HAMMERFALL - No Sacrifice, No Victory

\r\n“No Sacrifice, No Victory” is Hammerfall’s seventh album, leaving out the singles and DVDs which have been released in between. It came out in April and it is their first work with Pontus Norgren in guitars, since he replaced Stefan Elmgren who decided to pursuit the career of a pilot. For those of you, who do not know Norgen, I should remind you that he has been in various bands like Great King Rat and Talisman, and along with Marcel Jacob (also from Talisman), he created a project called Humanimal, in which the vocals were made by the famous Jeff Scott Soto.\r\n

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\r\nComing back to the album at hand, I would like to state that in overall it is a good album that moves in especially lively power metal rhythms, strong riffs and really good vocals that don’t over-perform. The exceptions are two songs, the acoustic ballad “Between Two Worlds” which is the only slow song in the whole album (and it is a really sweet song – but nothing more than that – since they will never be able to remake their own “Glory To The Brave”) and the last track which is a cover of Knack’s well-known “My Sharona” (and in my opinion is over-played since there are other bands that have covered the same song).\r\n

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\r\nAs always, I picked out a few songs that I liked better than the rest and those are the following: of course, the first track “Any Means Necessary” is included in this category, along with “Punish And Enslave”, which makes the listener sing along the catchy “OOOOO” that is included in it’s refrain. Another song is “Legion” which involves a good solo somewhere in the middle. I also picked out “Hallowed Be My Name” and “No Sacrifice, No Victory” (which carries the name the name of the album). Those last two songs both move in the same motif and they are two of the best songs this compilation has to offer. To sum up, I should state that the album is pretty well-written from start to end, and it has a really good production, but after one or two replays it leaves the audience with the impression that the same song kept playing over and over again. If you are a Hammerfall fan and you liked all their previous work, you will definitely enjoy this one, simply because it has nothing new to offer (besides the new guitarist which is excellent at making the songs sound better than they really are, and keeping them from being a burden to the ear even when they tend to become a bit monotonous and boring).\r\n

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\r\nIro Kapeloni \r\n

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