text: the sword the sword is an american heavy metal band from austin , texas . formed in 2003 , the band is composed of vocalist and guitarist john d. cronise , guitarist kyle shutt , bassist bryan richie and drummer santiago " jimmy " vela iii . originally signed to kemado records , the group released its debut album age of winters in 2006 , which had been largely written by cronise prior to the band 's formation . gods of the earth was released two years later and gave the group its first entry on the us billboard 200 chart . in 2010 the band released warp riders , a concept album centered on an original science fiction narrative , which marked the first time the band had enlisted an external producer in matt bayles . wingo left the group later in the year and was replaced briefly by kevin fender , before vela joined in 2011 . after signing with razor & tie in 2012 , the group released its fourth album apocryphon which was promoted worldwide on the apocryphon tour . the band 's fifth album , high country , was released in 2015 . the sword is commonly categorized as a stoner rock or doom metal band , and is influenced by groups such as black sabbath and sleep . the band has toured with a wide range of fellow metal artists , including ... and you will know us by the trail of dead , year long disaster and metallica on multiple occasions . the sword 's first album age of winters failed to chart , but subsequent releases have all gained increasing commercial success , with apocryphon charting in the top 20 of the billboard 200 . history 2003 – 2007 : formation , early years and age of winters after writing and recording music on his own for " a few years " , vocalist and guitarist john d. cronise formed the sword in 2003 with guitarist kyle shutt and drummer wingo . speaking about choosing the band 's name , cronise claims that he researched the moniker first and found it " unbelievable " that it hadn 't already been used ; two bands did already have the name sword though , including a canadian heavy metal band , and the frontman states he " narrowly escaped litigation hell " before the sword was finalised . the trio played their first show together on june 19 at in austin , and released their first demo , entitled age of winters , before the end of the year . bassist bryan richie joined to complete the four - piece lineup of the band in early 2004 . prior to the formation of the sword , cronise and wingo had performed together in the group ultimate dragons , based in richmond , virginia , while shutt and richie had worked with multiple bands in texas " united by a love of led zeppelin " . cronise had also performed with a local band called those , but left as he felt he " needed to do something heavier " . after their first live performance together as a four - piece at austin 's sound on sound records on march 17 , 2004 , the band released their second demo , the sword , which was followed the next year by an extended play ( ep ) entitled freya . after performing at the 2005 south by southwest festival , the sword was signed by new york - based record label kemado records , following a recommendation by lamb of god guitarist mark morton . the band released its debut album age of winters in february 2006 , for which much of the material had been written by cronise before the band 's formation and featured on the band 's early demos . in support of the album the band toured throughout 2006 and 2007 , with support acts including lacuna coil and trivium in the united states , nebula and clutch in europe , and lamb of god in japan . in november 2006 a cover version of the song " freya " was featured as a playable track on the video game guitar hero ii , and the original track was later released as the band 's first single in september 2007 . age of winters did not chart , but received widely positive reviews from critics including allmusic 's eduardo rivadavia , who described the album as " remarkably well - balanced and almost suspiciously immediate " . 2007 – 2009 : gods of the earth and first chart success in june 2007 the band contributed a new song , " under the " ( which was later included on their second album ) , to the kemado compilation invaders . the group also released a split ep with swedish doom metal band witchcraft that month , contributing new track " sea of spears " and a cover of led zeppelin 's " immigrant song " to the record . gods of the earth was the band 's second album , released on april 1 , 2008 . the album , which is much more of a collaborative writing effort than its predecessor , provided the band with its first billboard 200 chart entry , reaching number 102 . in support of the album , the band completed the gods of the earth tour supported by artists such as machine head , lamb of god , and clutch ; the quartet also supported heavy metal veterans metallica on their 2008 european vacation tour in july , and returned as the opening act for a number of legs on their world magnetic tour which continued through the opening months of 2009 until may . a two - disc box set containing the band 's first two albums age of winters and gods of the earth was released on november 25 , 2008 , and the song " the black river " from gods of the earth was later included on the video game guitar hero : metallica , released in march 2009 . the band 's music was also featured in the 2009 films jennifer 's body ( " celestial crown " ) and horsemen ( " maiden , mother & crone " ) , and in march 2009 the sword won two local music awards : the high times doobie award and the austin music award for best metal artist . 2009 – 2010 : change in style and direction on warp riders the sword spent the rest of 2009 writing material for their third album , which took the form of " a concept album centered around an original science fiction narrative " , and had more of a hard rock sound than the band 's previous releases . some of the new songs were debuted at the 2009 fun fun fun fest in november , and were also played on " a short regional tour showcasing the new songs " in january . recording for the follow - up to gods of the earth began in austin at wire recording in february 2010 ; matt bayles was hired to produce and engineer the album – a first for the band , as cronise and richie had respectively produced and engineered both age of winters and gods of the earth . recording of the album , titled warp riders , was completed by april . in may , the band contributed to a split release for the second time , covering thin lizzy 's " cold sweat " for a entertainment vinyl club release with year long disaster , who covered the sword 's own track " maiden , mother & crone " . in july , warp riders lead single " tres " was released as a digital download , and a live ep entitled itunes festival : london 2010 ( recorded at the itunes festival in london on july 3 ) was also released as an itunes - exclusive download . a week after the album 's august 24 release , warp riders surpassed the commercial performance of gods of the earth when it debuted at number 47 on the billboard 200 albums chart , selling almost 9 , 000 copies in the first week of its release . the band supported metallica again on a series of september tour dates in australia , new zealand and japan as warm - up for their own warp riders tour , which began the following month . 