DragonForce – "Warp Speed Warriors"

Goddammit, take yourselves seriously

As awesome as those two first Dragonforce albums were (i.e., are), it started to become evident around their third one that they were kinduva one-trick pony. By their fourth, they'd pretty much jumped the shark. And then, of course, vocalist ZP Theart left. I've seen them a few times with current wailer Marc Hudson, and while they put on a show to be reckoned with, and in spite of a relatively newer banger like "Cry Thunder", I deliberately haven't been keeping up. I mean, for chrissakes, their last album was entitled "Extreme Power Metal", and it had this album cover. Tells you all you need to know about the band's level of gravitas these days.

And yes, of course DF have always been tongue-in-cheek. Shit, how could they not? Power metal IS a relatively light-hearted subgenre. And with the complete fucking face-melting level of technical prowess that DF have made their trademark from the beginning, they've always engendered more ecstatic grins in their listeners than black metal bands have engendered sullen frowns in their ditto.

But there's something called too much of a good thing. In this case, said good things are self-awareness and self-irony. Sure, I was well aware of a band like Gloryhammer. But at this year's Epic Fest, I noticed a clear trend of bands under the power metal banner arguably speculating in utilizing the genre's characteristics to create deliberately ironic outlets that aren't taking power metal seriously rather than... well, just goofing around, really.

And if this were the case with DF on their previous album (which I'll assume), it continues down the same route on "Warp Speed Warriors".

Granted, things start off by sounding like they should. We're talking standard DF-thrashing. Catchy vocal lines; pre-chorus gang choir; an insane falsetto presenting the post-chorus break, modulation, and pre-verse bridge in half-time – which, with other bands, would be considered "normal time". These are all classic DF songwriting tropes. Anyone who's never heard the band before will be blown away by the tempo, the arrangement, the thrashing, the surging synths, the many shifts, and, above all, the insane technical level. For those of us who boarded the train +20 years ago, however, there is nothing new here.

It's cool to have your pizza sprinkled with extra cheese, but that extra cheese is supposed to be a topping; not the actual foundation.

That said, there are some bangers on here. "Burning Heart", one of the faster ones, is instantly memorable. Again, it's nothing new, but it's aggressive, featuring some sick blast sections. And you can take the song seriously because it takes itself seriously. The same thing goes for "The Killer Queen" (yeah, Brian May left a message), not only blasting across the plains, but in a minor key, even. See, that helps the credibility along.

To complement the classic DF moments, there are some of great variation. One such being "The Kingdom of Steel" (yeah, Manowar left a message), a mountain-top-gigantic hymn, surprisingly sparse on the guitar, but bursting with immense alla breve toms, doomsday bells, and gang choirs. The same positive quality of variation could have gone for "Power of the Triforce" – and yes, it's based on Legend of Zelda. And while thematic ideas like that can be fun, they're also straddling that fatal line endangering songs of crossing over into aforementioned territory of too much of a good thing. Which, in this case, it does. That corny major-key melody is too corny even for a band like DF, and coupled with the deliberately silly lyrics, it gets tiring.

This brings me on to the downright annoying cuts. If aforementioned tune is self-aware and silly, "Space Marine Corp" is next-level self-aware and silly. I do like Gloryhammer, but I blame them for stuff like this. It's cool to have your pizza sprinkled with extra cheese, but that extra cheese is supposed to be a topping; not the actual foundation. (This is still the most perfect metaphor for power metal songwriting I've ever come up with). During my second spin of the album, I end up skipping to the next tune when that break with the marine call-and-response enters:

Up in the morning with the rising sun
No time to rest 'til we kill all the scum
My atomic blaster is bigger than yours
I'll show you mine if you show me yours
If you see us coming, better get on your knees
'Cause we are Primaris Space Marines

*SIGH* Goddammit.

And I skip much sooner during the godawful "Doomsday Party", pandering to a lower common denominator than any power metal band has ever done. At least it's in a minor key, but in all its deliberate disco rhythm, it's club pop with guitars, and it does not belong on a metal album. Fuck you.

You'd think things were bad enough around here. But presumably because they got some attention by covering "My Heart Will Go On" the last time around, DF top it all off by covering some supposedly horrible tune by corporate money-making marionette #1 these years: Taylor Swift.

*SIGH* Look... Three things:

1. That whole metal-bands-covering-pop-marionettes trend stopped being funny around the same time as DF started playing 5-figure crowds. With a few exceptions, it's not coming back around.
2. As I've already stated, there's a limit to how silly, self-aware, and self-ironic you can get without watering down your foundation and coming across as though you're not driven by passion rather than an ironic distance to your entire life's work. That limit has been crossed here.
3. First and foremost, pandering to the club segment is the antithesis to metal. Even in a relatively melodically infectious subgenre like power metal. Goddammit, Iron Maiden have sold, what, 15 times as many albums as DF, and they've never pandered for shit.

For the amount of decent material that's on here weighed out against the, well, indecent ditto, I'd be willing to grant a medium rating. But if the band aren't fully taking themselves seriously, I don't feel like I'm obliged to, either. And in any case, all that fucking pandering and lame self-irony that's going on here are just too annoying. You know who else is tainting the common perception of metal by pandering to people who don't listen to music – let alone nourish any genuine interest in it – rather than consume whatever they happen to be force-fed by corporate media at any given week?

Limp fucking Bizkit. So just whose side are you on here, newbie??

Everyone, stop being ironic about anything and everything. You're coming on like a bunch of feckless losers. Have some goddamn passion. Step into fucking character. Take your shit seriously. Yes, it can be done – even in a corny-as-fuck medium like power metal. And it doesn't mean you'll never be able to joke about anything ever again. It simply means people are gonna be taking you seriously as well.

Rating: 2.5 out of 6

Genre: Power metal
Release date: 15/3/2024
Label: Napalm
Producer: Damien Rainaud