Remember when you were 14 years old and you were banging you head against the wall, while trying to make your neighbors deaf by playing Kill With Power in full volume on you stereo? Those days have long past; you are 30 now and it seems that you lay down your armor and you sword and the video clip of Gloves Of Metal makes you laugh every time you watch it.
So, here we are in 2007 with another live album by MANOWAR, recorded during the just-completed leg of the Demons, Dragons And Warriors Tour 2007. Gods Of War Live has 2 CDs/parts, the first including songs with great power that are trademarks to the heavy metal genre. Songs like Manowar, Gloves Of Metal, Each Dawn I Die, Holy War, The Oath, Secrets Of Steel, Kings Of Metal and the mighty Mountains. The 5 remaining songs are Call To Arms, Son Of William's Tale (bass solo), The Gods Made Heavy Metal, Die For Metal and Warriors Of The World United. The strange thing is: i) Battle Hymns is missing and ii) there are no songs from Triumph Of Steel.
The second part is much of their latest release, Gods Of War, performed live on stage. The sound is good but the energy you expect from MANOWAR's songs and MANOWAR's performance is not delivered here. It seems that even the loudest band in the world gets tired sometimes. Joey DeMaio's bass doesn't cover Karl Logan when he is soloing, and the result is kind of empty; not the thing we used to listen from MANOWAR with their mega-mass sound. Instead, you can hear explosions and the people singing so that the sound has more capacity. That is a way to balance it.
Eric Adams sings on a whole tone lower than he used to. From a point of view this is normal when you are getting older but in this case it makes the music sound flat. In the lower parts he tries to cover it with whispers and the high-pitched parts are still difficult for him, even a tone lower. On the other hand, Scott Columbus is doing his best with his steady rhythm playing.
Looks like the kings of Metal are loosing their crown as years pass by. Maybe this is the time for MANOWAR to put some clothes on and play the old stuff that made our ears bleed and our hearts explode. It is clear that Gods Of War Live is a release for MANOWAR maniacs only. The rest of us can listen to the Hail To England and Sign Of The Hammer albums for the 1,000th time.