Battle Hymns MMXI

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Battle Hymns MMXI
Studio album by ManowarLogo.svg

Publication
(s)

December 3, 2010

Label (s) Magic Circle Entertainment

Format (s)

CD, LP

Genre (s)

True metal

Title (number)

10

running time

48:36

occupation

production

Joey DeMaio

Studio (s)

chronology
Gods of War Live
(2007) 		Battle Hymns MMXI The Lord of Steel
(2012)

Battle Hymns MMXI ( Battle Hymns 2011 , English for: " Schlachthymnen 2011 ") is the eleventh studio album by the American true metal band Manowar and was first available as a download on November 26th and on CD on December 3rd, 2010 for the first time released. The album is a new recording of the 1982 debut album Battle Hymns .

Emergence

Despite the first new album announced for 2009 and not released until 2012 , a new recording of the debut album was brought forward. Early on after the announcement, Joey DeMaio commented on the reasons for a new recording in a YouTube video, as the first criticism of the new recording was voiced shortly after the album was announced. According to Joey, an album like Battle Hymns deserved to be recorded using new technologies that weren't available in 1982. The album shouldn't get better, but different, and allegedly many fans would have wished for a new recording. The spoken part in Dark Avenger , which originally came from Orson Welles , was spoken by actor Christopher Lee . As with Battle Hymns , the drums were played in the new recording by Donnie Hamzik.

Music genre

Due to DeMaio's production, the new recording is more bombastic and less powerful than the original. Eric Adams no longer worked on the album "with his incredibly high, yet very brutal screams" and instead focused on "deeper regions". As on other recent Manowar releases, the drums have a synthetic sound. Another tonal deviation from the original is that the songs in the new edition were played a whole tone lower, which is probably to be understood against the background of the singer's age-related voice development.

Track list

  1. Death Tone ( Ross the Boss , Joey DeMaio ) - 5:56
  2. Metal Daze (Joey DeMaio) - 4:32
  3. Fast Taker (Ross the Boss, Joey DeMaio) - 4:06
  4. Shell Shock (Ross the Boss, Joey DeMaio) - 4:12
  5. Manowar (Ross the Boss, Joey DeMaio) - 4:00
  6. Dark Avenger (Ross the Boss, Joey DeMaio) - 6:23
  7. William's Tale (DeMaio, Gioachino Rossini ) - 1:51
  8. Battle Hymn (Ross the Boss, Joey DeMaio) - 9:22
  9. Fast Taker Live 1982 (bonus track) - 3:54
  10. Death Tone Live 1982 (bonus track) - 4:57

Reviews

The decision to include the year 2011 in the title, but to release the album in 2010, and not to wait for the 30th anniversary of the band in 2012 was seen as incomprehensible; The quality of the live recordings at the end of the album was also criticized.

Reinhold Reither von Stormbringer described Battle Hymns and the three following Manowar albums as those that were "made to last". Such would have "their very own, their very special charm, which one will never again be able to reproduce so authentically, so uniquely". Nonetheless, he wrote that the band could have “done little to nothing wrong with a new recording of their debut album from 1982”. He praised the "worlds better", more powerful sound compared to the original. The band recorded their best album since Kings of Metal . Zosse of Gestromt.de called Adams' vocals as "not so youthful and handy as it was then, but rougher and more mature, one wants but at a new recording no 1: 1 adaptation, or copy, but a status quo of modern times" . The band delivers a battle hymn “not only [...] with the latest technology, but also with the current state of their skills. A well-rounded affair that one would wish for from so many older artists ”.

Clement from Allschools Network complained about the absence of Friedman, who, alongside DeMaio, was the main person responsible for the composition. He also criticized the “typical de Maio sound distortion”: “Far too much bang on it as filigree, far too much bombast as real pressure”. The album sounds “too thick and too artificial”. Of the “rocky, biting rage” that was “perfectly staged” on the debut, “unfortunately nothing was left”, so that classics like Metal Daze , Shell Shock and Manowar “sound like toothless tigers, who crush one, but cannot bite off the turnip ”. Adams, who is still one of the best metal singers, can "hardly hold a candle to his level of 1982". Instead of “working with his incredibly high, yet very brutal screams, […] on deeper regions”, he shows “that he can no longer follow the original vocally”. However, he rated the recording with Donnie Hamzik, the revised cover and the booklet positively . According to Götz Kühnemund from Rock Hard , the new recording "sounds better than expected, although Karl Logan does not have the feeling of Ross The Boss and Eric Adams has unfortunately meanwhile been able to show his age with his vocals". The synthetic sound of the Manowar drums is now known, but at least it ensures that the record hits a lot and thus probably accommodates the listening habits of the new MANOWAR fans. He himself does not need this new edition, which he regards as “pure money-making”, and “prefers to put on the original - but always happy to do that”.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Holidays come early this year! (No longer available online.) Manowar.com, archived from the original on November 12, 2010 ; Retrieved October 8, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.manowar.com
  2. ^ Joey DeMaio - Battle Hymns 2011. YouTube, accessed October 12, 2010 .
  3. ↑ The Lord Of The Silver Screen Joins Forces With The Kings Of Metal. (No longer available online.) Manowar.com, archived from the original on April 3, 2014 ; Retrieved October 28, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.manowar.com
  4. ↑ a b c Clement: Manowar - Battle Hymns MMXI .
  5. ↑ a b Götz Kühnemund : MANOWAR . Battle Hymns MMXI . In: Rock Hard , No. 287.
  6. ↑ Battle Hymns 2011 - Born To Live Forevermore. (No longer available online.) Manowar.com, archived from the original on November 1, 2010 ; Retrieved October 29, 2010 . Info: The archive link was inserted automatically and has not yet been checked. Please check the original and archive link according to the instructions and then remove this notice. @1@ 2Template: Webachiv / IABot / www.manowar.com
  7. ↑ a b Zosse: MANOWAR - Battle Hymns MMXI .
  8. ↑ Reinhold "reini" Reither: MANOWAR - Battle Hymns MMXI (CD) .