- Joined
- Oct 22, 2023
That Metal Thread
- Thread starter PvtRichardCranium
- Start date
- Joined
- Oct 6, 2022
- Joined
- Sep 13, 2019
Glad I saw them last year year even though Fel dogs set was cancled. Meme they may be, put on a hell of a show.
- Joined
- Sep 12, 2024
The nookie (come on)
- Joined
- Aug 3, 2021
- Joined
- Jan 29, 2021
Why does god keep killing musicians from bands I adored as a teenager.
- Joined
- Nov 18, 2020
Genuinely saddened and shocked by this news, phat ass baselines that still penetrate your ear drums will never end.
- Joined
- Apr 15, 2025
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- Joined
- Jan 3, 2019
Saw limp 3 times, Sam was a killer bass player. What a waste.
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2020
- Joined
- Feb 20, 2025
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2023
New Sabaton is really fucking boring. Looking at 2025 albums it looks a bit slim, Lordi is okay, same with Arch Enemy. I guess the new Lacuna Coil is pretty decent. New Seikima-II is alright, Onmyo-Za LP is good. Otherwise still need to listen to the new Babymetal, Testament, Paradise Lost. Not sure what else got released this year.
- Joined
- Sep 25, 2021
New Hadopelagyal album
- Joined
- Apr 16, 2025
If you're into tech death, check out Retromorphosis. It's basically Spawn Of Possession under a different name.
- Joined
- Mar 2, 2023
Appreciate the recommendation, but that's not really my cup of tea. Not the biggest tech death guy. Apart from later Death and Decapitated, my knowledge of this particular sub-genre is pretty limited.
- Joined
- Aug 7, 2024
Surprised Demon Hunter has not been mentioned in this thread before as far as the search can tell. I have been into them ever since I found them through the Killing Floor 2 soundtrack.
Edit: of course this doesn't embed properly. It's a yt playlist of their Summer of Darkness album.
Man vs persistent rats
kiwifarms.net
- Joined
- Jul 14, 2024
Nobody I know cares about this but maybe one of you does, so if I may Warlordpost for a moment...
Epic metal visionaries Warlord have had a hard time of it since the 80s. Formed in 1980 by guitarist-composer William J. Tsamis and drummer Mark Zonder, they were set to take metal down avenues only dreamed of by the British acts popular at the time. Along with Manowar, Manilla Road, Cirith Ungol, or the latecomers Enchanter, and Adramelch, they inhabited the weird pre-thrash space of power/speed/progressive/doom metal that was pushing the genre into interesting directions but never developed an audience outside of Manowar's theatrics. There were a lot of fantasy-themed bands at this time, like Attacker, Virgin Steele, Omen, Heir Apparent, Chastain, Riot, Tyrant, Nasty Savage, and later a few spiritual followers like Caudron Born and Twisted Tower Dire, but these tended towards more formalised speed, progressive, or proto power metal (as we would recognise it now) directions. The area Warlord was inhabiting has been losely described in retrospect as "Epic metal", something that barely exists at the best of times and mostly requires the listener to be in the correct mood to acknowledge. However, buried somewhere in the speed/prog/doom influences of Warlord and kin, there does seem to be a few tendencies that unite them. One is that they REALLY like fantasy. Unlike other groups in the style that may throw in a song or two about drink driving or how cool it is to party, Warlord stuck quite closely to their theological and occult concept, Manowar to their barbarian cosplay, Cirith Ungol to an eclectic mix of literature and iconography (Moorcock, barbarians, beastmen, trolls, and what-have-you), and Manilla Road to their borderline full original universe detailed in their lyrics.
