Hammerfall CHAPTER V-UNBENT UNBOWED UNBROKEN

As helpfully pointed out in the title, Chapter V: Unbent, Unbowed, Unbroken sees Swedish metal institution Hammerfall hoisting aloft the torch of power metal (unbent, unbowed, etc.) for the fifth full-studio album of their career. But "power" metal may no longer the best tag with which to describe the band, whose material here ("Blood Bound," "Fury of the Wild," "Born to Rule," etc.) is really better described as classic, vintage, or better yet, timeless heavy metal, if you will. Extract any telltale signs of studio technology or audio fidelity and the band's sound really could have originated in the '80s or '90s, as easily as the '00s. And even more telling is the relative absence of speed metal drumming, used here only for small portions -- not the entirety -- of structurally varied songs like "Secrets" and "Take the Black." This may sound like a silly little detail, but it really does liberate Hammerfall from unfair comparison to a slew of boring, clich?-bound contemporaries. Sure,