First things, first, let’s be clear; while yours truly most assuredly sees the humor and sheer ridiculousness of a good many trappings of heavy metal, the one thing you’ll never read in these pages, hear from my lips is a lack of seriousness about the music.

And I think that’s what puts me off about bands like NANOWAR OF STEEL most of all – the sheer grade school level banality from the start. And don’t even get me going on Metalocalypse, a show that could’ve been endearing but ended up doing more damage than any chuckles were worth by playing to and then flaunting the stereotypes we as a culture and community have fought against from the start. And doesn’t ‘Sober’ already sound like stale beer kicking off Dislike To False Metal? A true pastiche of labelmates ALESTORM, themselves equally gone to shit (can we call it The Napalm Effect, already?) about the time the real doubloons came rolling in.

Lo and behold, ‘Winterstorm In The Night’ shows the band mimicking early symphonic Scandinavian metal, but having the chops to make it work, even without the guest vocals of ELEINE siren Madeleine Liljestam adding her prodigious pipes, or the subject matter being dandruff. Just as quickly, ‘Disco Metal’ is a vomit inducing, techno-romp inexplicably devolving into what can only be called a power ballad that would’ve been at home on any post-Black ‘TALLICA album with surprisingly few changes needed.

At over nine excruciating minutes, ‘Chupacabra Cadabra’ seems to be a legend about, well…a magic chupacabra, which is all well and good. But for fuck’s sake, the punishment is grating on the ears. Come to think of it, I’d sooner take a cheese grater to my eardrums than continue with this review, but I will suffer so you don’t have to. You’re welcome. I can only assume ‘Metal Boomer Battalion’ is meant to poke fun at the generation I’m likely seen as a part of (nope, losers, Gen X for life), but its attempts at “satire” and wordplay add up to no more than the low-hanging fruit of “humor” this plate of steaming crap is already rotten with.

‘Dimmu Boogie’ is infectious, and to be honest, anything that even remotely makes a mockery of Shagrath, Silenoz, and whoever can put up with them long enough to put out an album gets a pass in my book, despite the tune dragging on about twice as long as it should’ve. But I also feel the preceding sentiments show where NANOWAR OF STEEL falters as an album band; maybe it’s a generational thing, but with WEIRD AL, even GWAR, you could toss on a record/CD and remain entertained the whole way through.

Dislike To False Metal is yet another monument to today’s throwaway culture – possibly even intentionally so – made for quick YouTube link shares, clickbait kids and people who think anything posted on MetalSucks.com matters.
Review By: Lord Randall

NANOWAR OF STEEL
Dislike To False Metal
Napalm Records