Despite a lot of recognition in the underground, Warlord were always a cult band, and intentionally so. They adopted stage names and restricted live appearances to large gigs rather than just crawling the club scene. This aspect is reflected by their only release on CD "Best of Warlord" being a compilation album produced 3 years after their breakup in 1986, which became by default their only available, best-known (and best) release. Tsamis, after sitting on his hands for a decade, founded the Lordian Guard project in the mid 90s (named after an 80s side-project of his, Lordian Wind, which endeavoured to produce a feature length concept album-video project based on Paradise Lost, because of course he did, and of course he was never able to fund) and promptly began to made bedroom recordings of unreleased Warlord material with his wife on vocals. It was okay for the desperate (kind of like Longings Past was for Enchanter-enjoyers) but overall was a bit weak, with very flatly recorded music to accommodate for the near-spoken vocals by the non-singer vocalist. It has its charms, however, as Tsamis blazes neoclassical leads and solos over a metronomic drum machine. At this point his music became more explicitly Christian-themed, which has never really gotten in the way of its quality and helps with the mythological aspect of the concept.
In 2002 Tsamis and Zonder decided to bring Warlord back and took on some musicians to create an actual band for the first time in 15 years. This reformation was somehow exciting enough to seduce Hammerfall vocalist Joacim Cans to lend his vocal chords to the effort, as he was one of many Warlord fans floating around the industry. This would establish the situation Warlord has existed in ever since, which is periodic breakups, reformations with new musicians, and recording a mixture of new songs, old Warlord or Lordian Guard material, often in modified form where previously there may have only been shorter or instrumental versions. After an album release which didn't make too many waves, and a brief tour during which they were able to perform at Wacken, they again went dormant until 2011.
One thing should be mentioned about the way that Warlord operate. The numerous breakups did not prevent a slow trickle of compilation albums, singles, and web releases of material, and the fandom never really felt as though the project was completely abandoned. Another quirk of Warlord is that neither of the two founding members were vocalists, and the start-stop quality of the project led to a rather... cold approach to soliciting vocal duties. The first vocalist (along with the other band members with their own) adapted the moniker "Damien King". When the vocalist was replaced, the new one adopted the title Damien King II. Joacim Cans was deemed too famous to obscure the name of, but the next vocalist from the 2011 lineup was indeed described as Damien King III and IV. This all sounds very soulless and perhaps it is, but one thing to Warlord's credit is that they can certainly pick them. You generally wouldn't know the situation to listen to the recordings as the vocals always sound very fine. As benefits a true cult band, they generally reformed when enough interest had built up for them to go on tour and record an album. Much of this demand came from European listeners in Germany, Greece, etc.
And as per the cycle, Warlord reformed again in 2011, this time with an album that did get a some attention, The Holy Empire. This reformation occurred around the same time as some other forgotten 80s relics had been reforming and producing some fucking kick-ass music, much to the surprise of everyone. Steel Assassin's War of the Eight Saints was an example, proving there was a gap in the market for people hankering for true metal in the old style. The Holy Empire did the usual Warlord thing: some new compositions, some re-recordings of older material, but one thing had become apparent. This was not the broody and dark Warlord of the 80s, but a heavier version of Tsamis' Lordian Guard project, with more focus on spiritual themes, extensive harmonised leads, and a sedate and epic atmosphere. The production may have improved since Lordian Guard, but it's still modern digital music production and will always sound dry compared to the analogue-soaked darkness of 80s metal. Poorly-implemented modern production methods have raped many a release, from Mütiilation to Mystifier. Fortunately it's not too distracting with Warlord's new material. Then comes the composition, which is what gets the deep autists (there are dozens of us) excited by the band's musical approach. Through Lordian Guard, Tsamis had developed an unusual adaptation of monophony and monody, in which the instruments can either harmonise (Iron Maiden style) or mirror other musical lines as a core part of the composition method rather than an occasional effect, and with focus on vocal-style protracted guitar leads and solos with a freeform instrumental backing. This leads to a certain conflict in appreciation, as this does commit certain musical crimes in the metal genre, where generally audiences are looking for polyphony, complex interplay between musical lines, and in general, more variety than you'd get from a basic rock song. It is understandable why this is the breaking point in advocating for Warlord, as while this method is intentional (and not overused), if you're not charitable the music can appear undercooked when in reality it is quite the opposite--these songs are often multiple iterations deep into the writing and recording process.
