The Sword - Used Future

Retro-metal revivalists The Sword have returned from High Country with another offering of 70’s Black Sabbath-inspired classic metal, and the results are pretty mixed, but satisfactory overall.

Compared to a lot of the other groups blatantly trying to take up Sabbath’s place after their retirement, The Sword approach the songs on this album with a sense of experience in the style and show themselves able to take the compositions into their highs by way of their writing rather than by way of production tricks or simply getting thicker and louder. It sounds like something Iommi might actually have messed with rather than lazy tribute.

The first true song “Deadly Nightshade” sets the tone of the album nicely, but does little in the way of progression as a song on its own. Following it, however, “Twilight Sunrise” does a nice job of upping the compositional energy, one of the more complete and fulfilling tracks on the album. The album gets a little proggy in the following two instrumental tracks, a nice segue into that facet of the album.

The fuzzy bass and tasty guitar licks on “Sea of Green” do well to set the mood back into the 70’s, but luckily the band do more than linger there, as the spacy instrumental bridge adds another dash of prog spice to the album without stretching the songs out for the sake of it.

Another short instrumental track, “Nocturn” is a bit of a lull with its repeat of the same guitar motif atop a similarly repetitive piano melody. It’s definitely something that could have been cut out or better elaborated upon as a translation into “Don’t Get Too Comfortable”, a bluesy rock/metal track that brings back the feel of songs like “The Wizard” and “N.I.B.” with its titular warning directed to those in power and those in the shitter. I wish it was a little bolder after all the interlude time it had to warm up, but it’s a nice debut-Black-Sabbath-album-esque track.

The title track opts for a more upbeat classic metal style I could imagine fitting in on Sabbath’s third or fourth album, although I’m not a fan of the unenthusiactic way the titular refrain is sung on the chorus; decent song, but not mind-blowing enough for The Sword’s contention for Sabbath’s old niche.

“Come and Gone” finds the band a little more 90’s blues-inspired and mellow. It’s another lull in the tracklist, serving practically as an interlude with some vocals this time around; it’s minimal swell does hardly enough to be sufficiently moving in its context and after about half of an hour of bluesy Black Sabbath-inspired metal, it would have been nice to up the intensity a bit, which thankfully the last non-instrumental track, “Book of Thoth”, does immediately afterward. With a much-needed quicker tempo over the guitars and drums, the track brings back some much needed rock to the album, ending a bit too quickly, however, still in need of more of an impact to make.

The pair of instrumental closing tracks, “Brown Mountain” and the short “Reprise”, end the album on an ethereal and pretty proggy note, making me wish the album was more consistently similarly interesting in the way it’s closers are.

Overall it’s a solid, succinct retro-metal effort from The Sword, but I doubt it’ll be turning any heads that haven’t already been turned toward the band, or going down as a modern classic of classic heavy metal. It’s alright to get a fix of that classic sound from, but I can’t see myself jumping for it again unless I really burn myself out on Black Sabbath or early Judas Priest and still need that old-school sound.