Formed in 2004, this band initially had to change their name from Onslaught to Warbringer because there was another UK thrash metal band that owned that name. After reading mixed reviews for this release, I've concluded that the album is not entirely original but overall it was decent. These guys play thrash metal in the vein of Exodus. At first, I didn't think much of it. However, I thought that I'd give it a few more spins to rule out if it was unique or just a bore. I'd say it's a little bit of both.

These guys are young (between the ages of 17-22) and do show potential. In terms of the music, the guitars by John Laux and Adam Carroll were good but not entirely unique. I did like the leads. They were amazing. The tempos are a mixture of slow to moderate speeds yet at other times they are just downright fast. However, on one intro the guitar was entirely clean ('On the Crack of Dawn'). Again musically, the sounds were pretty ordinary. The overall thrash efforts weren't as intriguing as I would've hoped. I thought the last track ('A Dead Current') was simply a waste of a song. I'm not sure why they included it on here because it made the album sound less interesting. They should've really kept it to 10 tracks/40 minutes and that's it no instrumental.

As far as the lyrics go, they sing about war, violence and death. Nothing really impressive or astounding as far as that goes. Of course the title of the album is 'War without End'. But in terms of the lyrics they could've been better thought out. The vocals by John Kevill were kind of repetitive because it was just screaming by him throughout the entire album. There were some backup vocals however which made it less monotonous. John as a whole I don't think was vocally effective because it's boring to be just screaming through an entire release. That's my standpoint on the issue.

The production was alright though not legendary. The drums (by Nic Ritter), guitars, and vocals were well mixed which was a plus. Actually, this album was produced by Bill Metoyer. He is considered to be a great thrash metal producer. The sound quality overall was good. Nothing that was lacking on that front. He did do well with this. The album as a whole isn't all that bad but they needed to focus better on the songwriting lyrically and musically. The rhythm guitars just didn't strike me as being very effective. Like I mentioned though, the leads are awesome. No dispute there. But the rhythm guitar just wasn't very stimulating. If they were going to stay in the vein of Exodus and keep up that sound, then they should've made a better of an effort to do so. The fact that this wasn't the case simply brought the album down and made it less effective than if they did incorporate this on here.

Rating: 7 (out of 10) ratings explained

Reviewed by Death8699
12/06/2008 21:29