Doomsword - Let Battle Commence

*=Staff's pick	Heathen Assault In The Battlefield Woden's Reign Deathbringer The Siege* My Name Will Live On* Blood Eagle (Not the final cover)

Genre	Doom Metal	Deathmaster	Vocals
Tracks	7	The Forger	Guitar
Runningtime	53 Min.	Guardian Angel II	Guitar
Label	Dragonheart Records	Dark Omen	Bass
Release	25 Sep. 2003	Wrathlord	Drums
Country	Italy	-	Keyboards
Similar artists	Candlemass, Manowar, Bathory

The epic metallers Doomsword from Italy are back with their 3rd fullength album, and they continue their journey over the dark, gloomy mountains of endless battles, while swinging swords and pronouncing anthems to shores of gods from the north.

Whilst the previous efforts had enough shares of faster parts to justify calling their music doomy epic heavy metal rather than heavy epic doom metal, this is quite the opposite. The pace does not for more than a couple of times on this album rise above what with good imagination can be called midtempo. Overall the music is built on elements of pounding mid/slowtempo drums and a monoton riff with some warroirchoirs. The lack of solos they have compensated with ohohhh-parts and laments from the woods after the lost battle to give the best picture possible of the warriors standing their with blood of their brothers on their hands.

The influences from Bathory, and than in particular from the Hammerheart and Twilight Of The Gods era, are significant, so the ones among you who long for those golden years to come back will sure go nuts over this. Unfortunatly - or luckily, depending on your mental state - the vocals also bare especially one strong resemblance of Bathory's: the lack of talent.

I don't dislike this one bit, but that "real" metalfeeling never came while listening to this, despite multiple sessions. That makes it very hard for me to recommend this to anyone, even though I am aware that many will actually appreciate this very much since it in fact is competent doom, but I am afraid that it is a bit too boring even for the most diehard fans of Candlemass, Manilla Road, Bathory and the likes.