A record contract was soon signed, which meant the commitment of the members had to be to Hammerfall, resulting in changes once again as drummer Jesper Strömblad and guitarist Glenn Ljungström were still committed to In Flames. Stefan Elmgren came in on lead guitar and Patrik Räfling on drums and Magnus Rosén on bass. Alongside Dronjak and Cans, Hammerfall had their line-up to push forward with their debut album. Despite leaving the band, Stromblad co-wrote the majority of the songs that appeared on the album with Dronjak and Cans, and though he is credited on the album as having played the drums (which he did despite being a guitarist in In Flames), it was actually Rafling who played on the album itself. Ljungstrom played guitars on the album before relinquishing his position to Elmgren for the tour that followed to promote the album.
The hallmark of this album is the way most of the songs have the hook coming very early, the ones that drag you in from the start and keep you going throughout. And although Hammerfall does not have the melodic ‘happy guitars’ that made Helloween so famous, it is the upbeat tempo of the guitars that actually bring about a similar type o feeling within their music. “The Dragon Lies Bleeding” does this from the start, a great opening riff that is parlayed throughout the song, and gives you the first taste of Joacim Cans vocal abilities, soaring throughout the ceiling. This moves into the equally enjoyable “The Metal Age” and then the eponymous “HammerFall”, both which show a great continuation of easy listening and infectious riffing of the opening track.
“Child of the Damned” is a cover of an old Warlord song from their 1983 EP “Deliver Us”. Cans was a long time admirer of the band and it was he who pushed including the song on the album. He later went on to be the lead singer of that band during a short-lived reunion in the early 2000’s such was his love for their music.
“Steel Meets Steel” was composed by Oscar prior to Hammerfall even coming into existence, and yet it survived to the point that it warranted inclusion here on their debut album. This is followed by the equally upbeat “Stone Cold” and “Unchained”. All of these songs utilise a speed and tempo that would not be regarded as speed metal but does head more in that direction than other bands at the time were necessarily integrating into their music. It is the tempo of the majority of the songs on this album that produces the most pleasing endorphins in the body.
There are two power ballads on the album, as is the way with every power metal album ever released. Now those of you who have listened to any of my episodes in the past will understand that I am no fan of the power ballad. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t any that I like, but in general, because they tend to be so generic in their output I just cannot get on board with them. So it probably won’t surprise you that the two power ballads here, “I Believe” and the title track and closing track to the album “Glory to the Brave” are not my favourite songs on the album. I don’t think they are poor tracks but for me they just drag the album back slightly. “Glory to the Brave” is also the attempt at the grandiose epic track to finish off the album, and while it may do that, I am still of the opinion that a different style of song would have done that better.
At different stages in my life, I have come to a stage where I go out and buy half a dozen albums from bands I have never heard, just to see what they are like. Many of them ended up being duds, that now collect dust on my shelves. On one of these trips about two decades ago I happened to pick up this album – and I never looked back. From the very beginning, it was exactly what I was looking for at the time. I had grown up with Helloween and Gamma Ray, and I was looking for more bands that played music like that. Blind Guardian had been the first step, and then came HammerFall, which eventually led to others such as Stratovarius and Sonata Arctica and Edguy.
It was the faster and brighter guitars I was looking for rather than the grunting and grunging that was happening elsewhere. Not that I didn’t like that kind of metal, but there was something about power metal that I wanted at that time of my life. And “Glory to the Brave” provided that in spades. There have been the usual naysayers both at the time and over the years about HammerFall - ‘the songs here tend to have repeatable, and repeating, choruses’, ‘the guitars aren’t precision like Metallica’, ‘why are the lyrics so cheesy, they should be writing harder core stuff’. And as individual likes and dislikes that’s fine, I don’t have a problem with those opinions. But sometimes I don’t want to put on an album that is full of political takes, or hard core lyrics about mass murderers or world disasters or things like that. I just want to put on an album that makes me feel less depressed or aggressive. I just want to listen to an album that lifts my mood, through fast guitar riffs and great melodic vocals through the songs that makes it a pleasure to listen to. And that happens every single time I put this album on. I found it at the right time of my life, and it is the medicine I need whenever it hits my stereo.