After the very good The Holy Empire (featuring the vocal talents of King Damien III), the band recorded their first and so far only bad release. The Hunt for Damien is a re-recording at its worst, featuring a new vocalist on old songs that already had decent recorded versions already. The less said about it the better, and King Damien IV did not last any longer than the previous vocalists. After this, not much happened and the usual cycle of live albums, compilations, etc. continued at measured pace. Then in 2021, guitarist and composer William "Bill" J. Tsamis passed away. The driving force of the project was gone, and never had there been lower expectations for the band's future. Look what happened to Manilla Road when the iron will of their visionary died.
This is all to say that when Warlord again disbanded after the death of Tsamis, I and many others were not really paying attention. Then in my Youtube recommended appeared a 2024-released Warlord record. Based on the generated credits, it was another compilation, so I looked up the band's discography. Wait what the fuck. The "compilation" was new recordings of old material by a new lineup, AND they had also released a full new album too, all within the past year? Without the main composer? How could this possibly be good? The answer should have been obvious, which is that they did the exact thing they had been doing since 1996 where they write some new songs, then re-record old Warlord and Lordian Guard material to great effect. It can't be overstated that this style of music production is actually a plus rather than a minus. Usually when a band re-records a song or album it tends to always be worse, but due to the nature of how Tsamis' songs were written, they often existed in sub-par versions before these 'final form' recordings come out. The new album Free Spirit Soar is hard to expect many people to love. It'll sound thin, lacking in aggression, all the usual hallmarks of an aging band. But what it does have is an extremely cohesive vision and atmosphere. Even the "let's freshen it up" song that these bands always feel the need to include about the War on Terror with a distorted 'radio comms' vocal effect works purely through the quality of the songwriting. The use of synth is also exceptional and discretely underpins the music with great harmony and atmosphere. Revelation XIX is an appropriate final track, since it's a re-recording, with righteous guitar crawls, sparse structure, balladic vocals, and a little hail Jesus-ing towards the end. The band at its best and worst.
Will the new (and very competent) vocalist ever officially be anointed as King Damien V? Will he break the curse of all Warlord vocalists and stay in the band for longer than one album? The future could go anywhere.
Epic metal visionaries Warlord have had a hard time of it since the 80s. Formed in 1980 by guitarist-composer William J. Tsamis and drummer Mark Zonder, they were set to take metal down avenues only dreamed of by the British acts popular at the time. Along with Manowar, Manilla Road, Cirith Ungol, or the latecomers Enchanter, and Adramelch, they inhabited the weird pre-thrash space of power/speed/progressive/doom metal that was pushing the genre into interesting directions but never developed an audience outside of Manowar's theatrics. There were a lot of fantasy-themed bands at this time, like Attacker, Virgin Steele, Omen, Heir Apparent, Chastain, Riot, Tyrant, Nasty Savage, and later a few spiritual followers like Caudron Born and Twisted Tower Dire, but these tended towards more formalised speed, progressive, or proto power metal (as we would recognise it now) directions. The area Warlord was inhabiting has been losely described in retrospect as "Epic metal", something that barely exists at the best of times and mostly requires the listener to be in the correct mood to acknowledge. However, buried somewhere in the speed/prog/doom influences of Warlord and kin, there does seem to be a few tendencies that unite them. One is that they REALLY like fantasy. Unlike other groups in the style that may throw in a song or two about drink driving or how cool it is to party, Warlord stuck quite closely to their theological and occult concept, Manowar to their barbarian cosplay, Cirith Ungol to an eclectic mix of literature and iconography (Moorcock, barbarians, beastmen, trolls, and what-have-you), and Manilla Road to their borderline full original universe detailed in their lyrics.
