An important distinction.
Nanowar of Steel (formerly known as Nanowar or NanowaR,note later changed for copyright reasons) is an Italian "parody-fun-gay-metal" band — in fact, they are the truest metal band in existence, standing head-and-shoulders above all the posers (or at least, that's what they claim). As the genre implies, their songs are mainly humorous Affectionate Parodies of various tropes and genres of metal in general.
Debuting in 2003 with the demo "Triumph of True Metal of Steel", their first full-length album was 2005's "Other Bands Play, Nanowar Gay!". They followed with "Made in Naples" in 2007, and "Into Gay Pride Ride" in 2010. In the meanwhile, they went on a couple of tours around Europe. They would release "A Knight at the Opera" in 2014 and "Stairway to Valhalla" in 2018. They signed a record deal with Napalm Records in 2020.
Their official website
details their history, and their albums can be found on Jamendo and Bandcamp. Warning: often very NSFW lyrics.
Members:
- Potowotominimak (Carlo Alberto Fiaschi) - lead vocals
- Mr. Baffo (Raffaello Venditti) - co-lead vocals, miscellaneous sound effects
- Mohammed Abdul (Valerio Storch) - guitars, keyboards, backing vocals
- Gattopanceri 666 (Edoardo Carlesi) - bass
- Uinona Raider (Alessandro Milone) - drums, backing vocals
Discography:
- Triumph of True Metal of Steel (2003)
- Other Bands Play, Nanowar Gay! (2005)
- Into Gay Pride Ride (2010)
- A Knight at the Opera (2014)
- Stairway to Valhalla (2018)
- Italian Folk Metal (2021)
- Dislike to False Metal (2023)
True tropes of steel found in their work include:
- Barbie Doll Anatomy: The song "Barbie, MILF princess of the Twilight" explicitly mentions the parts Barbie doesn't have.
- Cat Folk: "Heavy Metal Kibbles" has people becoming these due to eating a new type of cat food.
- Compound Title: The songs "Burger"note and "King".
- Conspiracy Kitchen Sink: Parodied by "Protocols (of the Elders of Zion) of Love", a love song which tells how the singer immediately felt a connection to his Love Interest... through the computer chips implanted in them both by Bill Gates, which along with Stock Footage from InfoWars pretty much sets the tone for the rest of the song, which namedrops every conspiracy theory from chemtrails to reptilians.
- Double Entendre:
- "Surprise Love" is initially filled with barely concealed gay innuendo. Then it stops pretending it's about anything but gay sex.
- The lyrics to "Uranus" are full of these. "I wanna visit Uranus", "It's gonna pierce Uranus", "Everybody can enjoy the view of Uranus".
- Epic Rocking: Their 2023 album "Dislike to False Metal" has their longest song to date, "Chupacabra Cadabra" clocks in at 9:27. The album also closes with the 6:31 "The Power of Immodium".
- Furniture Assembly Gag: The video for their song "Valhallelujah", which is basically a 6.5-minute string of IKEA jokes to the tune of a gospel song, ends on the male lead's girlfriend gesturing at a partially unboxed IKEA furniture kit by the Christmas tree, and the male lead looking like he's about to have a migraine at the thought of assembling it.
- Gratuitous Foreign Language: The album "A Knight at the Opera" features four tracks with the same melody about fictional towns or countries full of gay men: "Schwanzwald" sung entirely in German, "Campo de Nabos" in Spanish, "Kitograd" in Serbo-Croatian and "Hujzbekistan" in Russian.
- Hate Dumb: Invoked and mocked in "Metal Boomer Battalion", which portrays a caricature of people who complain about any modern metal. The oficial lyric video contains a lot of negative comments in it, as well as the lyrics disparaging this kind of metal "fan" who hates everything outside of a very narrow interest. The hate comments used in the video also make these kinds of fans into Hypocrites, with one comment praising Slipknot and another hating Slipknot.
- Heavy Meta: Fulfills this trope with songs like "True Metal Of The World (Ah-Ah)" and "Metal-La-La-La". And uses via Literal-Minded approach, so they got songs about, uh, the True Metal — such as "Outrue" (Cuprum! Yttrium! Plutonium!). Even their website's title is "Nanowar Of Steel Website of Nickel".
- Heävy Mëtal Ümlaut: The titles of "Intrue" and "Outrue" ("ue" being a way to represent the German "ü").
- Heavy Mithril:
- Some of the songs, such as "Look at Two Reels".To listen to their songs
You need to know a lot of things
And read at least seventy times
"The Lord of the Rings" - "Tooth Fairy" parodies Power Metal's overblown solos and cheesy fantasy lyrics by replacing them, respectively, with random stuff such as the Mexican Hat Dance and lyrics related to economy and monetary value (and they're pretty correct).
- Some of the songs, such as "Look at Two Reels".
- I Just Shot Marvin in the Face: In the "Pasadena 1994" video, one of the Italian players accidentally shoots his teammate in the foot with a rifle.
- The Immodest Orgasm: Women moaning suggestively appear throughout, most noticeably in "RAP-Sody".
