hysterica metalwar

Released: 26 June 2009 Label: CRoNG Records

Metalwar is the debut from all-female Swedish troupe Hysterica. To say that the image the band are going for is nothing short of the female version of Manowar is an understatement. There is more leather and weaponry than you could shake a stick at!

It certainly isn’t just the image that is very like Manowar, the lyrics are very much along the same lines, mixing themes of battles and general Metal shenanigans together. To quote one line ‘Girls on tour, Here to break the law, bring your sword, to the metalwar’ should give you the general idea.

The music itself is some proper Heavy Metal (no sub-genres required) and has a generally mid-tempo pace full of fist punching riffage. There are times when the pace speeds up which is probably where the band sounds at its best. Anni De Vil’s vocals are quite shouty and edgy as opposed to any operatics, with a few harsher sounding vocals here and there for effect.

There is perhaps some room to polish the band’s sound, as some of the tracks sound a tad formulaic so there is definitely room to make things sound a bit more fluid on future releases.

Nice to hear something that sounds pretty original and brimming with enough metal to build a small army of tanks!

by Claudia Glazzard