Three Best Manowar Albums?

[Jim LotFP]

All this talk of true metal this, the meaning of metal that... and I have no Manowar studio albums in my possession. Shit, I don't even know if I still have those two double live albums anymore.

So I'm off to Kråklund tomorrow, mission Get Some Manowar. They're cheap(-ish... this is Finland).

I'm thinking of going for Hail to England, Into Glory Ride, and Sign of the Hamster.

No Warriors of the World or whatever the last one was, it was only half good.

And after watching Fawlty Towers episodes, I am going to replace "Hammer" with "Hamster" forevermore. As in the new Pharaoh song, I Am the Hamster.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Go for the first two you mentioned, but take "The Triumph of Steel" as a third. Listen to iot and you'll know why I said that. It is an exception, especially considering the line-up.

 

[DBB]

1. Kings of Metal
2. Triumph of Steel
3. Hail to England

These three are the most cheese-free releases (I had the cassette version of Kings of Metal forever and only recently aquired the CD with the "Pleasure Slave" bonus track, so it really is not part of the album to me) and would be the albums I would reccommend to someone in hopes of leaving no bad initial impression about the band in someone's mind. I am beyond hope though, I was sitting in my car listening to "Heart of Steel " and had a two-gallons-of-coffee revelation that there was really nothing cheesy about Manowar. Hell on Earth III made its way into the Burns household yesterday and that is one of three music DVDs I own and one of the others is Hell on Earth I.

Here is an interesting interview with Joey DeMaio:


http://www.manowar.ru/articles/1_e.html

 

[Occam's Razor]

I know that interview by Götz Kühnemud.
The thing is, that you cannot take the band seriously anymore in Germany. They've had a lot of mainstream TV appearances and made fools of themselves in front of an audience that just too eagerly soaks up the sterreotypes and tears the music apart for these reasons. They have grown to a comedy thing, and the music is totally irrelevant now.
Their gig at Earthshaker saw a full-on orchestra later found out to be playback! Songs interrupted for a quarter hour of DeMaio-blablah and fans fleeced with hoorific prices. A businesss, no band...great past albums

 

[Jim LotFP]

Here is an interesting interview with Joey DeMaio:
http://www.manowar.ru/articles/1_e.html

This is a good read.

"After all ‘Warriors of the World’ was your first studio album since 1996. Then it’s not quite unproblematic, when a good part of the record - ґAn American Trilogyґ, ґNessun Dormaґ and ґThe Fight For Freedomґ - consists of experiments, foreign style pieces or simply irrelevancies which have nothing to do on a Manowar-record."

Manowar can't win. If they just release TRUE METAL, then they are merely a caricature of a real band and a joke. If they experiment, then they are not delivering what the KINGS OF METAL are supposed to deliver. The core of the band has to be pushing 50, it would be false for them to just be hard as nails at all times anyway, wouldn't it?

"I’m not a Mozart who writes new perfect songs everyday. And I do not have a box at home with ready-written demotapes which I could get out on demand. As much as I wished it was like that, the reality is different.”

Can you imagine how awful Manowar albums would be if they released one every one or two years since 1992? I think DeMaio throws out a smokescreen concerning the touring... and I think this quote gives the real reasons for large periods of time between albums. Manowar albums these days may not be as good as albums in the past, but at least the arrival of a Manowar album is met with curiousity and anticipation and maybe a feeling of 'something special'... even if the album ultimately disappoints, it's not just another assembly line piece put out on a schedule.

If that makes any sense.

"And what does ‘B-side’ mean? It’s bullshit, not good enough for the regular album!"

RH: Good. But is it necessary to release every record in ten different shapes and colours?
DeMaio: “Yes, it is necessary!"

RH: Nowadays it takes 6 years for one new record.
...
RH: This flood of MANOWAR products is oversaturating the market.

I hope Iron Maiden got this treatment from Rock Hard.

RH: Why are you playing at the Popkomm and in the same second cancel metal-festivals like Wacken?

That was a bizarre exchange.

 

[Occam's Razor]

They should quit - as should Maiden.

 

[JayKeeley]

I'm thinking of going for Hail to England, Into Glory Ride, and Sign of the Hamster.

And you'd be on the money. Actually the Hamster album could be the most expendable of the three, but not getting England or Glory would be nonsensical. (The Bathory albums )

By the way, let it be said, I'm a complete Manowar n00b. It took for Arch Enemy's cover of "Kill with Power" to make me 'truly' check out Hail to England. Pity I left it so long, but you know, that damn stigma just got in the way....

 

[BenMech]

Manowar is good for a friendly chuckle, but Virgin Steele does the same thing with ana active cerebrum

 

[Jim LotFP]

Manowar is good for a friendly chuckle, but Virgin Steele does the same thing with ana active cerebrum

Manowar gets a bad reputation for their outfits in a time when everybody looked like a fucking idiot.

Manowar wore fur.

Bruce Dickinson wore spandex and studded bracers and FUCKING BANGS.

