Artikkel on pärit siit.
After the announcement that Manowar are playing their first show for 16 years, Dom Lawson weighs in with a blog on why you should love the men of steel.
Manowar fucking rule. It’s obvious, really, isn’t it? I’m not even sure why I felt the need to point it out. Manowar are the armour-clad, blood-stained, boob-saluting epitome of heavy fucking metal in its purest (and loudest) form. Like Maiden, Priest, Metallica, Slayer and King Diamond, Manowar are one of metal’s fundamentals. Not liking them is basically an admission that you still wet the bed and get your hair cut by your gran. Liking them makes your hair and genitals grow and greatly enhances the likelihood that other people will want to touch you in a sexy way.
Okay, so Gods Of War was crap, but Manowar are allowed to drop the occasional musical bollock because, as you may have notice, THEY’RE FUCKING MANOWAR. And, sing hosannas, they’ve finally announced that they will be performing in the UK, for the first time since the Industrial Revolution. Myself and several other members of the Metal Hammer crew have been surfing on a wave of our own joy-spunk ever since we heard the news. In celebration, then, here are ten reasons why MANOWAR FUCKING RULE. Put on your best loincloth, down a cold beer and shut the fuck up. It’s metal time.
1. THEY ARE THE MOST METAL BAND ON THE PLANET
It hardly needs pointing out, but just in case you’re one of those awful people who doesn’t like heavy metal, Manowar have always made a point of being at least 27% more metal than any other band. It’s what they do, and they do it well. From the opening notes of Death Tone (the first song on the America’s debut album Battle Hymns) onwards, everything that Manowar have ever released has been utterly metal. Even the boring bits on Gods Of War…the endless intros, outros and narrative interludes…were totally metal. How? Because they were CHARACTER BUILDING, obviously. And a strong character leads to a strong mind and mental fortitude is FUCKING METAL.
2. THEY SIGNED THEIR FIRST CONTRACT IN BLOOD
These days we’re all a bit jaded and worn out with black metal bands smearing themselves in their own shit and squeezing dead squirrels until their eyes pop out, but back in the early ‘80s when Manowar first rose to global prominence, the idea that any band would spill blood in the name of heavy metal was genuinely mind-blowing. When Manowar signed with Liberty Records in 1981, they had no desire to use a stupid fucking biro to seal their commitment to spreading THE WORD OF STEEL. No, they used their own blood. That, my friends, is commitment. That, my fellow warriors, is heavy fucking metal.
3. ORSON FUCKING WELLES, BABY!
If you’re unfamiliar with the Manowar back catalogue, you really should stop spending quite so much time watching Glee DVDs and eating lettuce. Get yourself a copy of Battle Hymns, the first Manowar album, and listen to it as loud as possible. You will notice immediately, assuming that you have any kind of functioning brain, that the album features a FUCKING BRILLIANT song called Dark Avenger. That song features a voiceover by legendary actor and film director Orson Welles. If you know anything about films, you will know what this means. If you don’t, I’ll help you out…it means that MANOWAR FUCKING RULE.
4. THEY ARE DEADLY FUCKING SERIOUS.
Okay, I’ll admit it…it’s easy to laugh at Manowar. To be more specific, it’s easy to laugh at Manowar if you’re a MASSIVE CUNT. If you have no interest in fantastic music, stirring lyrics and having mind-smashing amounts of fun, then do feel free to have a little self-satisfied chuckle at the silly heavy metal band. If, however, you’re not a MASSIVE CUNT, then you should be able to salute the fact that Manowar mean EVERY FUCKING WORD and are the living, breathing, leather-clad embodiment of everything that heavy metal stands for. If that makes them ridiculous, then I embrace ridicule like a Grizzly Bear crushing a Paramore fan to death.
5. HAIL TO ENGLAND
Maybe it’s just me, but I firmly believe that Hail To England is one of the greatest heavy metal albums of all time. Firstly, it’s called Hail To England, which might not be a plus point if you’re Welsh or Scottish, but since it was the English that invented heavy metal in the first place, you should probably cut us some slack. Or not. It doesn’t really matter because MANOWAR WROTE A SONG ABOUT HOW AWESOME ENGLAND IS! You can’t argue with that. Well, maybe you can but no one will hear you because Manowar are SO FUCKING LOUD. And because you have a strange, whiny, high-pitched voice that only dogs can hear. You weirdo.
P.S. It has also been pointed out that, being American, Manowar probably think that Scotland and Wales are in England anyway. So, you know, chill out.
