Gods of the Earth is turning out to be a prophetic title for The Sword’s latest album. First off, congrats goes to the band for topping the Billboard Heatseeker chart this week and also showing up at 102 on the top 200. Not bad for an indie metal band from Texas. I don’t know if that means their rich yet, but I’m sure they’ll have extra cash for medieval weapon replicas and sweet bongs.

They also premiered a new video for my favorite song on the new album “Maiden, Mother and Crone,” which you can view on the MTV’s Headbangers Blog. It’s got beards, eerie backgrounds and a hot, witch-y chick, so pretty much everything you could ever want from a metal video.

If that weren’t enough, the band will now tour with fuckin’ Metallica in Europe. No shit. The Sword/Metallica tour starts in June in the most metal place on Earth, Norway. With any luck, the boys from Austin will remind Metallica that they used to be a metal band.

I’d like to think that some of this success has to do with me blogging about them everyday. Just saying.

Here are The Sword’s dates with Metallica:

06/16: Bergen, Norway @ City of Bergen Festival*

06/18: St. Petersburg, Russia @ SKK Hall*

06/20: Riga, Latvia @ Skonto Stadium*

06/22: Bologna, Italy @ Parco Nord*

06/23: Bucharest, Romania @ Cotroceni Football Stadium*

06/25: Sofia, Bulgaria @ Levski Stadium*

06/27: Istanbul, Turkey @ Inonu Stadium*

I got the full album copy of The Sword’s sophomore album Gods of the Earth just a couple days ago. It’s sweet. If you’re the law abiding type, you’ll have to wait until April 1st to get your hands on it yourself (I’m not going to share mine with you, so don’t ask), but you can at least listen to it on the band’s MySpace page. It’s not as sweet as actually having the album, but it’s still pretty sweet.

Upon the release of Gods of the Earth, The Sword is going to be all up in your business. The band will embark on two headlining tours: a West Coast leg from April 14th through the 29th; an East Cost leg from May 9th through the 29th; and a spot on Bonnaroo with a whole bunch of awesome bands. If you happen to be planning on catching The Sword on their West Coast tour (as I will be), be sure to get there early and check out San Francisco’s Slough Feg, because they’re pretty fucking rawk. All sorts of concert dates after the jump. (more…)

Holding true to their WORD, the Sword will make their way to the West Coast starting in April. Here are the dates:

Apr 14 : Lubbock, TX - Jake’s Sports Center w/ Slough Feg & Children
Apr 15 : Albuquerque, NM - Launchpad w/ Slough Feg & Children
Apr 16 : Phoenix, AZ - The Brick House w/ Slough Feg & Children
Apr 17 : San Diego, CA - The Casbah w/ Slough Feg & Children
Apr 19 : San Fransisco, CA - Slim’s w/ Slough Feg & Children
Apr 22 : Seattle, WA - Neumo’s w/ Slough Feg & Children
Apr 24 : Boise, ID - Neurolux w/ Slough Feg & Children
Apr 25 : Salt Lake City, UT - Club Vegas w/ Slough Feg & Children
Apr 26 : Denver, CO - Bluebird Theater w/ Slough Feg & Children
Apr 28 : Wichita, KS - BarleyCorns w/ Slough Feg & Children
Apr 29 : Oklahoma City, OK - The Conservatory w/ Slough Feg & Children

Dates for Portland, OR, and Los Angeles are on the way. I saw The Sword at 12 Galaxies in San Francisco two years ago, and it looked something like this:

If you look close, you can see a few of us up in the balcony. I’m the one with the melting FACE.

The other night I cruised down to LaSalle’s, a local shithole that from time to time hosts badical rock shows, to check out my friends, the always heavy-as-fuck Armed For Apocalypse. Opening things up were a band that no one seemed to know anything about, some yahoos named Trigger Renegade from Santa Cruz. Needless to say, expectations were low. But then the band started humping their gear onto stage, and I began to take notice. Bogner half-stack? Double Bass drumkit with a fucking 236″ single rack tom? White curly guitar cords??!! Suddenly the scent of rock began to fill the air. Adding to this presentiment was the fact that the members of the band all looked the part of late-70s rock gods, with long flowing locks, tight shirts, and the requisite rock snarl. But could their sound match their image?? COULD THEY COME THROUGH WITH THE ROCK????!!

The answer was a resounding yes. From the first harmonized guitar solo it was apparent that Trigger Renegade were not, and weren’t going to be, fucking around. The band was like The Sword kicking it with Ted Nugent playing Iron Maiden covers with Rick Neilsen’s guitar collection. Check them out on Myspace and if you like what you hear, buy their fucking CD from CD Baby so they have enough gas money to come back to Chico and rock Saddam Hussein’s ass back to fucking Russia!!1oneone!

Dust off the chain mail and get ready. The Sword have announced their triumphant return. Their sophomore album Gods of the Earth is complete and will be released on April 1st (which better not be some kind of joke) on Kemado. I haven’t heard anything from it yet, but I see from the track listing that it contains two songs with medieval weaponry in their titles (”How Heavy This Axe” and (my favorite) “Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians”). There are also some pretty awesome pagan goddess references (fucking metal!) with “Mother, Maiden and Crone.” I’m pretty sure it’s going to rule. Full track listing below. And for gods’ sake, catch these guys live.

1.) The Sundering
2.) How Heavy This Axe
3.) Lords
4.) Fire Lances of the Ancient Hyperzephyrians
5.) To Take the Black
6.) Maiden, Mother & Crone
7.) Under the Boughs
8.) The Black River
9.) The White Sea

Maybe they hit the road a lot, but when you rock as hard as The Sword do, you’ve got no choice. America’s favorite metal band will be hitting the road starting this week, so if you live anywhere between Austin, TX and the east coast, get ready. And if you’re a pot dealer, this would be a good time to stock up.

West coast fans may feel snubbed (I do), but I’ve been reassured that west coast dates are soon to follow. Dates after the jump. (more…)