Band: Hammerfall
Album title: No Sacrifice, No Victory
Label: Nuclear Blast
Distributor: PIAS
Release date: February 2009
Release: CD

I know, this review comes to you rather late, what with the album already released in early February and having started the Any Means Necessary tour with support bands Bullet and Sabaton later that same month. By the time you’ll be able to read this, the tour will be underway thus far, that only a couple of German and Scandinavian dates, plus a trip behind the former Iron Curtain (Slovenia, Hungary, Bulgary, the Czech Republic, Slovakia) and a gig in Austria remain to be done.

Ach well, perhaps you were fan enough to be there at the shows in Belgium (Antwerp) and Holland (Geleen, Tilburg) and witness the band in its latest line-up, including “oldies” Joacim Cans (vocals), Oscar Dvorjak (guitar) and Anders Johansson (drums), the returned Fredrik Larsson (bass) and new lead guitarist Pontus Norgren (lead guitar) of The Poodles, whom replaces Stefan Elmgren. Luckily, the latter decided to leave (to pursue a career as air plane flyer, having been offered a job he simply couldn’t refuse) at a time when the band was not yet in the process to write material for a new album, and had already finished the promotional tour for their covers album Masterpieces. For some reason the band didn’t want to audition guitarists from their (Gothenburg) part of Sweden, and having gotten befriended with Norgren (who’s from Stockholm) when their bands toured in early 2007, they asked him whether he didn’t know of any interested Heavy Metal guitarists who’d be interested in the job. As it happened, Norgren kinda felt like getting into a heavier kind of guitar music himself, so he suggested to come over and have some rehearsals with the band. The rest is history, and I have to say he performs his job admirably!

With the backbone of the band still intact, the new album is a pleasant continuation of past work…meaning you get a nicely balanced album where the occasional ballad brings a calmer passage in an otherwize heavier geared track-list of Heavy Metal sing-along anthems and the occasionally faster track! That ballad on No Sacrifice…is “Between Two Worlds”, a song which also features keyboardist Jens Johansson (hum, would he be related to Anders, I wonder?) on church organ, and the “faster played” track on No Sacrifice… is the Classically influenced instrumental “Something For The Ages” (on which Jens returns to bring a nice solo on a more “conventional” type of keyboard). Other guest musicians on the album include the guys’ old buddy Stefan Elmgren (bringing a solo to “Bring The Hammer Down”), and a shiteload of backing singers (no less than 11 people, including Biff Byford, Dave Hill, Nicky Moore, to name but the most resounding names – regretfully, the credits forget to mention on which songs each singer seperatedly contributes). Usually, the band refrains from bringing covers on their albums, reserving those little attentions for the EPs and singles they release…but this time the guys deviated from that habit, finiishing the album with their own version of The Knack’s debut hit single of 1979, the rambaucous “My Sharona”. My feelings about the inclusion of that cover are somewhat biased. On the one side the guys give the track goin’ over which is rather close to the original, but with a flavouring of their own…and while I’m pleasantly dwelling in remeniscences, the track remains the weakest moment on the album. Nay…the boys would’ve done better to keep this for some some special release, indeed!

I ain’t sure what material off the new album, if any, the band has posted at either their own website (hammerfall.net) or myspace.com/hammerfall, but whatever’s available there will give you an idea of what this Swedish True Metal act is about! If you’ve heard the band’s earlier material and decided to share the many music fans who feel Hammerfall’s just one big joke, this new album will probably…or most certainly…not convince you to change your opinion. If your opinion about the band is an unwritten page…because you’re new to the scene and never hear the band before (stranger things have happened, and we àll have to begin somewhere), No Sacrifice, No Victory is as good as any other Hammerfall album to get acqainted with the Swedes! Of course, if you’re already aa Hammerfall fan, you’ll knów what to expect…and simply go out to buy the album…if you haven’t already! Personally, I can only say that my appreciation for this band grows with every album I hear from ‘em!

89/100

Tony.