The Benja-man Is Verbose

I discovered a song that I enjoy a lot in the course of my time with Glory To The Brave .  That song is "Child Of The Damned..." the Warlord song, as recorded by Warlord, back when they were pioneering elements of what we now call power metal.  HammerFall's cover?  Not so much. I did discover both the song and the band through HammerFall, so, thanks to HF, I guess.  I don't know if I'd call Warlord "great," or "perfectly calibrated to my taste" or anything.  But limited listening has led me to conclude that they were at minimum a very interesting act (the mythology certainly helps - both the self-created mythology with the pseudo-ananoymous band members and the mythology that was imposed upon them just by virtue of releasing so little and being so ignored in their time), and that "Child Of The Damned" is undeniable.  A bit of a one-riff tune, but that main riff neatly combines NWOBHM gallop with a core chord that screams "power m...

Past exposure to this band/record :  One of my Pandora stations back in the day would sometimes play HammerFall.  I usually enjoyed it whenever "The Unforgiving Blade" came on.  As far as this record goes, I've definitely heard "Hammerfall" (the song) before. I had an interesting thought early into my first listen to "I Believe" - "I don't trust this."  Seemed worth unpacking, right?  What exactly is it that I don't trust?  Why would I choose that particular phrase? "I Believe," and really most of of this record, don't convince me.  This particular song is power ballad 101 stuff, with downtuned chords coming in over the chorus exactly where one expects them to, over a song whose chorus centers on "pain."  I feel like I've heard this tune before done better, I feel like I've heard this basic vocal performance done better.  Oh, look, it's a painfully generic guitar solo coming in exactly where I expec...

Still on the tail end of the peak commercial era that really only lasted three records.  Again with big noisy production, again with five thousand guest musicians from the bigger L.A. scene that Zevon moved through.  Depending on perspective, Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School is either a minor commercial success befitting a niche artist who's carved out his place, or it's a fall from the highs of the massive third album that basically cemented Zevon as a flash in the pan about to be left behind, mainstream-wise, with the rest of the '70s. Divorced from that context, how does it sound now? Track One:  "Bad Luck Streak In Dancing School" Sometimes it's just how something sounds, a principle that applies to lyric writing just like anything else.  I don't care and, until recently, didn't know what the neologism "bad luck streak in dancing school" is supposed to mean. *   But how great does it sound rolling off its singer's tongue ...

I'm trying not to constantly apologize for not knowing the accepted classics because, well, the whole goddamn point of this little project is for me to understand power metal better.  My ability to comment is inherently a tad limited by my relative lack of familiarity with how the style got started; I think that's inevitable.  How else I am going to learn what exactly power metal is and whether I can love it without listening?  Take this band, Running Wild.  Coming in, I had an idea of the things I find distancing about my concept of euro-power, especially the '80s stuff, that I've heard.  In my head, euro-power has too much screaming relative to grit.  Too much bombast and guitar wankery relative to content.  Too much cheesiness in a way that's fundamentally wrapped up in the '80s.  That's why Death Or Glory seemed like a bit of a revelation on first few spins.  Now, with more listening I can draw a clearer through-line to their successors, ...