6. JOEY DEMAIO’S INSANE BASS PLAYING
Imagine, if you will, that Joey DeMaio is not totally amazing and is actually a bit rubbish at playing the bass guitar. Yes, that’s right, he would still be more metal than just about anyone else on the planet because he’s JOEY DEMAIO FROM MANOWAR. Now, shake off that crazy delusion and factor in Mr DeMaio’s incredible technical skills and behold, he’s EVEN MORE FUCKING METAL THAN BEFORE. Just looking at him is like being smashed in the face with a steel girder. Three times. Listening to him playing FLIGHT OF THE FUCKING BUMBLE BEE, which he does at immense speed on the brilliant Manowar album Kings Of Metal (albeit after renaming it Sting Of The Bumblebee, because it sounded more metal) is like having your ears ripped off by a giant metal claw and then replaced with brand new ears that are MADE OF ACTUAL METAL FORGED IN JOEY DEMAIO’S MAGICAL SKULL. If you tried to play the bass like that, you’d break your fingers. So don’t bother. You’re NOT METAL ENOUGH.
7. THEY HAVE THE BEST LYRICS OF ALL TIME
Just read this, for fuck’s sake:
“Hear the pounding army of the night! The call of metal summons us tonight!
And gather we on this site to behold the power and the might. We wear leather, we wear spikes, we rule the night! Off with the lights, hear the screams…see the banging heads awaken to their dreams. The sound of metal so loud it cracks the beams! Played by warriors called the Metal Kings!!”
Read it? Good. There are two possible responses to reading the lyrics to Gloves Of Metal by Manowar. The first (incorrect) reponse is to laugh and say “That’s silly! What a load of bollocks!” Oh dear. Don’t make the mistake of doing that, will you? The second (correct) response is to raise your flagon of beer high in the air (WHAT DO YOU MEAN YOU DIDN’T BRING BEER???), place your other hand on your chest, roughly where your thumping METAL HEART should be, and gaze proudly and longingly towards the sky like a TRUE VIKING WARRIOR. If you’d rather dwell on the tedious minutiae of your boring life, feel free. Personally, I’d rather listen to Manowar and not be a total fanny.
8. MANOWAR ARE EPIC
The word ‘epic’ is constantly being abused by idiots. Please make it stop. Your sandwich is not epic. Your trip to the cinema was not epic. Boring, mediocre metalcore bands are not epic. Your mum’s chutney is about as epic as, well, chutney. But a quick glance at the standard dictionary classification of the word ‘epic’ – Dictionary.com offers “heroic…majestic…impressively great” as one potential definition – confirms that Manowar are, indeed, TOTALLY FUCKING EPIC. They should copyright the word and stop dimwits from using it to describe a trip to Nando’s. It’s CHICKEN AND FUCKING CHIPS, YOU GIANT SHITBALL! Do shush.
9. THEY WILL NEVER STOP.
Okay, so it’s fairly obvious that Manowar, despite the sheer brain-mincing magnitude of their collective genius, are mortal men and will one day cash in their steel chips and head for Valhalla’s gates. But in the meantime, no fucker is going to prevent them from propagating THE WORD OF STEEL. Sometimes, Manowar become so enthusiastic that they have to be physically removed from the stage. In 2008, they played a headline show in Bulgaria and their set lasted for FIVE HOURS. Imagine that. You’d be so full of metal by the end of it that you’d be shitting iron filings for months. Can you imagine Lars Ulrich playing the drums for five hours? Actually, don’t even try. You’ll just upset yourself.
10. MANOWAR. FUCKING. RULE.
Not sure if I’ve mentioned this before, but Manowar fucking rule. If you don’t believe me, get yourself a copy of Hail To England or Kings Of Metal or The Triumph Of Steel and listen to it very fucking loud over and over again until your skull cracks. Then listen to it again. If you still don’t agree with me then we can never be married and I will be removing you from my list of potential suitors. Good day to you, you intolerable turdfunnel you. Never darken my door again.
Lots of love,
Dom Lawson xxx
Fatal error: Uncaught Error: Undefined constant "is_single" in /data01/virt84069/domeenid/www.manowar.ee/htdocs/core/wp-content/themes/theme2013/content.php:107 Stack trace: #0 /data01/virt84069/domeenid/www.manowar.ee/htdocs/core/wp-includes/template.php(792): require() #1 /data01/virt84069/domeenid/www.manowar.ee/htdocs/core/wp-includes/template.php(725): load_template('/data01/virt840...', false, Array) #2 /data01/virt84069/domeenid/www.manowar.ee/htdocs/core/wp-includes/general-template.php(206): locate_template(Array, true, false, Array) #3 /data01/virt84069/domeenid/www.manowar.ee/htdocs/core/wp-content/themes/theme2013/single.php(33): get_template_part('content', '') #4 /data01/virt84069/domeenid/www.manowar.ee/htdocs/core/wp-includes/template-loader.php(106): include('/data01/virt840...') #5 /data01/virt84069/domeenid/www.manowar.ee/htdocs/core/wp-blog-header.php(19): require_once('/data01/virt840...') #6 /data01/virt84069/domeenid/www.manowar.ee/htdocs/index.php(17): require('/data01/virt840...') #7 {main} thrown in /data01/virt84069/domeenid/www.manowar.ee/htdocs/core/wp-content/themes/theme2013/content.php on line 107