2010 – 2012 : drummer changes and warp riders tour five shows into the opening north american leg of the warp riders tour , the sword was forced to postpone all dates due to the departure of drummer wingo . explaining his decision to leave , wingo commented that he felt " physically and emotionally unable to continue on as part of [ the band ] " , and later revealed that he had predicted he would eventually leave the band for " probably a couple of years " , justifying his decision by explaining that " my level of anxiety pertaining to being on tour got to the point where medication was not the answer . " upon wingo 's departure from the sword , the remaining members of the band released the following statement : for the later rescheduled tour dates , austin - based drummer kevin fender was enlisted to perform with cronise , shutt , and richie as a temporary touring member of the sword . the second single from warp riders , " ( the night the sky cried ) tears of fire " , was released as a limited edition picture disc at the beginning of november backed with previously unreleased b - side " " , and later in the month the video for " lawless lands " – part two of the warp riders trilogy – was released online . a number of european dates were rescheduled for may 2011 , and the third and final warp riders music video " night city " was released in march . the sword returned to north america in the summer , extending the warp riders tour and performing with kyuss lives ! and until october . in october 2011 , fender was replaced with santiago " jimmy " vela iii , and the band saw out the rest of 2011 touring in the united states . guitarist kyle shutt later spoke about the drummer changes in an interview in 2012 , claiming that wingo " took a shit all over [ the band ] " when he left , and that fender was chosen as he already knew how to play the group 's songs . 2012 – 2014 : record label change and return with apocryphon in march 2012 it was announced that the sword had signed a multi - album worldwide deal with new york - based label razor & tie , with plans for a fourth album starting with recording in june and a projected late - 2012 release . in may the band released the single " hammer of heaven " , a song originally recorded in 2003 for the age of winters demo and later submitted for inclusion on the soundtrack to the film the avengers . in the run - up to the recording of their next album , the group only played a few shows in 2012 , most notably the metallica - organised festival orion music + more in june . working with producer j. robbins , the group recorded the follow - up to warp riders at magpie cage studios in baltimore , maryland between june and july 2012 . the resulting album , apocryphon , was released in october 2012 ; it debuted at number 17 on the billboard 200 albums chart , selling over 16 , 000 copies in its first week and providing a new chart record for the band . the album was released throughout europe by germany - based label napalm records . the promotional tour for the album , the apocryphon tour , commenced the following week in the us , and continued across the world throughout the rest of 2012 and 2013 . 2012 and 2013 also saw the sword expanding into business ventures outside of music , beginning in september 2012 with the release of the band 's own brand of hot sauce called tears of fire . the hot sauce , which is made with the ' ghost pepper ' , was first announced and revealed on the travel channel series anthony bourdain : no reservations on september 3 , before going on sale to the public the following day . this was followed in october by the release of the band 's first line of beer , winter 's wolves beer , produced by baltimore , maryland - based brewery oliver ales , and in july 2013 by a second line of beer , iron swan , produced by texas - based real ale brewing . in 2014 the band released lyric videos for apocryphon tracks " the hidden masters " and " arcane montane " . both were also released together as a set of 7 " vinyl singles , featuring remixes of each by dylan c. later that year , the band also worked with bmx company subrosa on its own branded model , featuring artwork by apocryphon artist j. h. williams iii and named after apocryphon track " eyes of the " . 2014 – present : international recognition with high country writing for the sword 's fifth album began in late 2014 , which was recorded between march and april 2015 with former grupo fantasma guitarist adrian quesada as producer . prior to starting recording , the group also embarked on a short tour between march 11 and 14 , visiting four cities in louisiana , tennessee and oklahoma . high country was released on august 21 , 2015 and the high country tour began in europe on the same day . the album was the band 's first to chart outside of the us and uk , reaching number 74 on the australian albums chart and number 91 on the german albums chart ; it reached number 30 on the us billboard 200 . in 2016 , the band released a recording of " john the revelator " for record store day . style , songwriting and influence while commonly labelled as a doom metal band , the sword has also been identified as an example of the ' classic metal ' movement of stoner rock artists influenced by early metal bands such as black sabbath , led zeppelin and blue cheer . in addition to sabbath , to whom the band is commonly compared , artists such as sleep , melvins and slayer have been cited as influences by members of the band . with the release of warp riders , members of the band acknowledged that fans with a more " narrow - minded " view of heavy metal may feel alienated by stylistic changes . eduardo rivadavia of allmusic describes the band as being " at the forefront of … the ' heritage ' or ' retro metal ' movement , " comparing their style to that of heavy metal veterans black sabbath and vocalist cronise to ozzy osbourne . rolling stone also likens the band to sabbath , as does absolutepunk.net in its review of gods of the earth , claiming that " it 's impossible not to compare [ the album ] to the works of black sabbath . " while every member of the band contributes to the musical compositions , cronise is the primary writer of the band 's lyrics . he often uses norse mythology as a topic in his lyrics , notably in the song " freya " , but cites literature as his main influence , identifying such authors as george r. r. martin , robert e. howard , h. p. lovecraft and arthur c. clarke as inspirations . on warp riders , cronise was again credited for writing all the lyrics , and only guitarist kyle shutt was added to the credits for the musical compositions . the band has cited black sabbath as a major influence , in addition to doom trio sleep , sludge band the melvins , thrash veterans slayer , and heavy metal icons iron maiden and deep purple , among others . the band 's guitarists , in discussions of their musical influences , have identified ' classic ' metal guitar players such as james hetfield of metallica , pantera 's dimebag darrell and tony iommi of black sabbath , and cronise has also described billy gibbons ( of zz top ) as a " huge influence . " in an interview with entertainment newspaper the a.v. club , cronise also revealed that local metal band hrm , rock musician bob seger and r & b singer michael jackson have been influences on the sword 's sound . band members discography age of winters ( 2006 ) gods of the earth ( 2008 ) warp riders ( 2010 ) apocryphon ( 2012 ) high country ( 2015 )