The Music Hall of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, NY, 18 August 2013
In an age where hard rock and heavy metal has been reduced to skinny jeans and Bieber-esq haircuts, there stands The Sword, onstage at the Music Hall of Williamsburg this past Sunday, equipped with nothing more than their instruments, some lights, long hair, and loose fitting jeans. The band opened their hour long set of groove laden rock ‘n’ roll with a simple waive to the audience and their instrumental track “The Sundering.” From there, they surged into “The Veil of Isis” off their latest effort Apocryphon. By the time the song kicked in, the crowd was in full head banging and fist pumping mode. The band continued steam rolling forward with fan favorite “How Heavy This Axe” followed by two more songs off Apocryphon, “Cloak of Feathers” and “Arcane Montane.”
After those five songs filled with Sabbath like riffs and Thin Lizzy style vocals, the band briefly paused to tune their instruments and frontman John D. Cronise addressed the crowd for the first time with a simple, “How’s everyone doin’ tonight?” The audience roared in response – and the band launched into “Barael’s Blade” off their first record Age of Winters. The energy of The Sword’s pure hard rock put smiles on everyone’s faces by this point – and it was refreshing to witness lead guitarist Kyle Shutt rip solo after solo glowing with joy. The band again shredded through five more songs off earlier releases before stopping to tune and speak to the crowd one last time. On this exchange, Cronise was a bit more talkative. He thanked the audience for coming out and gave a quick shout out to opening acts Castle and American Sharks before announcing that they only had a few songs left. At that point, drummer Santiago “Jimmy” Vela III gave a four count with his drum sticks and the band crashed into one of their more well-known songs “Freya” and the crowd erupted. When the band hit the final note it was so loud in the venue that the electronic intro to their next track, “Apocryphon,” could barely be made out. The band thundered through the four minute piece, waved to the crowd, disarmed themselves of their instruments – and casually walked off stage, barely long enough to take a solid swig of beer before coming back out to the raucous cheers of the audience. They performed “Ebethron,” the last track on their debut album, for their encore and then left the stage leaving the crowd begging for more guitar solos.
After the show, the crowd poured into the streets of Brooklyn and the band went onto their next gig, but the energy of a renewed faith in heavy metal brought on by this terribly underrated and underappreciated quartet from Austin, Texas still lingered inside the depths of those who were there to witness rock ‘n’ roll in its most untarnished form.
Set List
The Sundering
The Veil of Isis
How Heavy This Axe
Cloak of Feathers
Arcane Montane
Barael’s Blade
Tres Brujas
Maiden, Mother & Crone
Dying Earth
Seven Sisters
Night City
Freya
Apocryphon
Encore
Ebethron
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For More Information Visit:
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http://www.swordofdoom.com
