lukretion Hate them or love them, Manowar are one of the most well-known (and talked about) metal bands on the planet. Warriors of the World is the Americans’ 9th full-length album, released in 2002 after a gap of 6 years from their previous LP, Lounder Than Hell. And if that record had already started to show a worrying involution in the band’s sound, Warriors of the World continues the inexorable decline, marking a new low in Manowar’s discography.

The band’s sound has not changed much over the years – forging that epic, loud brand of traditional heavy metal that has served as template for countless bands since the 1980s. While not very different from the rest of their discography, the tracks on Warriors of the World resemble more a faded photograph of Manowar’s sonic prototype than a 2.0 version propelled in the new millennium. The tracks have all the right ingredients – loud, steady drum beats, powerful bass and guitar riffs, epic vocal melodies -, but it is hard to shake the impression that we haven’t heard all this before already, but better. A ballad like “Swords in the Wind” pales in comparison to masterpieces such as “Master of the Wind” or “Heart of Steel”, lacking in pathos and delivery. The more uptempo and aggressive songs (“Hand of Doom”, “House of Death “, “Fight Until We Die”) fare somewhat better, but they too show the signs of time: Eric Adams’ roar, while still respectable, is just a tiny bit less commanding than on previous records; the guitar and bass riffs feel slightly recycled; and the arrangements are somewhat less vivid. In sum, it’s hard to see why one would prefer to listen to this over any of the band’s previous 8 records, if free to choose.

Of course, the fact Manowar might have written better songs and albums before, is no reason to consider Warriors of the World a bad record per se. However, it is hard to ignore some glaring issues it presents. First and foremost, the album contains a lot of fluff. And when I say “a lot”, I mean more than 50% of the material included here. This is mostly concentrated in the album’s first half, where we have two fairly insipid balladish songs (“The Fight for Freedom” and “Swords in the Wind”), two frankly improbable covers (a snippet of Puccini’s aria “Nessun Dorma” and Elvis Presley’s “An American Trilogy”) and two pointless, keyboard-driven instrumentals (“Valhalla” and “The March”). That’s a total of six slow, fairly pompous, slightly lethargic songs in a row! It would be enough to sink even the strongest of albums and, alas, the remaining five tracks of Warriors of the World fare just above average. The concluding lot of songs, from the title-track to “Fight Until We Die”, is by far the best the LP has to offer, although it’s hard to ignore the fact that “Hand of Doom”, “House of Death” and “Fight Until We Die” are essentially cut from the same cloth and have their own issues too (for instance, the ending chorus of “Hand of Doom” drags on way too long and “Fight Until We Die” really feels like a mere appendix to “House of Death”).

Overall, I cannot say I enjoy listening to Warriors of the World much. The first half is highly inconsistent and boring. The second half is better, but seems to have been written on autopilot, recycling familiar riffs and melodies (and lyrics, of course). Maybe Manowar should have tried to condense this material into an EP (with the covers + instrumental a b-sides, possibly). Either way, I cannot see myself playing this one very often, unless someone steals all previous Manowar’s albums from my collection.

Kingcrimsonprog Warriors Of The World, the American Metal band Manowar’s ninth full-length studio album, is something of a strange record. Its fair to say that it isn’t exactly the fan’s favourite album, and in my own opinion, it is easy to see why.

This is a bit of a bizarre album; the structure feels unbalanced and unnatural. Its more or less half Heavy Hard Metal songs, and half ballads and slow tracks. That’s not so terrible in and of itself, some of the band’s most popular albums like Kings Of Metal are full of ballads and slow songs. However, on this record they’re all bunched up together near the start of the record. Not in a gradual rise from slowest to fastest and quietest to heaviest. It just feels like a very unnatural hodgepodge. Of those quiet songs, three are tributes to Wagner, Pavarotti and Elvis. The album feels sort of overlong, and three tracks aren’t even Manowar originals. It might have served the album better if they had been bonus tracks, regardless of how good they are, it is too long and having three slow non-originals is a bit of a momentum killer.

Of the Hard, Heavy Metal songs on the record, some are mid-paced and some are blisteringly fast. On an intellectual level it is kind of feels annoying that the songs are repetition of previous Manowar tracks, there’s a sense of Deja Vue for sure.

On top of that, the lyrics feel like a repetition of previous stuff, taken almost up to a parody level. In fairness though, that’s been going on for years now and it didn’t spoil previous albums. I don’t listen to Manowar for thought provoking, soul searching lyrics anyway, I listen to them because they make good music and sometimes it’s a lot of fun.

So there we go; cheesy lyrics, repeating old glories, too many tracks, too many quiet tracks, weird track ordering. Sounds like a bit of a stinker, right? Well see, here’s the thing… I really like it. I have to say, I’ve personalized the running order in iTunes so it feels more balanced, and it is overlong but then again that’s extra value, if they’d been called bonus tracks people would accept it more easily. The songs are similar to old songs but hey, I loved those old songs and I’m glad to hear more.

Is this the best Manowar album? No. Should a newcomer get it as a first album? No. Its very much something I would recommend to fanatics and collectors only. It’s the kind of thing you’ll probably only listen to when you’re in the mood or only listen to highlights from. Can I call it a bad album though? Well, I can’t really bring myself to. ‘House Of Death,’ ‘Hand Of Doom,’ ‘Warriors Of The World Unite’ and even the ballad ‘Swords Of The Wind’ are all just too good to allow me to say that.

Warthur 6 years after showcasing an intriguing new sound on Louder Than Hell, Manowar retreated to a disappointingly conventional and lukewarm musical approach on Warriors of the World, an album notable mainly for the fact that the cheesy fantasy swordplay normally associated with Manowar lyrics is substituted with unsubtle cheerleading for the War On Terror - a simplistic position which might have made sense in 2002, even if it is expressed kind of tastelessly, but which in the wake of the debacle of Iraq feels naive and dated.

Songs like Fight for Freedom could be mistaken for parody songs from Team America: World Police, and the use of "Dixie" is particularly tactless. (Subtle hint, America: more or less nobody outside of your borders associates the Confederacy and its regalia and songs with anything other than slavery, so showcasing Dixie as a segment of a song which, so far as I can tell, is meant to sum up the spirit of America feels kind of incongrous.)

In short, this is an album which plays like Manowar were commissioned by the US military to create propaganda music for the War On Terror - except they're apparently doing this voluntarily. So much for being renegades and rebels who stick it to the man, eh?