WARBRINGER - Worlds Torn Asunder CD
Century Media Records
Genre: Thrash
Rating: 3/5
I kinda sat on this one for a long time, having it but not even bothering to write a word let alone playing it more than a few times. I have quite a few reasons why. First off you've gotta remember that a few years ago I was flying the flag of support for the thrash revival that took place. Sure there were plenty of naysayers in the metal media at the time who scoffed at it because it's popularity over shadowed the crap they were peddling. They were also never part of the original thrash wave back in the 80s seeing that they got into metal by listening to melo-death and post hardcore. When the modern revival finally faded. which I said was in 2010, those people probably cheered but you would have to be an idiot to not expect it to happen just like thrash's first wave petered out. All who were left standing were it's big guns and all those even newer acts who came late for the party. Just like in the past with thrash's big four bands surviving here today we have the same thing. WARBRINGER is one of the thrash revival's big four.
This California band's first two releases were great, in my not so humble opinion of course. Their debut War Without End being the best of the pair. I also thought their live performances were exciting to watch. Now if you were anticipating the "but" segue well here it comes. Worlds Torn Asunder fails into the generic pile which kinda sucks. Usually it's the bands sophomore effort that gets that tag laid upon it. The basic problems with this one are numerous. What made their early work interesting was their huge SLAYER and EXODUS influences standing out like patches on a denim cut off. Sure those influences are still in check but they seem watered down. If this is their way of being original (yeah right!) then it's like those third and fourth TESTAMENT albums. The sound on here is generic Bay Area type stuff that any third tier act could pull off if you put em in a decent recording studio. I found this dink to be boring as there's very little on here to really engage the listener.
There's a couple of cuts which do stand out from the pack of ten. "Treacherous Tongue", which appears at the album's mid point and is the shortest track on here, is probably the best cut on Worlds Torn Asunder. "Savagery" has some of that old SLAYER / EXODUS fury which their debut was saturated with. Opener “Living Weapon” held promise to an album which I was expecting to grow in intensity but failed. I'm not saying that this third WARBRINGER release sucks or is a Lulu. It's just that we've come to that mile post sign on the stretch of highway where if you step out of your vehicle and look in any direction it all looks the same. In fact you could be going in circles for all you know. OK if that's too philosophical for ya then I'll explain it this way. It's like fucking the same piece of ass for two years straight and now you're on your third and it's become routine. That's the problem with revivals in the end it's deju vu. It's also why I didn't bother writing about this for two fuckin months as it gathered dust on it's case.
Label: http://www.centurymedia.com/
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