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"Call to Arms" is a fantastic way to start the album: the solo, the chorus, the stanzas, the galloping pace, its anthemic and martial attitude make it a real Manowar classic "Fight for Freedom" is a patriotic, romantic semi-ballad, while "Swords in the Wind" is the most emotional and varied song of the lot: it's another moving ballad, talking about the ascension of the warriors into Valhalla after death, and it's one of the best songs Manowar have written after the year 2000. This strange choice results in a sort of stagnation, musically speaking, of the first half of the album, while the last four tracks are "all killer - no filler", and indeed the second half of the record results significantly stronger and more engaging still, the quality of the original material featured in "Warriors of the World" is unquestionable. People buy albums for the sake of the new material: I understand that the "Nessun Dorma" cover was a tribute to Eric Adam's late mother, and that "An American Trilogy" was meant to sound as a patriotic tribute to the USA, but "I Believe" and "The Dawn of Battle" really deserved a place on the album, and they would have definitely added to the final product, while the covers would have been better as simple bonus tracks.Īnother flaw is represented by the odd structure of the platter: after the fantastic opening represented by the anthemic "Call to Arms", the tracks from 2 to 6 consist in ballads or semi-ballads, while track number 7 "The March" is nothing but an orchestral intro to the title track. Considering that in the same year Manowar released the excellent "The Dawn of Battle" EP, including two of the very best songs Manowar have recorded in the new millennium, and that were featured as mere bonus tracks in the "Gold Edition" of the album, I sincerely believe that leaving them out of the main platter on behalf of two covers, although well-executed, was a mistake. First of all, out of an eleven-tracks platter, only seven are new, actual songs the remaining four tracks split between two orchestral interludes and two covers. That said, "Warriors of the World" is a fantastic album, but it does have some flaws.
![manowar warriors of the world wallpaper manowar warriors of the world wallpaper](https://wallpapercave.com/wp/wp3693392.jpg)
![manowar warriors of the world wallpaper manowar warriors of the world wallpaper](https://wallpapercave.com/wp/wp3693391.jpg)
The production, as mentioned before, is much cleaner and aggressive than in previous releases, thus perfectly complementing the change in the style of the compositions the whole album sounds extremely epic, bombastic and anthemic, and the heroic, patriotic and macho lyricism furtherly underlines the general mood of the songs. Guitarist Karl Logan shines at his best, performing stellar solos, rock-solid rhytms and providing walls of feedback in the title track, thus proving to be a real master of the axe. The late Scott Columbus provided one of his best performances here: his style is raw, but it perfectly complements the compositions, and his ability with the double bass is unquestionable. Joey De Maio doesn't shred as much as in previous albums, but still he complements the songs with some really nice bass arrangements and he often embellishes his lines with stylish phrasings, as seen in "Call to Arms", "Hand of Doom" or in "Warriors of the World United", where he displays his trademark fast slide technique spot on his bass tone as well. "Warriors of the World" set the blueprint for the sound of third millennium Manowar, and remains to this day their best opus among their most recent output: the guitars are downtuned to D standard tuning, the riffs are somewhat simpler and rawer, but still effective the sound is much more polished and extreme than in the past, the guitars sound more distorted, there is a much wider inclusion of choirs and a shift towards a symphonic direction, testified by the inclusion of orchestral elements the overall sound is more bombastic, epic and extreme than ever, also due to Eric Adam's shift to a lower, grittier register, which often trespasses in a sort of roar nonetheless, he is still perfectly capable of belting some really high notes, his vibrato is as strong as ever and his high pitched screams sound more ferocious than ever before: his performance is simply stellar, both on a technical and interpretative/expressive level. "Warriors of the World" marked Manowar's triumphal entry in the 21st century, and what an entry it was! After six years since the previous "Louder than Hell", Manowar signed a contract with Nuclear Blast, releasing what is to this day probably the most famous and commercially successful album of their career.