played their first show together on June 19, 2003, at the Beerland in Austin, and released their first demo Age of Winters before the end of the year. Bassist Bryan Richie completed the four-piece lineup in early 2004. Prior to the formation of the Sword, Cronise and Wingo had performed together in the group Ultimate Dragons 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 Peabodys, 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 a self-titled second demo, 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". In June 2007, the band contributed a new song, "Under the Boughs" (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 the same 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