Age of Winters is the debut album by American heavy metal band The Sword, released in the United States on February 14, 2006.[1][2] The Japanese edition, released by record label Toy's Factory, contains three bonus tracks recorded live at the CBGB club in New York City[3] on April 9, 2006.[4] The single released from the album was "Freya",[5] which did not chart. Age of Winters was later reissued as part of a two-disc box set with Gods of the Earth on November 25, 2008.[1][6]
The Sword's debut album received a widely positive critical reaction. Reviewing for music website AllMusic, critic Eduardo Rivadavia awarded Age of Winters 4.5 out of 5 rating stars, qualifying it as an "AMG Album Pick".[10] In the review, Rivadavia claims that the band's debut record "sees them joining California's High on Fire, Sweden's Witchcraft, and Australia's Wolfmother (to name but a few) at the forefront of what's gradually become known in the mid-'00s as the "heritage" or "retro-metal" movement."[10] He goes on to suggest that "the album's main attraction [is] its megalithic guitar work," concluding that "Age of Winters provides [...] listeners with as good an entryway as any into the "retro-metal" universe, while also managing to sound refreshing even to calloused heavy metal ears," which, he suggests, "is no small achievement."[10]
Other reviews of Age of Winters were similarly positive – webzine PopMatters, awarded the album a favorable rating of seven out of ten, describing it as "one fine, headbang-inducing beast of a debut record,"[11] while The Austin Chronicle summarised the album as "literate" and "visceral".[12]
