The Sweatbox (2002)

Warriors of the World is the ninth album by heavy metal band Manowar, released on June 4, 2002. The song Nessun Dorma was dedicated to Adams's mother who had died earlier that year…

Despite all of the failed experiments and the revolving-door of vocalists throughout the '90s, Annihilator proves on Waking the Fury that they can at the very least write a solid, heavy collection of songs if pressured. No more humor-infused romps like "Brian Dance", no more overlong patience testers like "Hunter Killer"; everything is compact and lethality exudes from the band's determined approach. This becomes immediately apparent during the opener "Ultra-Motion", which detonates out of the gates courtesy of Waters' electrified picking hand and descending note clusters. Waters produced this album, lending a synthetic, artificial sheen to the guitars that remains one of the album's most memorable attributes. The guitar tone's awful reputation almost proceeds the music itself, akin to Overkill's W.F.O. and it's vehement bass tone.

Rendezvous With the Blues marks another step in the normalization of Melvin Taylor. With Lucky Peterson on keyboards, Taylor is much more the featured lead guitarist in a straight-band context that too often finds him fighting for room to move in the full arrangements. He takes a jazzy lead on the opening "Coming Home Baby," but that runs counter to the measured, mid-tempo groove that dominates the first three tracks and seems like a move to court the contemporary rock-blues audience. So does some of the material – no originals, with ZZ Top, Stephen Stills, and Carlos Santana's tribute to John Lee Hooker in the songwriter credits on one side and Charles Singleton and Prince for contemporary black funk/rock relevance on the other. Horns kick in to punctuate the slinky, clavinet-anchored funk on "I'm the Man Down There," but Taylor's solo gets cluttered up by a duel with Peterson (on guitar here). Taylor is better-served when he escapes the rock beat straitjacket on "Tribute to John Lee Hooker" – the Latin-tinged rhythms give his guitar more freedom to float and sting.

William Byrd’s keyboard music has always stood in the shadow of his vocal compositions. Drawing simultaneously on English and Italian Renaissance traditions, Byrd created a remarkable musical language that was flexible and entirely refined keyboard instruments of his time.

Despite what some Yngwie Malmsteen fanatics would like to believe, the Swedish guitarist did not just pick up the six-string and pen such classically tinged heavy metal epics as "I'll See the Light Tonight" – he gradually worked his way up the ladder of speed-demon guitar wizardry. And while most admirers pick up Malmsteen's career from either his Steeler or Alcatrazz recordings, even earlier compositions exist, which have been compiled together for 2002's The Genesis. Although Ritchie Blackmore is often credited as being Malmsteen's prime six-string influence, Jimi Hendrix was also always at the top of the list, which is proven by an over 12-minute jam of "Voodoo Child (Slight Return)." Elsewhere, such instrumentals as "Plague in Lucifer's Mind" and "Black Magic Suite Op. 3" show that Malmsteen was doing the "classical metal thang" even earlier than many assume.