Band:	Manowar
Album:	Sign Of The Hammer
Style:	Heavy metal, US power metal
Release date:	1984
Guest review by:	Joey Jo Jo

01. All Men Play On Ten
02. Animals
03. Thor (The Powerhead)
04. Mountains
05. Sign Of The Hammer
06. The Oath
07. Thunderpick
08. Guyana (Cult Of The Damned)

Not many people will admit it, or even know it; however, Manowar had a lot of vision back in their prime during the mid 80s. Albums like Hail to England showed the band in a very aggressive but epic light. Hail was a more aggressive album with songs like "Kill with power" and "Each dawn I die", but Sign of the hammer takes a more melodic route while still keeping the sound they had in their previous effort in the vein of epic songs like "Blood of my enemies".

The album starts off with very commercial sounding metal in the form of the first 2 tracks. This throws me off since the title and appearance of the release represent otherwise. Luckily, then we get these very melodic and epic, yet raw tracks that I can only compare with Viking-era Bathory, especially in "Mountains", which is an ode to the people that served in Vietnam. A lot of fan favorites are here like "All Men Play on 10", "Thor(the powerhead)" and the title track. My personal favorite and cult classic "Guyanna(cult of the damned)" also appears. It is a very humorous historical track about some cult in the 70s that attempted mass suicide. The only thing negative that I can point out here is the pointless bass solo "Thunderpick" but anyone who listens to Manowar already knows about these. I strongly recommend this album to anyone who is curious about these self-proclaimed "Kings of Metal". This happens to be the peak of the band creatively and musically, while later efforts are of little or no interest to me whatsoever.