War
13. Army of the Dead, Part II
14. Odin
15. Hymn of the Immortal Warriors
16. Die For Metal
It's been 5 years since a full length studio album from Manowar has seen the light of day and the wait for that album was like 6 years. Productive is not the first word to spring to mind when thinking of Manowar. Actually the first words to come to my mind are 'cheese' and 'loincloths' and I'm sure it's the same for many of you. Love them or hate them though Manowar has made a considerable mark on the scene with their brand of 'true' warrior metal.
It's time (if not long past time) to start questioning Manowar's relevance in the here and the now however. With 2 albums put out in the last decade and the last with mixed reviews a lot is riding on this release. Manowar fans have been waiting a long time for a straight up slab of Manowar warrior cliches with solid traditional music and I'm afraid I'm going to have to tell you to keep waiting. What we have here is the most pompous, over the top and completely unnecessary load of fluff I've ever heard.
To even call this a metal album seems a stretch at times considering 7 tracks of this album do not contain metal music. What we have here is 9 metal tracks packed between so much classical interludes and spoken word tracks that I just wanted to shut this fucker off and forget it ever existed. I actually had to scream 'Get to the fucking song!' at my computer to vent my frustration listening to this one. The only reason I made it past track 4 was that I felt the need to write this damned review. Track 1 is a 6 minute classical intro and track 2 is a classical interlude with some spoken word... an intro into an interlude... are you fucking kidding me? Then it gos into one song before you get ANOTHER FUCKING INTERLUDE and the album more or less gos on like this.
To top it all off, the payout for sitting through this pompous nonsense isn't even that good. The first few ACTUAL songs have a pretty decent upbeat rocking Manowar approach, even if they're absolutely nothing new, but the songs lose steam as you get deeper into the album. Each metal track seems more ponderous and slow than the last and geared toward sounding majestic and epic. To me though they just succeed at sounding really boring. Oh and some of the songs have INTROS and OUTROS within them. MORE FLUFF... yay! If the songs were at least worth listening to and made for some 'hits' I could at least call this album tragically flawed. As is, it's a brutally boring and filler ridden album with zero redeeming features.
Just in case you haven't gotten the gist of this review yet... this album blows. Actually that's an insult to women working corners everywhere. Manowar seems to think they can make up for a lack of metal songwriting ideas with loads of orchestration and conceptual lyrics about Norse gods. Think again Manowar... think again.
Highlights: King Of Kings and Loki God Of Fire are passable, but not great.
Rating - 0.5/5
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