ALBUM REVIEW: DragonForce – ‘Warp Speed Warriors’

Oh, another DragonForce album… Yippee…

That’s not a statement said with any kind of malice, but rather full knowledge of exactly what DragonForce are these days—rarely terrible, but more just exhausting to be around. You’ll find that in their reputation as some super-based permutation of what metal should be, all because Through The Fire And Flames on Guitar Hero was the hardest thing ever when you were 12 years old. In reality, they’re epitome of power-metal’s prioritising of flash and bravado over anything enduring, exacerbated by a need to be the fastest and gaudiest around that has them quivering in anticipation every time. Other than the cover of My Heart Will Go On, what was there of note to remember about 2019’s Extreme Power Metal? Exactly.

Still, you can’t fault DragonForce’s commitment to the bit. They’re well aware that their corners of metal are occupied nerd territory—themselves included—and have been doggedly capitalising on it. It’s why Warp Speed Warriors features songs about The Legend Of Zelda and Warhammer 40k, in completely unambiguous terms. For most others, that’d be grounds to write them off as a cringe gimmick, but the audacity to try has been DragonForce’s forte since day dot. That’s also what stretches Warp Speed Warriors up to something resembling an identifiable late-period DragonForce album, by virtue of giving their technical wizardry something to do, rather than relying on it on its face.

Not always, mind; there are still instances where you’ll zone out during a solo, come to again, and it’ll still be going on. All in a day’s work for Herman Li and Sam Totman, both proud graduates of the Satriani / Vai School of Shredding Excess. They’ve undoubtedly been the twin-headed lynchpin for DragonForce’s longevity, though after nine albums of it, fatigue for insane technical proficiency and nothing else has really begun to set in. It’s hard to escape at the points where it practically swamps out every other instrumental contribution, the hyper-mobile, hyper-saturated secret to DragonForce’s success that’s run its course and refuses to stop.

The silver lining is that, although DragonForce know that, Warp Speed Warriors doesn’t hitch its wagon to that exclusively. There are actual songs here, albeit in a capacity that’s far from consistent. Burning Heart and The Killer Queen try but fail to feel defined enough; conversely, Kingdom Of Steel, with its booming drums and “whoa-oh” chorus, is almost the equivalent of a disposable pop ballad from the early 2010s. Chaff like that is too prevalent to deem Warp Speed Warriors a particularly great album overall, but the spikes it does have are what rescue it. Power Of The Triforce and Space Marine Corp have some DragonForce’s most ironclad hooks in years, particularly the key change on the latter that’s a glove-like fit for a band living and breathing flagrance like this. There’s a specific charm to hearing songs about video games and sci-fi sold with a gusto like this, regardless of how easy the front is to chip away at and reveal how little of substance is actually below the surface. DragonForce’s contingency plan is not to remedy that, but to simply power on proudly forward and distract from it. The fact it tends to work says it all.

And that’s kind of the crux of any argument in Warp Speed Warriors’ favour, honestly. It’s never intelligent or introspective, but it’s sometimes a bit catchier than DragonForce have been before, and by God, that is good enough. They’re clearly having fun with it, not moving the fantastical power-metal needle by an atom’s breadth, and not really needing to, either. Marc Hudson has a strange amount of charisma for this type of vocalist, though that may also be a factor of letting the extremities of the pomp, delivery and subject matter carry him. There’s a sting at the end of the hook of Astro Warrior Anthem that feels custom-designed for some classic cartoon theme à la He-Man or Skeleton Warriors, and to put a fairly fine point on it, it’s totally glorious when it hits.

Where the indulgence of DragonForce really comes to pass most is at the album’s very end, with a cover of Taylor Swift’s Wildest Dreams. Maybe this is a prevailing trend for them now—stock power-metal renditions of towering pop hits by women to cap off their albums—but when there’s no change to the pronouns or the lyrical sentiment as a whole, the angle of fun that DragonForce are looking to capture has a spotlight blazing over it. As Hudson sings about his “red lips and rosy cheeks” and “standing in a nice dress”, any kind of verisimilitude is lobbed out the window, as it should be. Warp Speed Warriors is a DragonForce album, after all, reliant on how strong the symbiosis of epic absurdity is between its creators and listeners. The fact there’s more to home in on this time is only a good thing, and done so while keeping the brand largely intact. To say it’ll have staying power off that might be a tad excessive, but it wouldn’t be too objectionable if it did. If the fading ghosts of memories of other recent DragonForce albums are to be trusted, this is pretty alright by comparison.

For fans of: Blind Guardian, Powerwolf, Amaranthe

‘Warp Speed Warriors’ by DragonForce is released on 15th March on Napalm Records.

Words by Luke Nuttall