Album Review: Warkings - Revolution

I try to be as honest as I can when writing these reviews, so let me start out with some honesty; I did not want to write a review of this new Warkings album. I reviewed their first two albums, and after the second one, I found myself beyond fed up both by the lackluster mediocrity of them, but also by the glorification of war and violence that was inherent in the concept. When the world is full of pointless violence that shows we are not so far removed from our animal nature, making albums that glorify the worst aspects of humanity is not something I think we should be doing. Even if you try to spin it as honoring the people who fought for freedom, it still means we were so horrible we had to shed blood to escape tyranny. Often tyranny derived from unprovable ideas that are pretty much the same, if you take a step back and think about the stupidity of it all.

But the music gods were not good to me, and I did not have many other options for albums to cover this week. I don't want to become one of those people who only talks about old music, so here we are.

The two singles for the album don't signal any real change. "Fight" advocates exactly that, shouting about fighting for freedom (good), and fighting for 'our kingdom' (bad). In one sentence, they sum up everything that's wrong with this dumbass gimmick. They promote violence in the name of a monarchical government, while trying to say it's in the name of freedom. No, those two things are incompatible. A kingdom cannot be free, and I'm not sure if these guys aren't smart enough to realize that, or they just don't care. Whichever the case is, I want to strangle them for feeding into the authoritarian strain that is infecting countries around the world. Way to go, guys.

That gets no better on "Kill For The King", where the lyrics talk about the heroism of murdering people in the name of a monarchy. Maybe this is a vestige of Europe, where their figurehead rulers hold some weird psychological appeal, but swearing your allegiance to a king is not something to be proud of now that we have a little thing called democracy. Warkings are pining for the days of servitude and shorter life-spans. No thanks.

And what pisses me off the most about Warkings is that they don't need to go down this road. We all know who the leader and voice of this band is, and he's more than capable of writing songs that stick in your mind. He does that here a few times. "Spartacus" does have a chanting section I don't think works too well, but damn if the chorus of the song isn't smooth and catchy as hell. If they could just not write lyrics that emphasize everything wrong with humanity, they could be good. Of course, his main gig already does that, so there really isn't any reason for this side-project.... which is an issue.

The chanting is the least agreeable part of the album. "Sparta Pt II" is bare-bones power metal that builds up to a chorus of voices shouting the title city-state, which doesn't make for a rousing moment for me. It's the sort of thing that would probably play better at a live show, but on record it's boring to listen to more than once.

So what this album boils down to is whether or not the good melodies on certain songs are enough to outweigh the weaker songs, and the stupidity of the gimmick. Like the first two albums, the answer is no. There are certainly good songs here, but not enough of them, and I can find decent power metal in other places that isn't so obviously pandering to the most toxic aspects of masculinity. If it wasn't for the historical nature of their gimmick, this album gives me the impression the lead single would be about fighting for your freedom not to wear a mask in the middle of a pandemic.

I'm just not interested in what Warkings is selling. Go listen to some...... Serenity instead.