The Batlord

Supposedly this is the original version of "Defender", which was released later on Fighting the World. The only difference is a heavier production and an extra thirty seconds of cheesy fantasy narration by Orson Welles(!). It's a decent tune, with the slow, epic heaviness of their Into Glory Ride sound, but doesn't have quite the power of that material. I said on my Fighting the World review that it sounded like a castoff from this period in their career, and I stand by that. I can only assume that they released this as a single because they didn't think it was quite up to snuff to include it on their next album, Into Glory Ride, and either didn't want to waste it, or figured it was at least good enough to garner some interest for their upcoming full-length.

Unfortunately I could only find the '93 version with "Hatred" (which is easily the weakest song off Into Glory Ride, but still has more personality than "Defender"), so I can't know if the single version of "Gloves of Metal" sounds any different to the version from their sophomore album. I'm assuming it's probably just the same song, which would make it easily the biggest reason to listen to this single, as it's a heavy, fist-pumping song, and one of the greatest metal anthems of all time.

To be perfectly honest, if you already have Into Glory Ride and Fighting the World, then there really isn't any reason to listen to, let alone own this single, unless you're just an obsessive completist.

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