Tom G Warrior wore corpsepaint and fucking spandex and leather shoulder pads.

Looking at Manowar today, everyone looks more ridiculous than they do. Emo haircuts on metalcore bands, head to toe latex outfits, makeup, etc etc etc.

When it comes to lyrics, I think their Blow Your Speakers crap and singing about heavy metal is stupid, but their mythic material is every bit as good and credible as Virgin Steele, and Eric Adams DESTROYS (with power!) David Defeis.

Just from the live albums and Warriors of the World, I suspect Eric Adams is one of the greatest singers in the history of heavy metal. Now I'll see how his voice was early on.

I ended up getting just Hail to England and Triumph of Steel today.

 

[Occam's Razor]

So how do you like "Agony and Ecstacy" - As far as movie-soundtrack-metal, that pisses over Rhapsody big time, doesn't it?...And the drumsolo is more exciting than recently on Reverend Bizarre's "Harbinger".

You're right with Eric Adams - He is actually the one member that appears to me as the most down-to-earth. It's sad that he is limited nowadays by such one-dimensional music.

After "Triumph", tell me that DeMaio is the main songwriter of the band: no way! The other two guys must have had a heavy impact in the writing of that album. The same goes for Ross The Boss on the early stuff:definitely more bluesy, hard rocking ("Metal Daze" alone is actually worth buying the debut).

 

[Laeth MacLaurie]

Just get Edge of Sanity's The Spectral Sorrows, which includes a cover of the only Manowar track worth listening to ("Blood of My Enemies") stripped of all the annoying things that make Manowar itself unlistenable.

 

[Occam's Razor]

*argh*

 

[DBB]

the drumsolo

That is not a drum solo! That is Hephaestus making armor for Achilles--that is the best drum solo in metal. It captures and relates in sound the pith of the description in The Iliad (prefer The Odyssey and Euripides rules over Homer) and is truly an amazing piece of work.

I suspect Eric Adams is one of the greatest singers in the history of heavy metal.

No doubt about it. It is just insane that people can go on and on about Halford and Dickinson while Adams is rarely mentioned.

 

[Occam's Razor]

That is not a drum solo! That is Hephaestus making armor for Achilles--that is the best drum solo in metal. It captures and relates in sound the pith of the description in The Iliad (prefer The Odyssey and Euripides rules over Homer) and is truly an amazing piece of work.

oh, sorry...

No doubt about it. It is just insane that people can go on and on about Halford and Dickinson while Adams is rarely mentioned.

that's where the image of Manowar overshadows quality.

 

[DBB]

that's where the image of Manowar overshadows quality.

I know, and it is unfortunate, but I had to say it anyway.

 

[Laeth MacLaurie]

Or, more likely, where the fame of Iron Maiden and Judas Priest AS BANDS overshadow Manowar, silly shit or not. Dickinson and Halford also get more attention than Messiah Marcolin or Rob Lowe, both more talented vocalists than Dickinson, Halford OR Adams. It's a question of exposure.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Marcolin has an original voice which however reminds of German "Schlager"-music (light stuff for the old people) and strained at times. Lowe is al copy of Dio that sings soul and truthfulness with every note nevertheless. Halford to me has ever been overrated, Dickinson has grown better over the years and is nearly unmatched in what he does...but again, you could also refer him back to Ian Gillan.

Let's not start again to throw names around to play a silly "Who is the metal expert?" game...

 

[Laeth MacLaurie]

Marcolin has an original voice which however reminds of German "Schlager"-music (light stuff for the old people) and strained at times.

So do Dickinson and (especially) Halford and Adams. "Clean" singing in metal demands an unnatural and forced style.

Lowe is al copy of Dio that sings soul and truthfulness with every note nevertheless.

The accents are similar, but that's about it. Dio's style is direct, clipped and staccato and often punctuated by syncopation at the end of phrases. Lowe uses a legato style that emphasizes whole length of phrases rather than specific points within it, often lagging just slightly behind the beat to inject that ponderous sense of doom into otherwise mid-paced songs.

Dickinson has grown better over the years and is nearly unmatched in what he does...but again, you could also refer him back to Ian Gillan.

Dickinson deserves a lot of credit for not simply resting on his early acclaim and instead developing a more versatile, expressive approach. On the other hand, his lower range has lost some punch over the years, and he simply doesn't have the voice he once had.

 

[Occam's Razor]

Do you think so? - I actually found Dickinson's lower range getting stronger, because the voice has lost some of its banshee-qualities with age anyway. If you listen to "The Chemical Wedding"...I don't hear a lack of power there. What I do hear on older live recordings, however, is that Dickinson sang off-key at times and sounded more "screamy" that singing powerfully. He admitted in interviews that he started to improve on that only after "Powerslave" or so. He blamed it on stage monitoring, all the time having to scream against a wall of sound without hearing himself...

Let's not make the Manowar thread a singer thread...

 

[BenMech]

Halford and Dickinson owe their entire careers to Peter Hamill of Van Der Graaf Generator. The resemblance is uncanny