The six piece outfit that is All For Metal hail from Germany and Italy. Spearheaded by Tom “Tetzel” Schmidt of Asenblut and Antonio Calanna of the hard rock band DeVicious, they came together with a single vision of championing the good that is heavy metal. “Legends” is their debut album with a track listing that suggests a love of Viking mythology and artwork and imagery that comes straight out of the Manowar handbook for muscular metal.
The opening track “All For Metal” is their call to arms and something that would have been suited to a Conan The Barbarian spin-off soundtrack. The feeling that this could be a cheesy album enters the mind quickly. Quite solid riffs are countered by clichéd lyrics with tales of the ancient gods to a well-used heavy metal backdrop. A symphonic metal slant appears on “Goddess Of War” that tries hard to create the histrionics of powerhouses like Amon Amarth. Tetzel’s melodic vocals have a decent amount of power and are countered by Antonio’s more gruff delivery that try to create the drama within each song. Indeed, drama runs thick on appropriately titled cuts like “Born In Valhalla” and “Raise Your Hammer”. The drumming from Leif Jensen is a driver and while some hooky riffs pop up there’s the impression that the music is secondary to what are some pretty kitsch lyrics.
The second half of the album arrives with a spoken word introduction that would be better suited to a cult Japanese anime series. Leading into “Mountain Of Power”, with a nice spiky riff and tidy guitar break, there’s no escaping more of those cheesy lyrics. A bit of Nightwish styled symphonic grandiosity pops up on “Fury Of The Gods” before a more introspective feel comes in on the acoustic guitar driven closing track, “Legends Never Die”.
Look, it’s all a bit of fun and if you’re wanting to grab a horned helmet and plastic sword or hammer to compliment your head-banging, please be my guest. I love a good heavy metal inspired Viking raid as much as the next bloke but this one isn’t for me. All tracks are thankfully brief forays but the clichés run a little too thick. I feel that perhaps the live environment might be best for their consumption along with much beer and I’m sure All For Metal put on one hell of a show. Sorry to sound like Oscar The Grouch, but oh, the fromage…
(5/10 Johnny Zed)
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