Warbringer
War Without End
Century


Warbringer are a fairly new thrash outfit to arise from the heart of Los Angeles. 'War Without End' is the quintet's debut album, the title of the album of course spawning from the lyrics to Metallica's No Remorse. But give 'em a break - they're only 17 to 22 years of age.

The music is straight-out thrash; fast, noisy and vocally incomprehensible. The way the vocalist screams, I swear that he is half man half pigeon. Their influences come from most of the usual thrash suspects - Slayer, Metallica, Testament and so forth - but this is spliced quite well with an Eighties death metal feel from influences like Obituary, Kreator and Death. The guitars are impressively speedy, but unfortunately succumb to messiness as a result. The production of the album is established to simulate a raw Eighties thrash sound, which is achieved quite well. 'War Without End' is well-written, but at the same time is unoriginal and occasionally repetitive.

The highlight tracks for me are Systematic Genocide and At The Crack Of Doom, both reflecting the band's more creative side by flirting with different guitar licks but remaining consistently brutal at the same time, but unfortunately the rest seem to run into each other.

Overall, you can respect Warbringer for its musical proficiency, but at the same time it really isn't anything different to what has already been done. The band haven't really done anything with the thrash genre, they've simply regurgitated it, and the album will fall between the cracks of the millions of other bands out there doing the same thing.

Brad Holland