Blood Dawn

With a name like War Master and cover art sporting severed heads and a club wielding barbarian, well, it is safe to say that we are in Bolt Thrower homage territory and nothing about the Blood Dawn EP yields otherwise. Straight-up crusty death metal with brute gutturals emanates and it would be easy to dismiss these guys as straight-up clones if the music weren't so well-constructed and compelling. Granted, there is absolutely nothing new to be heard on this EP but if you dig the blunt trauma of this style of death metal and have worn the needle through all your Bolt Thrower, Jungle Rot, and Hail Of Bullets vinyl, this makes sense as an ancillary purchase.

What keeps War Master from falling into disfavor is multi-fold: they construct riffs that are high-energy and infectious (overriding the more generic qualities); they aren't afraid to drop into a more crusty d-beat vibe with other tempo variables; and they've got some nice soloing going on, which many bands in this genre avoid doing at all. That plus some fat production that has everything sounding deep and chunky and this becomes an easy way to kill fifteen minutes. With time I think War Master could develop into something quite memorable, perhaps even transcendent of their influences, but as it stands they are straight BT worship but that is worship good and true.