There’s nothing like a good night sleep to change the impressions of an album. Or there’s nothing like a clean mind to listen again an album that you didn’t give it a fair listening. Sometimes it simply doesn’t work to write a review after the other. Blacksword revive here the larger than life Metal tradition of having great and astonishing good singers. Yeah, singer. What a marvelous voice Mike Livas has! It reminds Geoff Tate in the good old times. “Live Again” is the album for the fans that love this wondrous Metal tradition of having splendorous singers. All this and a neat and inspired instrumental.
The mood in “Live Again” is most of the times epic and grand. Some fans don’t like this grandness, this feeling that I’ll conquer the world with my Metal music. However, I have to remind them that Metal is above all things grand, defying and bold. Our music is a response to all this mediocre and horrendous music that they are trying to make us swallow year after year. Some bands go beyond and exceed? Yeah, that’s true. But Metal is also excess. Excess of grandness and great music. That’s what we have here with “Live Again.” I recommend the fan to go right to the grand and epic and long tittle track “Live Again” for a lesson of how emotion and heaviness can be coped together. I always say that tittle tracks are something different into albums but this one exceeds. Take your time and stay tuned for the following instrumental track “The Crown of All” and its violins and amazing soundscape. Ah, I liked a lot the ‘dialogue’ between the voice and the guitar riffing in “Darkest Heart.”
As my fan already knows I pay very close attention to albums tittles. When I saw “Live Again” at first I thought it would have some kind of story behind or it would be some kind of alive album. Well, obviously after listening to the first track I noticed the album wasn’t alive nor the ‘alive’ albums bands are recording today. I got curious, so I got to read the press release. Sometimes they enlight the day and there I saw that Blacksword’s first album was back in the distant year of 2010 – hard to say distant 2010, you can’t imagine, my fan how hard it is. It was named “The Sword Accurst.” After a so long hiatus, Blacksword are totally right to say “Live Again” and we pray to them stay live for many years to come. This album is so darn good!
Blacksword are totally right to say “Live Again” will be released on July 30th via No Remorse Records.
Track Listing:
- Iron Will
- Cave of the Witch
- Immortal Hero
- Barbarian Born
- Long Lost Days
- Darkest Heart
- The Last Viking
- Alive Again
- The Crown of All
Watch “Iron Will” official lyric video here:
I’m just a lucky guy who has chosen metal to live with for a long time. Metal changed my life for good. It made me more confident and stronger. Metalheads are naturally far away from the mass mediocrity and don’t accept impostures from anybody else. Metal is more than music, it’s a life changing oportunity!