Nanowar of Steel – ‘Stairway To Valhalla’ (Napalm)

By Jonny Bakes

Napalm Records have been doing a very good job over the years of picking up the more eccentric and left field bands. So it came of very little surprise when they signed one of my favourite ridiculous bands, those crazy Italians Nanowar of Steel. As the band stated when they signed with the label “We are proud to show the world that we are not just a bunch of uneducated clowns, but a bunch of uneducated clowns with writing and reading skills, as the reading and signing of an actual music contract shows”. If this doesn’t show the level of commitment that the band have to their “genre-fluid” songs of sheer silliness, then I don’t know what does.

The signing to Napalm Records gave the band a captive audience of fans already warmed up to this flavour of music through the likes of Alestorm, Gloryhammer and other such super serious metal bands… and they quickly found that the tracks released gained significant popularity. This started with the release of ‘Norwegian Reggaeton’ on vinyl (which earned a slot in our singles club on release and became one of my personal top jams), then a collaboration with Angus McFife of Gloryhammer for the festive ‘Valhallelujah’. Suddenly Nanowar of Steel were being escalated into the realms of popularity, and what better way to capitalise on that than with a special edition vinyl release of their 2018 release ‘Stairway to Valhalla’?

The album is presented in its original glory, with all 18 tracks that existing fans of Nanowar of Steel will already be familiar with, and the newcomers will be in for a hell of a ride as they delve into the stupidity. But even better is the inclusion of a hefty stack of bonus tracks which includes both ‘Norwegian Reggaeton’ and ‘Vallhallelujah’ as well as the recent re-recording of ‘Uranus’ featuring Michael Starr of Steel Panther, who was the most obvious choice to guest on a song that celebrates… the seventh planet from the sun.

Having already been familiar with this album, let me take you through some of my favourite tracks starting with ‘Vegan Velociraptor’. It’s an incredibly jovial tale of a crime-fighting plant-based dinosaur but while this may sound like a child-friendly song… it’s really not. You’ll find yourself chuckling about the fate of poor George W Sanchez who was a victim of the bullying cows and met a rather “uncomfortable” situation. The first time you listen to this I would recommend watching the video for the full effect, not least because it has subtitled lyrics alongside the animation. There’s some pretty wacky emphasis on words at times that can make it hard to understand initially which was a common theme with the earlier releases from NoS. It’s absolutely worth sticking through this to get the full experience though!

And I couldn’t neglect to mention the tale of online dating gone wrong with ‘…And Then I Noticed She Was A Gargoyle’. This is an incredible emotional power ballad about a man who met a woman online who shared his passion for medieval architecture. You might notice that they’ve definitely pilfered the riff for ‘Moonlight Shadow’ (which is a common theme across this album, there’s plenty of nods to other artists and songs). Again, this is definitely a song that needs the video for the full effect. I remember listening to it on the album before seeing the video and was thoroughly confused by the disjointed breakdown in the middle of the song, but once I saw the video it all began to make sense!

There are so many other songs on here that have been on my regular rotation for a while, but I would probably bore you to death talking through every single one of them. Instead I’ll just give a very brief shout out to a few more… The Judas Priest influenced ‘Heavy Metal Kibbles’, ‘Barbie, MILF Princess of the Twilight’ which is offered without comment, the recent SOAD parody ‘Sneeztem of a Yawn’ and the song about a hardworking monster ‘The Call of Cthulhu’.

I was probably most excited to find that not only did ‘Norwegian Reggaeton’ – a previous ÜR ‘Video Of The Week’ – make it onto the album as a bonus track, it made it on the album a second time with a ridiculous dance remix. So now you can listen to the spoof reggaeton song as a dance remix just in case you couldn’t shake your ass enough to the original! I know we talked about this track already when we featured it on release (which feels like a lifetime ago) but this has endured as one of my most played driving tunes ever since! The mix of stupidly catchy music and black metal themed lyrics, like “you burned my soul like the Fantoft church in June 1992, baby” gave me everything that I never realised I needed.

‘Stairway to Valhalla’ is unashamedly stupid and is quite possibly comedy metal at its finest. If you want to listen to something that takes itself seriously, then you have completely missed the point of Nanowar of Steel and you should just back away now. However, if you’re looking for something that is about as light-hearted as it can get with a combination of clever parody and outright juvenile humour then this is the perfect album for you. With a December release date, it’s the perfect time to wind up your whole family with the festive gospel anthem ‘Valhallelujah’ too!

‘Stairway to Valhalla’ is released on vinyl on Friday (4 December). You can get your copy, and loads of other Nanowar Of Steel goodies, HERE.

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