Year in Rock 2012 Nominee: The Sword

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THE SWORD
Apocryphon
From: Apocryphon
Released: October 23

You can always depend on The Sword for tasty riffs and lyrics that sound like they were lifted from the flavour text of a Magic The Gathering card. On Apocryphon, they come back to earth (previous album Warp Riders was full on sci-fi rock) with such force that there's a new crater somewhere in Texas. It's expected that most bands have worked out any growing pains and have found a comfortable place by their fourth album, and The Sword prove no exception, sometimes to a fault; some of Apocryphon's songs don't hit with as much urgency as past gems or, in some cases, strike as a little too close to past gems. But the album closing title track's synth intro jars any sleepyheads back to life, then shakes the shit out of them for five minutes to make sure they stay awake through one of the year's most badass grooves.

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