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This album came as quite a surprise for me, with no prior notion of this band's existence I had no idea what to expect when I first gave it a real, in depth listen. My only foresight was provided by a book-mark sized biography that was packaged with the promo stating that members of Torchbearer hold rank in Scar Symmetry, Angelblake, Unmoored, and Incapacity. Alright. Well, excellent, I suppose, though I'd be lying if I claimed to be an expert on any of the aforementioned acts. So fuck it, I wouldn't be provided with a convenient reference point to judge this album aside from my own ears and tastes. And what an invigorating experience it turned out to be.
The opening track, "Dark Clouds Gathering" really grabs you by the balls, with its expert use of percussive dynamics (drummer Henrik Schonstrom demonstrates here an awesome sense of timing, delivering a maelstrom of blast beats combined with clever fill patterns) mixed with a guitar melody that just drips with passion, all seamlessly held together with the vicious vocal delivery of Par Johansson. An excellent track. The rest of the album offers a myriad of high quality metal without repeating a singular mindset in the composition of songs or grounding an idea into a mesh of generic cheese. Instead, Warnaments avoids this with a wide array of stalwart technique and instrumentation including flirtations with the use of keyboards to enhance certain melodies. Overall, a fantastic metal album with great pacing and a genuine adoration towards early 1990's death metal (a most notable reference here would be the track "Swift Turns of War", with a killer Dismember-tinged riff holding the song together), though not limited to this description as Torchbearer add a welcome garnish of thrash and black metal to their sound. Highlights include "Dark Clouds Gathering", "Swift Turns of War," "Burial Waters, Deepsome Graves," "The Blunted Weapon," and "Last Line of Defence."
| Tracklist |
| 1. Dark Clouds Gathering |
| 2. Last Line of Defence |
| 3. Burial Waters, Deepsome Graves |
| 4. Swift Turns of War |
| 5. The Stale Drownings |
| 6. Battlespawn |
| 7. Where Night is Total |
| 8. Sealer of Fates |
| 9. The Blunt Weapon |
: 34:31
| Buy other Torchbearer albums |
