And so the thrash “revival” continues. Hailing from SoCal, War Without End is Warbringers debut full-length, after an independently released EP last year titled One by One the Wicked Fall, which initially sparked my interest in the young band. That EP showed a great deal of promise in terms of pure, foot to the throat, Bay Area inspired thrash metal, and now with the release of War without End, they’ve fully delivered on that promise.
First off, four of the five songs from the EP are represented here (“Total War”, “Shoot to Kill”, “Hell on Earth”, and “Beneath the Waves”) re-recorded with updated production. They kick things off with “Total War”, and after a brief sample of machine guns and explosions, the song takes off immediately with a blazingly fast solo that right away lets you know what they guys are all about. For the most part, the entire album continues in this fashion – speed and thrashtastic riffs and eye popping solos – though on some songs (“Systematic Genocide”, “Hell on Earth”) they scale it down a bit to lock into a killer riff that’s slightly more groove based, or at the beginning of “At the Crack of Doom” where they open with clean guitar that leads into a short, slow, eerie sounding piece before giving way to thrash chaos.
Lyrically speaking, everything is based around the same clichéd topics – war, death, torture, flesh eating zombies and the like – but honestly I wouldn’t have it any other way. The vocals John Kevil are gritty and fitting of the music, reminiscent of Tom Araya or Mille Petrozza, but not necessarily a sound alike.
Not long ago I read a comment on blabbermouth (yeah, yeah I know – they’re all idiots over there) that called Warbringer “fake thrash”. I don’t get it. Just because they weren’t part of the original movement makes them fake? Because these ears here a young band that seemingly love thrash more than anything else and love playing it exactly as they hear it, and for me, that’s just fine – I’ll continue to listen and love, while the knuckle draggers out there miss out on some quality thrash.