- Japanese Ranguage: Used and parodied in "L'Opelatole Ecologico" (more or less, "The Stleet Sweepel"), full of untranslatable puns on Japanese terms. The song is about a ninja street sweeper who uses his mystical techniques to clean more efficiently and to punish whoever is littering the city... or just mistakes him for a Chinese person.
- Joke of the Butt: "Bum Voyage" and "Uranus". The former is a spoof of the Star Trek narration talking about "Space... between the cheeks", which serves as an introduction track to the latter, a song-length Uranus Is Showing gag.
- List Song: "Intrue" and "Outrue" lists metals (probably parodying "The Elements" by Tom Lehrer among other things).
- Manly Gay: A general recurring theme.
- Metal Scream: The scream (just after the spoken part) in "Metal-la-la-la" is probably the funniest use of Metal Scream.
- Miniscule Rocking: "Power Of The Power Of The Power (Of The Great Sword)", which is 7 seconds long.
- Money Song: "Tooth Fairy" starts with Mario Draghi (the director of the European Central Bank) saying that they'll do anything to preserve the Euro. The reason? The tooth fairy is destabilizing the economy by giving money freely.
- Mundane Made Awesome: A lot of their songs, such as "King", which makes a huge deal of eating a Happy Meal at McDonald's.
- Nominal Hero: In "Gabonzo Robot", the eponymous Super Robot protects Earth against the Zampurians, but is unconcerned with civilian casualties as he casually destroys schools and hospitals in the process.
- Number of the Beast: One member of the band is known as "Gatto Panceri 666". The additional joke is that "Gatto Panceri" is an actual person, an Italian melodic pop singer, basically the extreme opposite of what Nanowar stand for.
- Ode to Intoxication: Inverted with "Sober" in what sounds like a send-up of Alestorm: the song is an ode to sobriety, where the pirates choose tea, juice, or milkshakes over grog.
- Parody Assistance:
- "Barbie, MILF Princess of the Twilight" is a spoof of Rhapsody of Fire-style Symphonic Metal that features Fabio Lione from Rhapsody as a Special Guest.
- Sabaton vocalist Joakim Brodén is a Special Guest in Sabaton parody track "Pasadena 1994", and plays a newscaster in the music video while visibly struggling to keep a straight face.
- Pun-Based Title:
- "The Call of Cthulhu" is a parody of the book, about Cthulhu literally calling you on the phone.
- "Look At Two Reels" is a pun on the name of Luca Turilli, Rhapsody Of Fire's frontman.
- Shout-Out:
- In the music video for their song "Uranus", the female backup dancers are dressed as Sailor Uranus from Sailor Moon. It also adds a Visual Pun to the Hurricane of Puns the track is made out of.
- One member of the band is known as "Uinona Raider", that is, Winona Ryder's name pronounced with an Italian accent. Why? Just because.
- The song "Chupacabra Cadabra" from Dislike to False Metal opens with an imitation of the famous drum intro to "Painkiller".
- In the music video for their song "Uranus"
- Special Guest:
- Thomas Winkler, as Angus McFife, sings the role of Odin in "Valhallelujah".
- Madeline Liljestam of Eleine provides the female vocals on "Winterstorm in the Night".
- Joakim Brodén provides some Parody Assistance on "Pasadena 1994".
- Ross the Boss (original guitarist of Manowar) is featured in "Armpits of Immortals".
- Stock Footage: "Protocols (of the Elders of Zion) of Love", a parody of conspiracy theorists, contains audio clips of some of Alex Jones's rants on InfoWars, e.g. "putting chemicals in the water and turning the friggin' frogs gay".note
- Sudden Downer Ending: "Vegan Velociraptor" ends with the titular hero defeating the Carnivorous Cows and being celebrated for his victory. Then the entire song cuts out as the meteorite hits.
- Take That!: They occasionally take direct shots at other bands:
- In "Look at Two Reels", their recommended method for enjoying Blind Guardian, DragonForce or Rhapsody of Fire is first reading The Lord of the Rings 70 times.
- In "Images And Swords", they claim that the way Dream Theater make their complex music is by scratching a dick into a Manowar record with a screwdriver.
- Take That, Audience!: "Metal Boomer Battalion" is a rip-roaring War Is Glorious song that satirizes elitism in metal fandom: the protagonists hate any song after 1982 (except Metallica, which was somehow better in 1922) and pull the No True Scotsman fallacy in online flame wars. The lyric video consists of a montage of negative comments apparently posted on their earlier songs."We fight! Online! Unfollow, unsubscribe!"
- Testosterone Poisoning: This is some manly metal they have ready for ya.
- War Is Hell: Parodied with "Pasadena 1994", an Affectionate Parody of Sabaton. The song depicts the 1994 FIFA World Cup finals between Italy and Brazil as a bloody battle between two mighty titans. Sabaton's lead singer, Joakim Broden, also provides vocals just to add to it.
- What the Hell, Hero?: "Tooth Fairy" is one aimed at the tooth fairy, whose distribution of free money is causing an economic crisis.
