I can easily see how The Sword got a lot of their style and sound from Sabbath. The idea that you can play one super heavy catchy riff and just keep pummeling your listeners with it with lyrics and song structure behind it. Black Sabbath was the first real rock group to do this and many metal groups have followed in that idea. Even technically the newer metal bands, death metal, and black metal bands follow that pattern.
Low Country is an all acoustic album by The Sword that is an acoustic remix of their album High Country, which is a standard metal album with heavy guitars and a massive drum sound. After listening to both so recently I have to say that they did an amazing job on Low Country. Somehow even though it's all acoustic it still sounds pretty much identical to the electric versions, its uncanny.
I'm listening to High Country right now and I like it a lot. One thing that separates The Sword from other typical American doom metal/stoner rock bands is the fact that most of their lyrics are from books, fantasy, and folklore. It doesn't like something Ozzy would sing about. Dio maybe. This is more something that Mikael Akerfelt from Opeth would be singing about.
Which leads me to my next point. The Sword is a band like Black Sabbath that can get progressive. They've actually toured with Opeth. How I wish I could've seen that tour. All their riffs are simple and catchy but the fact that their lyrics aren't the usual metal norm gives them a bit of a progressive edge, even if its not too proggy like Opeth.
Low Country and High Country are two great new metal albums. I'd recommend them to any who's a fan of that classic 70s metal sound and sludgy distorted metal riffs. They get pretty bluesy too. When they get bluesy they can almost enter that Hendrix territory. Low Country has a very strong delta blues sound. High Country gets progressive, even has a Steve Howe acoustic blues tune with synthesizers. Great stuff!
The Sabbath album I got was Mob Rules. Great freakin' album. This was recorded with Ronnie James Dio, Vinnie Appice on drums, Geezer Butler, and Toni Iommi. It was produced by this guy Martin Birch, who previously worked with Deep Purple and Iron Maiden among others. This album is pretty damn well executed and orchestrated. Very heavy, heavy metal music.
This is one of those great records of the 80's, in this case 1981. Dio can carry any metal riff with his powerful voice but when he's being backed by some of the best metal musicians in history the music can get pretty damn powerful and good. This is real metal before all the glam phase. This album was so great that after it was made Warner Bros asked Dio if he wanted to make a solo album. And the rest, as they say is Kisstory.
Metal music is great but sometimes I find that the fans want the bands to just play the same old style and songs for their entire career. Look at bands like Metallica and Slayer. Metal heads aren't keen on change and I think that sometimes hurts the music for the worse in the long run.
New metal music that my friends like (mostly metalcore) is actually not bad. But it all sounds so similar that there's nothing interesting or new going on even if you listen to multiple different bands. It's like okay we've produced a formula and now every band copies it and tries to get big using that strategy. Metal is such a corporate sounding style of music even though its awesome. The singer from my old band used to call metalcore "scene metal" and he liked making fun of the kids who liked that style. But sometimes playing what's popular can get the job done and get your bills paid.
Nothing wrong with that. Can't begrudge a musician from trying to make millions. But some people build their entire careers like that. What I'm trying to say is that I wish metalheads had a more open mind and expanded their taste of music, as well as accepting when bands do new things in metal.
Like how Opeth has pretty much changed from a death metal band with prog elements to pretty much a progressive rock bands with barely slight death metal elements. I think the current metal scene is changing for the better right now.
Right now the sound is going back to the more proto-metal 70's sound of bands like Sabbath and Judas Preist. Clean vocals are coming back and cookie monster growling is becoming less cool, at least I see it that way. Songwriting has gotten better and more catchy songs are being produced. In a sense, people are playing like the old bands from the glory days. It's cool to see and hear the influence and styles in different bands. Bands like Ghost, Tribulation, Opeth, and The Sword are some examples of this.
But I'm sure at some point the more harder edge black metal and death metal riffing won't go away. There's a place for all styles somewhere, including my living room CD rack. I don't think metalcore will change all that much though. Although I went to the Warped Tour this past summer with my friends I just can't get past the fact that most of all those bands sounded the same. I enjoyed it as a social party event but musically it was very tiring.
But that's enough for a rant on metal. Go listen to some Sabbath or The Sword. Dig that classic metal sound!
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