This ‘new wave’ or ‘return’ of thrash metal is churning out some really decent thrash bands, a few which come to mind are Evile and Municipal Waste. Warbringer are unfortunately rather average. I honestly can’t see them generating the popularity and instant adoration that Virginia’s Municipal Waste gained, sell out shows and decent selling albums won’t be found in connection with Warbringer. But I don’t want to completely badmouth Warbringer, they are most certainly a thrash band, with some decent songs. War Without End is their first album; their previous releases have only included one EP and the odd demo. The opening track (Total War) is a delightful punch in the face full of all the things that a thrash song should have, more riffs than grace and violent lyrics galore. Even from song one you can hear that Slayer and Exodus are the prime influences on this band.

Diversity in thrash is a hard thing to come by, most bands will want all their songs to be heavy and brutal but they still want to maintain some musical credibility by altering or changing their style at some point. History has shown us that it’s safer for thrash bands not to think outside the box or ‘expand’ their sound, recent Slayer albums show us why. But if bands want the odd song to be different then it’s a different matter. When Slayer (such and easy example) decided that it was time to change their sound in the late 80’s they released South of Heaven, in which the only noticeable difference was a single song starting with a slow riff as opposed to a scream. This caused no harm, the whole album sounded they way it should have sounded, like every other good Slayer album. Warbringer try the South of Heaven technique with their song, At the Crack of Doom. This is the only break in style in the whole album (apart from the final track which is a departing riff), if it wasn’t for this War Without End would suffer from the ‘every-song-sounds-the-same-syndrome’, which is a common illness in a lot of bad thrash albums.

I wouldn’t mind the songs sounding the same if they were…for lack of a better word, good. Municipal Waste’s (another easy example) latest album is fifteen tracks of pure party music, every track makes you want flail around like a drunken frat boy and drink a keg for breakfast, its fun for all. But War Without End just sounds like ‘War Ensemble: The Tribute album’. If Dave ‘born again Christian’ Mustaine can make a decent sounding album after the abysmal ‘The World Needs a Hero’ album, then I’m sure it shows that all thrash bands have potential to create something acceptable. But that’s all this is at best, acceptable.

In this time where we are surrounded by new talent and skill, there is always bound to be the a lot of bands that are just very average sounding. Warbringer will probably only be playing second fiddle to most bands in this coming summer of touring.

Thrash sells…but not very many will be buying (Warbringer).