Unfortunately there is also the slightly disorienting grinding doom-like chords of Pleasure Slave. There are the familiar battle themes in the excellent The Crown And The Ring (Lament Of The Kings) and the anthemic Blood Of The Kings. The second part of the album is a bit of a mixed bag. In this song the band managed to successfully merge their epic metal style with the more commercial sounds going on around them. The melody is fantastic and the emotional delivery by Adams shows what a great singer he is. The song in question is called Heart Of Steel and it is quite brilliant. We then get something quite unusual for Manowar: a power balled. The album opens energetically with Wheels Of Fire that is almost a continuation of Black Wind, Fire And Steel but maybe even faster! This is followed by the title track which is as cheesy as Fighting The World in the lyrics but we do get a great metal riff, very much influenced by Judas Priest. In many ways, the album saw the band easing up on pleasing the MTV crowd with a return to their epic metal roots. It’s one of their finest achievements and it’s no surprise that this compilation adopts it as its talismanic title.ġ988 saw the release of Kings Of Metal.

The band save the best for last by getting back to their battlefield territory and ripping through the breakneck speed metal anthem that is Black Wind, Fire And Steel. Luckily, all is not lost! Defender reintroduces us to the epic storytelling of Manowar with the brilliant atmospheric spoken introduction (courtesy of Orson Wells) while Holy War is quite commercial but keeps the pure metal edge of earlier albums.

Blow Your Speakers, for example, sounds to these ears like a second-rate Kiss outtake (with appropriately crass lyrics), while Carry On seems to be a feeble attempt to manufacture a stadium anthem. While the title track is actually a very good foray into that more mainstream commercial sound, there are unfortunately some weaker efforts on this album. It was hardly surprising that Manowar were influenced by these trends. Heavy rock had gone from being a niche to mainstream, and the charts dominated by the glam bands writing commercial stadium anthems and vying for attention on MTV. Even though only three years had passed since Sign Of The Hammer, the music industry had changed significantly. Looking back at the historical context, this change is perhaps not surprising. Well, the stripes may still be there but instead of a roar coming out if its mouth what we get to hear is a rather lame meow. Despite this change, Adams cheekily sings: ‘Now people keep asking if we’re gonna change I look ’em in the eye tell ’em no way Stripes on a tiger don’t wash away Manowar’s made of steel not clay’. The opening title track is very catchy with a neat vocal hook but the heaviness of the band’s earlier albums seems to have gone missing slightly. We were about to be steamrolled by another blistering heavy metal album, right? Well, not quite. The band line-up was unchanged with band leader Joey DeMaio on bass joined by Ross Friedman on guitars (usually referred to as Ross The Boss), Scott Columbus on drums and Eric Adams on vocals. They returned in 1987 with a brand new record deal with Atlantic and went on to release three albums for their new label which have now been neatly packaged together in this compilation.įighting The World was their first Atlantic release in 1987. Presumably exhausted by all that, they then took a year off. While they made very little impact on the album charts, they did build up a large and loyal following and embarked on an extensive world tour. Incredibly, Manowar released four albums within the remarkably short period of two years and three months. Never mind that there were no Vikings coming over the hill that needed killing, or that the only person you felt like inflicting a painful revenge on was the guy who stole your girlfriend it was just great fun to get into the spirit of the songs and imagine being powerful enough to effortlessly chop your enemies up into little pieces, whether they be Vikings or that guy who stole your girlfriend. Classic metal anthems in this vein such as Battle Hymn or Blood Of My Enemies sent audiences wild, and young adolescents (including myself, I must confess) lapped it all up. Those lyrics often told epic stories of violent revenge or the glory of heroic death in battle. If anything set them apart from other bands it was their lyrics which focused on Norse myths and similar fantasy themes. Manowar burst onto the scene in 1982 with their brand of powerful heavy metal. All three albums contain classic metal material and show the band’s uncanny and unique ability to effortlessly switch between light and shade, and between anger and pathos.

Blackwind fire and steel