The Sword fail to deliver the goods this time around.
Do you remember when you were a kid being really excited one birthday or Christmas about receiving a certain present? You eagerly counted down the days until the time came when you finally got your hands on the present looking all shiny and appealing, only to find out when you opened it that you were disappointed? You spent all that time looking forward to it only to be left wondering what went wrong. Sadly that pretty much summed up this gig.
Having seen The Sword before on the Warp Riders tour and being impressed I knew what they were capable of and my expectations were high. Delivering a lengthy set drawing heavily on new album, High Country and previous effort Apocryphon. I’m still struggling to figure out why I was left feeling so disappointed.
The band were tight with front man J.D. Cronise sounding virtually record perfect. A few songs in though and the songs were starting to run into each other and sound the same. J.D. barely says a word to the crowd which is fine if you’re playing a brief, half hour set and need to smash out the music, but when it’s an hour and 45 minute set, you need a bit of interaction to break things up. Looking around the venue I get the feeling I may not be alone in thinking this.
At the risk of sounding like “that guy” the most well received songs were the older material such as Freya, but even that fails to get the majority of this small crowd really going.
Whether you’re a fan of their older, more stoner albums or prefer the more recent, more accessible material, The Sword are a good live band capable of great live shows. Sadly though tonight just wasn’t one of them.
High Country is out now.
www.theswordofficial.com
Thanks to Valeria Laghezza @ Duff Press
