HammerFall’s Live! Against The World: anthem after fist-banging anthem

Strap on your armor and saddle up! Power metal overlords HammerFall ride into battle once more with new album Live! Against The World

By Malcolm Dome
last updated
Live Against The World by Hammefall
(Image: © Nuclear Blast)

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While Hammerfall deliver good studio albums, it’s onstage they come into their own, as is proven here. The band’s third live release was recorded in Germany at the start of 2020 and you can sense the energy surge the Swedes get from the rabid crowd. There’s no time for clever nuances; what you get is anthem after fist-banging anthem, with vocalist Joacim Cans acting as a charismatically bombastic cheerleader. The two-hour set spans the band’s catalogue, and they celebrate the 20th anniversary of the classic Renegade album with a special medley. The high spots are Blood Bound, Let The Hammer Fall and Hearts On Fire. Live! Against The World will put a smile on any metal maniac’s face.

Malcolm Dome
Malcolm Dome

Malcolm Dome had an illustrious and celebrated career which stretched back to working for Record Mirror magazine in the late 70s and Metal Fury in the early 80s before joining Kerrang! at its launch in 1981. His first book, Encyclopedia Metallica, published in 1981, may have been the inspiration for the name of a certain band formed that same year. Dome is also credited with inventing the term "thrash metal" while writing about the Anthrax song Metal Thrashing Mad in 1984. With the launch of Classic Rock magazine in 1998 he became involved with that title, sister magazine Metal Hammer, and was a contributor to Prog magazine since its inception in 2009. He died in 2021.