Since the release of their acclaimed debut Age Of Winters, The Sword have thrust their way into the hearts of doom metal lovers everywhere, even earning a support slot on Metallica’s 2013 tour of Australia and New Zealand.
The band’s latest album, High Country, has already received positive reviews from the likes of Rolling Stone,which compared the track ‘Empty Temples’ to the work of Thin Lizzy and ZZ Top. Lead singer and guitarist John ‘J.D.’ Cronise is happy with the reviews so far, noting that on this albumThe Sword have chosen to swing their weapons in a slightly different direction.
“I definitely hear the differences, but as far as trying to describe exactly what it is, I’ll leave that to others,” says Cronise. Those others have gone as far as to define the album as melodic Southern rock as opposed to metal – and Cronise accepts it’s a fair description.
“It’s much more of a rock’n’roll album. It has a little moodiness here and there; it’s not all rainbows and sunshine. Overall it’s meant to be mellow. It has its moments of intensity and heaviness, but it’s not just beating your brains out from start to finish.”
Now almost a decade into their career, The Sword are feeling more comfortable and confident in their capabilities, which has resulted in a more dynamic and variable fifth album. Despite its 15-song duration, the record is not overly long, due to the general brevity of the individual tracks.
“The longest song on the record is barely five minutes,” says Cronise. “People seem to be into writing really long songs these days. Maybe my attention span is getting shorter as I’m getting older. I was listening to some Tom Petty records the other day, and some of his classic hits are less than three minutes long. You realise you don’t need to play a riff a million times to make a song.”
By drawing on a wide range of influences from blues to funk, Cronise and co. landed on a specific sound, which is overall surprisingly lacking in darkness. “To me it’s just fun music to play – that’s really the whole point,” he says. “A lot of the songs on the album are pretty straightforward and to the point. Some of the songs are more dynamic and go from really subtle to really heavy, but then there are songs like the first track, ‘Unicorn Farm’. That one we just made up in the studio. Our producer thought it would be really cool if the album started with a track that made people wonder if they were even listening to the right album.”
With The Sword planning to tour the record to Australia early next year, the new flavour of its tracks has led them to suggest some songs might be left off the setlist altogether. “Some of the songs on the record are not really even rock’n’roll songs,” says Cronise. “There’s a synthesiser instrumental, an acoustic instrumental, a ballad. There might come a time and place where it would be cool to play those, but when we first hit the road it will be the full-band numbers.”
Apart from the album’s stylistic expansion, High Country also represents a growing confidence in the band’s abilities and a maturity in its goals. “I would say we have better control now; I feel evolved,” Cronise says. “What we’re trying to do as songwriters now is not what we were trying to do initially. Back then, we were trying to make a much louder noise sonically; it was more about the riffs and the driving assault of the thing.”
Still, he’s quick to clarify that they’re still metalheads at heart. “We still like stuff heavy, but it’s not heaviness for heaviness’ sake.”
The Sword’s High Country is out now through Razor & Tie/Cooking Vinyl.
