The SwordAge of WintersKemadoTwo-and-a-half out of five stars

Attention Magic fans, Dungeons and Dragons addicts and Lord of the Rings freaks: Your soundtrack has arrived-just as long as your roommates (read: parents) don’t mind a little death metal coming from your basement lair.

The Sword’s Age of Winters is the most rockin’ music ever to feature songs about horned goddesses, iron swans and laments for the aurochs.

Aurochs?

It’s an extinct wild ox, duh!

Sigh, actually, I had to Google it?.

Reminiscent of Black Sabbath in more ways than one, The Sword cuts to the heart with brutal, anthemic riffs, surging guitars, pounding rhythms and vocals slithery enough to make you miss the pre-stuttering Ozzman.

From the get-go, Age of Winters is an album of pure head-bangers ballin’. It lets up for 56 seconds on “Iron Swan”-perhaps just to let you catch your balance-and then it jumps right back into ferocious metal and lyrics that are utterly irrelevant in the 21st century: “Scion of storms, aegis of rime / I call on the powers of old / Unleash your vengeance to punish the crimes / Of those who I name as my foes.”

Aegis? Ugh.

Rockin’ it is, but I’m still not sure if it’s serious. Either way, for its genre (dweeb-metal? Grunge-ons and Dragons?), Age of Winters is not half bad.

I just wish I had the aegis of rime backin’ my ass up.

Marshal Hogan