Despite a lot of recognition in the underground, Warlord were always a cult band, and intentionally so. They adopted stage names and restricted live appearances to large gigs rather than just crawling the club scene. This aspect is reflected by their only release on CD "Best of Warlord" being a compilation album produced 3 years after their breakup in 1986, which became by default their only available, best-known (and best) release. Tsamis, after sitting on his hands for a decade, founded the Lordian Guard project in the mid 90s (named after an 80s side-project of his, Lordian Wind, which endeavoured to produce a feature length concept album-video project based on Paradise Lost, because of course he did, and of course he was never able to fund) and promptly began to made bedroom recordings of unreleased Warlord material with his wife on vocals. It was okay for the desperate (kind of like Longings Past was for Enchanter-enjoyers) but overall was a bit weak, with very flatly recorded music to accommodate for the near-spoken vocals by the non-singer vocalist. It has its charms, however, as Tsamis blazes neoclassical leads and solos over a metronomic drum machine. At this point his music became more explicitly Christian-themed, which has never really gotten in the way of its quality and helps with the mythological aspect of the concept.
In 2002 Tsamis and Zonder decided to bring Warlord back and took on some musicians to create an actual band for the first time in 15 years. This reformation was somehow exciting enough to seduce Hammerfall vocalist Joacim Cans to lend his vocal chords to the effort, as he was one of many Warlord fans floating around the industry. This would establish the situation Warlord has existed in ever since, which is periodic breakups, reformations with new musicians, and recording a mixture of new songs, old Warlord or Lordian Guard material, often in modified form where previously there may have only been shorter or instrumental versions. After an album release which didn't make too many waves, and a brief tour during which they were able to perform at Wacken, they again went dormant until 2011.
One thing should be mentioned about the way that Warlord operate. The numerous breakups did not prevent a slow trickle of compilation albums, singles, and web releases of material, and the fandom never really felt as though the project was completely abandoned. Another quirk of Warlord is that neither of the two founding members were vocalists, and the start-stop quality of the project led to a rather... cold approach to soliciting vocal duties. The first vocalist (along with the other band members with their own) adapted the moniker "Damien King". When the vocalist was replaced, the new one adopted the title Damien King II. Joacim Cans was deemed too famous to obscure the name of, but the next vocalist from the 2011 lineup was indeed described as Damien King III and IV. This all sounds very soulless and perhaps it is, but one thing to Warlord's credit is that they can certainly pick them. You generally wouldn't know the situation to listen to the recordings as the vocals always sound very fine. As benefits a true cult band, they generally reformed when enough interest had built up for them to go on tour and record an album. Much of this demand came from European listeners in Germany, Greece, etc.
And as per the cycle, Warlord reformed again in 2011, this time with an album that did get a some attention, The Holy Empire. This reformation occurred around the same time as some other forgotten 80s relics had been reforming and producing some fucking kick-ass music, much to the surprise of everyone. Steel Assassin's War of the Eight Saints was an example, proving there was a gap in the market for people hankering for true metal in the old style. The Holy Empire did the usual Warlord thing: some new compositions, some re-recordings of older material, but one thing had become apparent. This was not the broody and dark Warlord of the 80s, but a heavier version of Tsamis' Lordian Guard project, with more focus on spiritual themes, extensive harmonised leads, and a sedate and epic atmosphere. The production may have improved since Lordian Guard, but it's still modern digital music production and will always sound dry compared to the analogue-soaked darkness of 80s metal. Poorly-implemented modern production methods have raped many a release, from Mütiilation to Mystifier. Fortunately it's not too distracting with Warlord's new material. Then comes the composition, which is what gets the deep autists (there are dozens of us) excited by the band's musical approach. Through Lordian Guard, Tsamis had developed an unusual adaptation of monophony and monody, in which the instruments can either harmonise (Iron Maiden style) or mirror other musical lines as a core part of the composition method rather than an occasional effect, and with focus on vocal-style protracted guitar leads and solos with a freeform instrumental backing. This leads to a certain conflict in appreciation, as this does commit certain musical crimes in the metal genre, where generally audiences are looking for polyphony, complex interplay between musical lines, and in general, more variety than you'd get from a basic rock song. It is understandable why this is the breaking point in advocating for Warlord, as while this method is intentional (and not overused), if you're not charitable the music can appear undercooked when in reality it is quite the opposite--these songs are often multiple iterations deep into the writing and recording process.
