ALBUM REVIEW: Warning Blast – Siege of Power
SIEGE OF POWER are a band that have managed to establish a name for themselves right out of the gate after changing their name from FIRST CLASS ELITE a few years back. Since that band came to fruition, they have not been able to produce any new music to check out. Luckily, the first album they have crafted is a solid album of the year candidate. Warning Blast is a brilliant tribute to the various components that informed the genre that would come to be referred to under the umbrella term of extreme metal. It’s an excellent melting pot of punk, thrash, proto death metal and amorphous grinding noise that, when paired, up, creates some of the most engaging records of this year.
The album’s opening effort, Conquest for What?, is a really solid, mid-paced slab of fierce death metal with bestial vocals, thunderous drumming and thick, powerful guitar hooks that sets the tone for the rest of the record really well. It sounds evil, raw and vicious, something that will become the norm for this record as it progresses. For the Pain is a significantly more intense affair, bursting out of the speakers at a blistering pace. Driven by the monstrous drumming of Chris Bagchus, this is an exercise in visceral and razor sharp thrash with some blood-curdling vocals that add a dark edge to the music and make it sound all the more bleak and oppressive.
Bulldozing Skulls is a more death metal centric piece of music, with some dense, sludgy bass lines, masterful drum work and tight, crushing guitars that underpin this song with plenty of aggressive moments. Peppered with some great lead guitar melodies, it’s got a really primal, primitive side to it that is counterpointed with the intricacy of those lead guitars sections that provide a different element to the sound. Born into Hate takes the listener back down a ferocious and speed-driven path, presenting you with a cacophonous wall of noise that is broken up with Chris Reifert‘s savage roar and some excellent musicianship that puts plenty of subtle motifs in amongst this swirling sea of sludgy sounds that make up the bulk of this particular offering. Torture Lab is a great track made up of dissonant thrash metal rhythms and brilliant death metal leads, all backed by steady, authoritative drumming and a crusty bass line that adds substantially to the already massive sound. It’s a minimalist affair, but nonetheless sounds great from start to finish.
Uglification is a short, sharp shock of fiery guitars, galloping drums and booming vocal deliveries, which, at just under a minute and a half, proves to be one of SIEGE OF POWER‘s more intense and furious offerings. Trapped and Blinded, with it’s crusty bass tone, tar thick riffs and syncopated drumming, is an interesting and memorable track right from the first listen, and manages to showcase the talented musical prowess of each member, with the vocals, guitars, bass and drums all standing out vastly from what has preceded this track on the record. Diatribe, another blink and you’ll miss it song that lasts little over a minute, leaves its mark with the sheer intensity and rage of its performance. Although not the longest song on the record, it’s easily one of the more ferocious ones you’ll hear from SIEGE OF POWER on this record.
Then, we come to the albums title track, Warning Blast; this is a song with some incredibly dense and visceral sounding guitar parts, with a solid opening motif that will have lovers of death doom hooked. This song moves forward at a near funeral dirge compared to many of the other tracks on the record, but the slow and steady pace of the music only adds to its power, making every single note sound far bigger, and even epic, something that sets this apart on the album. Mushroom Cloud Altar, with its ferocious, punk-esque drumming, jarring guitar lines and gnarly gutturals is excellent. It’s a short sharp shock of raw and aggressive death metal with plenty of solid thrash influences thrown in for good measure. This is a wall to wall aural assault, and it stands out as one of SIEGE OF POWER‘s best tracks.
Lost and Insane is a powerful track that is epic in its simplicity. Thick power chords and authoritative drumming mark this song from start to finish, and some hideous vocals add plenty of excellent moments of their own, beefing up this already substantial sound significantly. Bleeding For The Cause, with its opening downward trill, is a ferociously primal and fierce piece of music, coupling tight drumming with sharp guitar hooks, sludgy vocals and a bass line that underpins this song throughout, imbuing this track with a dense and thunderous rumble that makes it sound massive. Escalation ’til Extermination makes great use of cleaner tones to show a darker and more melodic side to the bands music, before launching into a fierce and uncompromising slab of visceral death metal. There’s some excellent gutturals on here, as well as some utterly dense and powerful guitar and bass sections, all backed by a thunderous drum part. Privileged Prick blasts out of the speakers on a wave of chaotic noise on all fronts, and is complemented by shrill and acerbic vocals that inject plenty of piss and venom into the proceedings. This cacophony rarely lets up in its entire two minute span, making it one of the most impressive tracks on the album. Short Fuse picks up on this thread, with dense guitar chords and punishing drums giving this brief track a palpable energy and power that makes it borderline epic. The barking vocals work really well here, and are every bit as robust and fearsome as they need to be.
Violence in the Air allows the thrash influences in SIEGE OF POWER‘s sound to really come to the fore and carry the song. There’s plenty of really impressive rhythms that create a really strong back bone for the vocals and lead guitars to be built around. With some excellent, dense chugging coming in as the track progresses, it’s not only fast but intense, and it manages to make its mark despite it’s relatively short running time. It Will Never Happen is a by the numbers, but nonetheless great, thrash metal track with some killer punk beats and shrill death metal vocal deliveries that help to elevate this track from just another song on the album to a solid and respectable effort with plenty of killer moments. The Cold Room, the last track, other than bonus material, on this album, with its jarring, discordant opening section, is a brilliant closing effort for this record. Unlike the majority of this record, it’s a much longer track, clocking in at nearly four minutes as opposed to just one or two. It’s a slow, sombre piece of music that’s tinged with melancholy, but still has the sort of venom and aggression that’s marked this album present. The guitar leads are far more minimal, and the rhythm sections are likewise mid tempo and more reserved than we’ve come to expect at this point on the record, but this helps to add to the foreboding and climactic atmosphere perfectly. Chris‘ vocals are also a lot more haunting and measured, and this complements the music really well. It’s a great closing track that leaves the listener wanting more.
The bonus tracks, Servant of Nothing and an alternative version of Mushroom Cloud Altar, has the former opening with some grating feedback, before diving into a vicious and powerful sounding track made up of power chords aplenty, basic yet effective drums and a catchy lead guitar hook that makes you wonder why this is merely a bonus track and not on the album proper. The second version of Mushroom Cloud Altar doesn’t vary too much in terms of tone or pace from the rendition we were treated to earlier on the record. It’s still great, but it makes you wonder why it’s here; there’s little variation, and as the twentieth track on the record, it’s not like it’s there to make up the numbers and pad the album out in any way (as if it needed to be padded out to begin with). It’s still a great closer, but it feels a little redundant at this point on the record.
Warning Blast doesn’t do anything to reinvent the wheel in any regard but this isn’t a criticism at all. This is homage to the sort of music that greatly informed the sound of what is now termed extreme metal. There’s a bit of everything on here, from punk to early death metal to thrash, and it’s done incredibly well, blending all of these elements together seamlessly to create something that sounds amazing.
Rating: 8/10
Warning Blast is out now via Metal Blade Records.
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