Glory to the Brave (Glory To The Brave - HammerFall)

Name: Frankingsteins

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Product:	Glory To The Brave - HammerFall
Date:	16.07.08 (10 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Solid power metal.

Disadvantages: Brings nothing new to the genre.

Hammerfall are undoubtedly the most popular Swedish power metal band, with an inflated reputation that was surely only achieved due to the genre's comparative lack of popularity in Sweden, at least compared to counties like Finland and Germany that churn out numerous power metal acts. 'Glory to the Brave' is their first and best album, a solid traditional metal performance that doesn't accomplish anything new, but is at least more exciting and fun than the band's subsequent albums, which merely repeated the same ingredients ad nauseam.

Joacim Cans' vocals are one of the weakest elements here, satisfying enough when singing in unison on a ballad, but lacking conviction when squeaking along in the verses, singing the band's uniformly fantasy-themed lyrics. Oscar Dronjak's guitar work is nothing to write home about either, but it's hard and fast enough to appeal to speed metal fans here, and he performs plenty of enjoyable guitar harmonies with himself throughout the album. Oddly, the only song that has always remained particularly memorable for me is the admittedly cheesy closing title track, a pompous power ballad celebrating glory that's reminiscent of Bruce Dickinson's 'Tears of the Dragon,' in as much that it impresses at the end of an otherwise fairly average album.

1. The Dragon Lies Bleeding
2. The Metal Age
3. Hammerfall
4. I Believe
5. Child of the Damned (Warlord cover)
6. Steel Meets Steel
7. Stone Cold
8. Unchained
9. Glory to the Brave

Summary: Hammerfall's first album (1997).