Wardress
Dress for War

The intro to this album has to be one of the most ridiculous spoken words parts that I have ever heard; even Rhapsody will have a tough time challenging that. And the cover art isn’t exactly giving that sting of wanting to have it as a good-looking artwork, kind of look like a bit of a child’s drawing or something. Zardoz perhaps. The band was formed back in 1984 by guitarist Alex and singer Erich; they recorded some demo tape before putting the band on ice. It took to 2018 before the band reformed and Erich and Alex was joined by a bassist and drummer and soon they put together the album Dress for War that is now being released on Fastball Music.

Musically they remain in 1984 or something like that, classic heavy metal melodies and stuff. Pretty doomy in a way with pretty uninteresting vocal style that rarely adds anything to the music – to be fair, the music isn’t exactly what I call inspiring either which probably isn’t helping the vocal quality. It sounds like most of the album is borrowed from others, the ideas are few and far between and despite a sensible playing time in minutes it feels like a long album that you just wait for to end when playing through it. They appear to go for epic and dramatic but it feels like parody and I find myself really hoping that the opening spoken words is an ironic thing and not something they have done seriously – that would almost be tragically pathetic.

It is a decent album; some songs like Metal Melodies are quite good and enjoyable. Other songs are just uninspiring and dull and the overall sense is that the poorer parts are more than the greater ones and the album ends up feeling rather uninteresting and bland. There are just so many albums that are way better than this and they certainly don’t put on the wardress or dress for war, they focus more on making great and interesting songs. These guys have Metal Melodies and very little more, that isn’t enough to make an impact.

If you are a dedicated die-hard heavy metal fan you might think that it is a good album, it could be wise for you to check it out. If you aren’t a dedicated heavy metal find you will probably find this album a bit silly and a bit boring and not really worth your while. Perhaps it is time to return to the beginning and find something a bit more exciting than this, an album that feels like a poor copy of the stronger heavy metal bands that were the most popular in the eighties. Perhaps they should ask Zardoz for a few more guns and dresses for war before the next album, more Metal Melodies and less War would be a good start.

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