After the very good The Holy Empire (featuring the vocal talents of King Damien III), the band recorded their first and so far only bad release. The Hunt for Damien is a re-recording at its worst, featuring a new vocalist on old songs that already had decent recorded versions already. The less said about it the better, and King Damien IV did not last any longer than the previous vocalists. After this, not much happened and the usual cycle of live albums, compilations, etc. continued at measured pace. Then in 2021, guitarist and composer William "Bill" J. Tsamis passed away. The driving force of the project was gone, and never had there been lower expectations for the band's future. Look what happened to Manilla Road when the iron will of their visionary died.
This is all to say that when Warlord again disbanded after the death of Tsamis, I and many others were not really paying attention. Then in my Youtube recommended appeared a 2024-released Warlord record. Based on the generated credits, it was another compilation, so I looked up the band's discography. Wait what the fuck. The "compilation" was new recordings of old material by a new lineup, AND they had also released a full new album too, all within the past year? Without the main composer? How could this possibly be good? The answer should have been obvious, which is that they did the exact thing they had been doing since 1996 where they write some new songs, then re-record old Warlord and Lordian Guard material to great effect. It can't be overstated that this style of music production is actually a plus rather than a minus. Usually when a band re-records a song or album it tends to always be worse, but due to the nature of how Tsamis' songs were written, they often existed in sub-par versions before these 'final form' recordings come out. The new album Free Spirit Soar is hard to expect many people to love. It'll sound thin, lacking in aggression, all the usual hallmarks of an aging band. But what it does have is an extremely cohesive vision and atmosphere. Even the "let's freshen it up" song that these bands always feel the need to include about the War on Terror with a distorted 'radio comms' vocal effect works purely through the quality of the songwriting. The use of synth is also exceptional and discretely underpins the music with great harmony and atmosphere. Revelation XIX is an appropriate final track, since it's a re-recording, with righteous guitar crawls, sparse structure, balladic vocals, and a little hail Jesus-ing towards the end. The band at its best and worst.
Will the new (and very competent) vocalist ever officially be anointed as King Damien V? Will he break the curse of all Warlord vocalists and stay in the band for longer than one album? The future could go anywhere.
Their early, more occult sound can be found here:
Lordian Guard sounds like this:
(This artwork is also used on Cianide's debut. Nice.)
...which if you compare to their usual formula of "beefing up" the songs for later Warlord releases, you can see how the instrumentation thickens in this version, most noticable during the central solo:
(Warning, this is a shitty auto-generated release so may not work in your region.)
An example of the simplicity of the new style's musical lines can be found in how the drums, guitars, and vocals frequently mirror one another:
Here's an example of the band in lively and inspired form on the newest release:
And here's the most catchy song on the album, using a European melodic power metal style of driving vocals and floral chorus, combined with Warlord's lyrical obsessions and some blistering guitar lines:
Lordian Guard sounds like this:
...which if you compare to their usual formula of "beefing up" the songs for later Warlord releases, you can see how the instrumentation thickens in this version, most noticable during the central solo:
An example of the simplicity of the new style's musical lines can be found in how the drums, guitars, and vocals frequently mirror one another:
Here's an example of the band in lively and inspired form on the newest release:
And here's the most catchy song on the album, using a European melodic power metal style of driving vocals and floral chorus, combined with Warlord's lyrical obsessions and some blistering guitar lines:
- Joined
- Feb 19, 2020
It occurred to me while listening that it was probably going to rub some longtime fans the wrong way. I always thought they were good, but I'm cool with the change at least on first impression.
I only know Deliver Us but it's really good. tbh I figured/worried the later albums probably sucked because that's how it often goes, but you made a good argument for checking them out.