The Batlord

What you've basically got here is British Steel without the diversity. Of course there are "Dark Avenger", "Battle Hymn", and that damn bass solo that's on almost every old school Manowar album (all on the B-side), but the meat of the album is two-dimensional Judas Priest worship, or maybe Saxon, though without riffs quite as brilliant as the latter band (but who can compete with Saxon's riffs?). The only real difference on the first half is that the proto-speed metal sound those bands were developing is a bit more polished, even if Manowar showed no desire at the time to continue evolving in that direction.

What sets the band's Priest-like songs apart from actual Priest for me is that Manowar have an almost unparalleled knack for being energetic and anthemic. "Metal Daze", "Manowar", "Fast Taker", etc are actually more enjoyable to me than a lot of the bands they're quasi-ripping off, just because they are more infectious and fist-pumping (Yeah, I'm totally saying I'd rather listen to this than anything Priest was doing at the time, excluding possibly Screaming for Vengeance). It definitely helps that Eric Adams is the perfect singer to pull off the attitude and swagger that gives the band so much of their charisma.

They don't have any straight-forward metal songs that rise to the creative levels of the twin-guitar assault of "Electric Eye", the riff orgasm that is "Wheels of Steel", or the sheer metal perfection of "Killers", but in general the trashier songs on Battle Hymns just infect my ears to a more insidious degree than any full album being put out by a band whose name wasn't Iron Maiden. The fact that Manowar weren't adding anything new is almost beside the point as far as I'm concerned.

Then of course there are "Dark Avenger" and "Battle Hymn", two songs that don't get nearly enough credit for pioneering a different sound in 80s metal. Even the very tiny handful of doom metal pioneers of the time were more concerned with aping Black Sabbath than really blazing any trails, whereas Manowar took the fantasy aspects of traditional metal and created a sound that suited those lyrics far better than anything Dio ever put out (Sorry, Ronnie, but it is what it is). Many bands since have realized that slowing down rather than speeding up can be far more effective in evoking an epic atmosphere, but Manowar were pretty much on their own in 1982.

It's easy for someone not versed in early eighties metal to not get how different this sound was *cough*Ori*cough*Machine*cough*, but I would challenge them to find anything from that time period to compare with "Battle Hymn" and "Dark Avenger" (along with their next two albums). The only things that come to mind are Saxon's "Crusader" -- which came a full two years after this album -- and Candlemass kinda sorta -- who released their first album four years after Battle Hymn. Whatever you want to say about Manowar being cheesy or unoriginal, they did have a legitimate period of unique creativity.

Like every "great" Manowar album, this is a flawed masterpiece of inconsistent originality and just plain fun metal songs, and aside from the mercifully short bass solo "William's Tale", this is arguably their most consistent album, along with Hail to England. If you dig trashy '80s metal beyond simply Iron Maiden and Judas Priest, then this is essential listening as far as I'm concerned. ****ing hail.

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