And this is the crux of the matter. Power metal is not for everyone, just like death metal isn’t for everyone, or doom or thrash metal isn’t for everyone. And don’t get me wrong, because I don’t love all power metal, nor do I love every HammerFall album. But this one is an album that I have loved from the moment I first heard it, and if you have anything in you that leans a little towards this genre of metal, then I think you’ll enjoy it too.
“Child of the Damned” is a cover of an old Warlord song from their 1983 EP “Deliver Us”. Cans was a long time admirer of the band and it was he who pushed including the song on the album. He later went on to be the lead singer of that band during a short-lived reunion in the early 2000’s such was his love for their music.
“Steel Meets Steel” was composed by Oscar prior to Hammerfall even coming into existence, and yet it survived to the point that it warranted inclusion here on their debut album. This is followed by the equally upbeat “Stone Cold” and “Unchained”. All of these songs utilise a speed and tempo that would not be regarded as speed metal but does head more in that direction than other bands at the time were necessarily integrating into their music. It is the tempo of the majority of the songs on this album that produces the most pleasing endorphins in the body.
There are two power ballads on the album, as is the way with every power metal album ever released. Now those of you who have listened to any of my episodes in the past will understand that I am no fan of the power ballad. That doesn’t mean that there aren’t any that I like, but in general, because they tend to be so generic in their output I just cannot get on board with them. So it probably won’t surprise you that the two power ballads here, “I Believe” and the title track and closing track to the album “Glory to the Brave” are not my favourite songs on the album. I don’t think they are poor tracks but for me they just drag the album back slightly. “Glory to the Brave” is also the attempt at the grandiose epic track to finish off the album, and while it may do that, I am still of the opinion that a different style of song would have done that better.
At different stages in my life, I have come to a stage where I go out and buy half a dozen albums from bands I have never heard, just to see what they are like. Many of them ended up being duds, that now collect dust on my shelves. On one of these trips about two decades ago I happened to pick up this album – and I never looked back. From the very beginning, it was exactly what I was looking for at the time. I had grown up with Helloween and Gamma Ray, and I was looking for more bands that played music like that. Blind Guardian had been the first step, and then came HammerFall, which eventually led to others such as Stratovarius and Sonata Arctica and Edguy.
It was the faster and brighter guitars I was looking for rather than the grunting and grunging that was happening elsewhere. Not that I didn’t like that kind of metal, but there was something about power metal that I wanted at that time of my life. And “Glory to the Brave” provided that in spades. There have been the usual naysayers both at the time and over the years about HammerFall - ‘the songs here tend to have repeatable, and repeating, choruses’, ‘the guitars aren’t precision like Metallica’, ‘why are the lyrics so cheesy, they should be writing harder core stuff’. And as individual likes and dislikes that’s fine, I don’t have a problem with those opinions. But sometimes I don’t want to put on an album that is full of political takes, or hard core lyrics about mass murderers or world disasters or things like that. I just want to put on an album that makes me feel less depressed or aggressive. I just want to listen to an album that lifts my mood, through fast guitar riffs and great melodic vocals through the songs that makes it a pleasure to listen to. And that happens every single time I put this album on. I found it at the right time of my life, and it is the medicine I need whenever it hits my stereo.
And this is the crux of the matter. Power metal is not for everyone, just like death metal isn’t for everyone, or doom or thrash metal isn’t for everyone. And don’t get me wrong, because I don’t love all power metal, nor do I love every HammerFall album. But this one is an album that I have loved from the moment I first heard it, and if you have anything in you that leans a little towards this genre of metal, then I think you’ll enjoy it too.
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