The Benja-man Is Verbose

There's a moment in "Farewell My Hero" in which everything changes.  What seemed to be one story becomes another, one much greater.  Using nothing but a change in tenses, * Daltor transforms from world's guiding light to martyr.  The way his drawn out death serves a springboard to let the others rise up, is one of those celebrations of the human spirit that you can only... ... okay, no; I cannot keep a proverbial straight face while typing that.  This is some silly-ass shit right here, and I am fundamentally incapable of getting into it.  Return to fucking Sendor ** .  Of all the power metal records with deeply embarrassing lyrics,  The Alliance Of The Kings  is very much one of them.   I don't bounce off all of them quite so hard, though.  It's worth asking what it is about Alliance that keeps me from meeting it halfway.  I mean, this is a series of rambles about power metal, a subgenre in which embrace of goof...

Stand In The Fire  [1980; although I'm using the 2007 reissue] tracklist 1)  Stand In The Fire 2)  Jeannie Needs A Shooter 3)  Excitable Boy 4)  Mohammed's Radio 5)  Werewolves Of London 6)  Lawyers, Guns, And Money 7)  The Sin 8)  Poor Poor Pitiful Me 9)  I'll Sleep When I'm Dead 10)  Bo Diddley's A Gunslinger/Bo Diddley [cover of Bo Diddley songs, mostly "Gunslinger"] B1)  Johnny Strikes Up The Band B2)  Play It All Night Long B3)  Frank And Jesse James (solo piano version) B4)  Hasten Down The Wind (solo piano version) Learning To Flinch  [1993] tracklist 1)  Splendid Isolation 2)  Lawyers, Guns, And Money 3)  Mr. Bad Example 4)  Excitable Boy 5)  Hasten Down The Wind 6)  The French Inhaler 7)  Worrier King 8)  Roland Chorale 9)  Roland The Headless Thompson Gunner 10)  Searching For A Heart 11)  Boom Boom Mancini 12)  Jungle Work 13)...

Prior exposure to this band/record:  Zero. The Alliance Of The Kings (which fortunately seems to be its official title, as I would refuse out of principle to write out  The Alliance Of The Kings - The Black Crystal Sword Saga Pt. 1 ) begins with a spoken word section that frames the record, in part, as follows: Sendor, the Supreme Dark Wizard, came to know about the existence of a mysterious sword that gave its holder absolute power: immortal life, unbelievable strength, and knowledge of all magic. No one knew about the sword except the four Kings from the four corners of the world. The sword had been hidden in the Dark Cave in Noland under the cover of darkness, and locked in a hidden place that could only be opened if the four weapons of the four Kings were revealed before it... And it goes on like that, but I might fall asleep if I try to transcribe any more.  Let's pretend for just a sec to ignore any language barriers that might lead one to snicker at ...