Sword & Sorcery

Majesty were founded back in 1997 by Tarek Maghary (guitars, keyboards, vocals) and Udo Keppner (guitars). After diverse line up changes, the line up got completed with drummer Martin Gräter, bassist Martin Hehn and keyboarder Andreas Moll. In summer 2000, this German heavy metal band recorded their first album, Keep it true, covered on metalreviews.com a year ago. At that time, I compared this band to Manowar & Hammerfall. Well ... on Sword & Sorcery, Majesty decided to follow the Manowar road and I can already hear many metal fans out there screaming : vulgar Manowarish copycat ! I have read many reviews about Sword & Sorcery and I was not really astonished to see many reviewers divided between the quality of the songs and the "Manowar copy-paste" feeling. I had the same kind of feeling on Keep It True and to resume these reviews, Sword and Sorcery received either the highest possible quotes .... or the weakest one. Having received Keep It True directly from the band a year ago, I was a bit anxious to listen to this one following all these critics. There is no doubt this guys are influenced by Manowar - especially the vocals, lyrics and rhythm - but I could also mention the 80's : Iron Maiden, Judas Priest or Accept. The overall amazingly sounds like Manowar and if you are disappointed by Warriors Of The World, this one is made for you because the frontier between Sword & Sorcery and Battle Hymns is so thin, that you might love this one. At least, there is no Nessun Dorma or An American Trilogy thing on this one ;) The opener Sword & Sorcery reminds me too much Keep It True from their debut album (same rhythm). Ride Silent (5th track) remains for me the astounding song of this record and I definitely prefer the fast tracks (Fields Of War, Fist Of Steel), which have more personality compare to the mid-tempo songs. The production has improved since Keep It True, however the song writing is a bit static. Manowar copycat ? The forum is open. At the end, their songs are good and the music is well performed. But please, if the comparison with Manowar (first years) is logical, there is absolutely no possible comparison with the last album - Warriors Of The World - which is a masterpiece compare to Sword & Sorcery ... or to any other true metal album. This band can do better things I am sure ... because as far as I am concerned, it is written Majesty on the cover-art, not Manowar.