About a year ago the Italian DoomSword released Resound The Horn. An epic heavy metal album that awoke memories of great bands like Candlemass and Manilla Road. While the album showed great promise, the relatively poor sound, as well as the huge amount of repetition stood in the way of a real breakthrough. With Let Battle Commence, Deathmaster and his companions try once more to claim the crown of epic heavy metal and I must admit that this album is certainly a step in the right direction.

The first thing you will notice when you put on this album is the enormous increase in sound quality. The sound is epic and bombastic without sacrificing that authentic feeling the music has, and should have. DoomSword has definitely evolved during the past year, and the music has become slightly darker, as well as more Viking oriented. Although it is still very much slow paced epic heavy metal, one can clearly hear Bathory influences. A good example of this change in style is the second song, “In The Battlefield”.

One of the things I missed on Resound The Horn was the use of atmospheric background sounds, but fortunately they have added these to a certain degree on Let Battle Commence. Sure, there still could be a broader use of these effects but it is a good start nevertheless. The battle horn that rings throughout “In The Battlefield” creates an atmosphere of impending doom and battle, while the screams in “The Siege” bring images of Vikings pillaging a village.

DoomSword this time, tells us the story of the conquest of the city of York (Jorvik) by the Danish army of Ivarr the Boneless in the year 866. The album is written in such a way that it shows us both sides of the story. Part of the songs are written from the English point of view, while the other half of the songs is written from the Viking point of view. The concept is one that befits the music perfectly and they have definitely succeeded in creating an authentic Viking atmosphere.

Unfortunately, Let Battle Commence suffers from the same problem as its predecessor: repetition. Each song is more than 7 minutes long, apart from “In The Battlefield”, which is a bit shy of six minutes. While that isn’t necessarily a problem, the limited amount of variation within a song is. Riffs are repeated over and over, and after awhile this simplicity starts to lose its charm. The tracks could be slightly more compact, which would make them certainly more powerful. Nevertheless it is certain that Let Battle Commence is a step forward. If DoomSword can rid their music of the extra baggage, and add slightly more atmospheric elements, then nothing will stand in the way of this bands breakthrough. For now their goal of becoming the new king of epic metal is still out of their reach, but if their development continues, who knows?