The sword and the stone
Hate to say it, but it sounds as though Austin hipsters The Sword were listening to Dawnbringer masterwork Into The Lair Of The Sun God before writing new slab Apocryphon (Razor & Tie). This implies the dunces of “False Metal” are studying Chris “Professor” Black’s most ambitious lessons. But stranger things have happened in 2012 to the enigmas of Chicago black metal – Thurston Moore joins Twilight? – and good taste is rare in the overly dopey metal west of the Mississippi, so insert applause here. Take “Veil Of Isis,” which uses agreeable Black Sabbath palm mutes to hard-rock its way off a Best Buy endcap to an uncharted theistic sea: “Somewhere seven ships collide/Seven sailors lose their lives/ But their voyage continues on the other side.” Dawnbringer’s Iommi-informed heavy metal fable sees an unchallenged warrior drowning himself to fight a worthy opponent beyond the horizon: “And so it is done/ I am the one/ To murder the sun.” Their aim is “singular and solitary,” while the roaming Apocryphon, taking cues from various heretic texts and science fiction, serves no clear purpose but to expand the mind. *Into The Lair Of The Sun God* teaches a true moral lesson, as a fable by definition must. (Wednesday@Double Door with Gypsyhawk and Eagle Claw.)
— Mike Meyer
Category: Featured, Stage Buzz, Weekly
