Unitron There's a certain sound and forcefulness that needs to be expected when faced with an album cover that's an extreme close up of a double-barrel that's ready to fire. Thankfully Sword (Not to be confused with stoners The Sword) does more than just deliver.

On Metalized, Sword strike a perfect balance of 70's styled heavy metal, the anthemic sound of the 80's, and just a dash of thrash. Vocalist Rick Hughes always has great melody, but his screams are out of this world making Dare to Spit sound like an actual dare. Almost every song sounds vicious and biting, yet some haunting harmonies in Children of Heaven and Evil Spell add an extra flavor.

Dan Hughes's gargantuan drums give the album a massive sound, and especially Stoned Again becomes a metal monolith along with the heavy bass tones. Obviously the album is full of great riff hooks as well, especially the thrashing Stuck in Rock.

It's a perfect balance of melody and grit in this hidden 80's metal classic.

voila_la_scorie I remember listening to the Monday Night Metal Shop (I think that's what it was called) on Vancouver's radio station, C-FOX, and this song "Stuck in Rock" came on by a band called Sword. Damn that was one monster riff! Add to that the vocalist's banshee screams and I knew I had to get this album.

Sword's debut album in 1986, very aptly entitled "Metalized" was an album of songs that were just as I imagined metal should be. Many of my favourite bands were adding synthesizers, lightening their sound, going more "mainstream". Ugh! The thrash movement was were real heavy metal was about but there was a tendency for bands to race through songs as fast as possible. I wanted some slow and heavy numbers as well, or just heavy riffs was fine too. I wanted vocalists who could sing, not just shout and roar. Well, okay, I liked the shouters and roarers, too. But this band Sword had a terrific blend of slow and heavy ("Stoned Again"), medium tempo heavy melodic ("Children of Heaven"), raging vocals in thunderous metal music ("Dare to Spit"), Anvil-like speed and thunder ("Outta Control"), and a whole arsenal of straightforward, heavy rockin', keyboardless metal music with lots of great riffs.

I had this on cassette initially (back in '86) and later bought it on CD. It had been packed away for many years but recently I unearthed it and put it in my iTunes library. While it's great to hear this awesome headbanger of an album again, I find it in need of remastering. That bright eighties production is a little harsh on the ears at higher volumes, and this is an album that needs to be heard loud. It's probably one of the best non-thrash albums to come out of 1986!