MANOWAR
Louder Than Hell (1996)

Rating: 8.5/10
Kill! Die! Hail! Yet another Heavy Metttttaallll!! classic.



You can laugh at any other heavy metal band, but to direct your mirth at Manowar is to ask for death. "They tried to test our spirit/they tasted steel before we were done", seethes Eric Adams with head-lopping conviction in "Brothers of Metal Pt. 1". And yea, no ordinary metal band are Manowar. In their 14 years, this band of Americans with their animal skin loincloths, motorbikes and broadswords have carved for themselves a Power Metal kingdom in the midst of the disbelievers, weathering innumerable mutations of music, and harshest of all, surviving the vagaries of a fate dictated by the fickle Record-Buying Public. It is 1996, and Manowar have returned with their 8th album, to deliver unto us their eternal message - Heavy Metal Never Dies!

The 10 anthems found herein are thunderous odes to swords, strength, metal and mayhem. Songs whose very titles bespeak their single-minded and bloody purpose and whose every shredding note is played with irony-killing passion. "Return of the Warlord" begins the proceedings with the familiar rumble of Joey DeMaio's throbbing bass and lays the road open for our hellbent heroes to "kick some goddamn ass". "Brothers of Metal Pt. 1" stokes up a frenzied us-against-them bravura, while "The Gods Made Heavy Metal" is a pummelling, 6-minute long non-stop shout-a-long with the classic chorus: "The gods made heavy metal/and saw that it was good/They said to play it louder than hell/we promised that we would". And this is no idle boast either, for Manowar are the Loudest Band on the Planet according to the Guinness Book of World Records.

This is followed by "Courage", a plaintive ballad accompanied by piano and strings which wouldn't have been a smidgen of warpaint out of place in BRAVEHEART. Elsewhere, LOUDER THAN HELL never lets up for a single minute. "Number 1" proves that contrary to popular belief, Manowar can indeed count, even if it's only with one finger. The majestic sweep of the instrumental "Today Is A Good Day To Die" recalls passages in THE TRIUMPH OF STEEL's "Achilles, Agony and Ecstacy In Eight Parts". Album closer "The Power" is a remorseless er... powerhouse of a track, more a Nordic epic in 4 minutes than a song, really. On it, Scott Columbus pounds the living bejesus out of his drumkit and Karl Logan whips out a squealing solo that with puts paid to any notion that he can't fill the steel boots of departed guitarist Ross the Boss. You're practically breathless when it all ends, still waiting for the lightning that inevitably follows a squall of thunder.

They say it as clear here (and as many times and using the same words) as they did on their very first album, 1982's BATTLE HYMNS. It's all about faith, power, metal, and the total annihilation of the enemy. It's "more than our religion, it's the only way to live." The only thing LOUDER THAN HELL lacks is the blessing of the late Orson Welles, who on "Dark Avenger" from the first album can be heard to intone lines like: "Seek payment not only for thine own anguish, but vindicate the souls of the unavenged". This is otherwise classic Manowar - more than mortal, mightier than any other metal band in existence.


(This review originally appeared in The Flying Inkpot.)
Gerald Tan 1997

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 Visitor's Comments:

FROM: weq_15@hotmail.com (Jim Jakobsson)
DATE: Tue, 30 Mar 1999
SUBJECT: What the fuck!!
COMMENTS: How can Al Membrane say sutch things about Manowar i think that they are the hreatest and Al will (only) go to haven ...we others will go to HELL!!

FROM: manowar1000@hotmail.com (Wardek)
DATE: Tue, 9 Mar 1999
SUBJECT: MANOWAR!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
COMMENTS: Al Membrane kiss my ass if you don't like it I don't care!
"If you ain't no bolls to take it you can leave the hall!"
(To wimps and Posers - like Al Membrane)
"To all of you I say big, strong, loud and proud FUCK YOU"
(Erick Adams)

FROM: amembrane@hotmail.com (Al Membrane)
DATE: Thu, 7 Jan 1999
SUBJECT: Pathetic people
COMMENTS: All I have to say is that ManoWar is a bunch of grown men singing about swords. Maybe in junion high it's alright to sing about your D&D exploits, but not in your adulthood.

FROM: peterj_lule@hotmail.com (Peter Johansson)
DATE: 22/11/98
SUBJECT: Hail Metal Kings!
COMMENTS: Hello, I´m a guy on 17 years frpm Sweden and a BIG metal-fan, especially of Manowar. I Have five albums, and I am going to buy "Louder than Hell" as sonn as I can, I have heard some of the songs, and and it sounden great. Althogh not as good as the previous albums such as "Hail to England" "Kings of Metal" and "Fighting the world" But I look forward to reccive another album fro the metal kings, hail brother! Stand and fight, see you on the battlefield...


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