Worlds Torn Asunder

Warbringer is one of those bands that a lot of people love to hate, along with some of the other bands in the current thrash revival. The reasoning for this? They are being compared to against the giants of the original 80's thrash scene. However, it we look at what Worlds Torn Asunder is, as just a record, we see that Warbringer is still expanding, growing, and improving. With "World's Torn Asunder", Warbringer proves once again that they are to be at the forefront of this revival movement.

Worlds Torn Asunder stats off with an extremely strong track in "Living Weapon". The chugging triplets set the mood and give you something that's fun as fuck to bang your head to, and vocalist John Kevill's scream of "Open fire!" is a fantastic way to pump up the listener right away. The chugging triplets in the intro also set the pace and the groove for the entire song. The first thing that I noticed about this album is that the fantastic production quality that we heard on "Waking Into Nightmares" returns once again. It's obvious that even though this album isn't produced by Gary Holt, as "Waking Into Nightmares" was, he has definitely left his mark on the band.

Following "Living Weapon" are two pretty strong tracks in "Shattered Like Glass" and "Wake Up...Destroy", but the next track that really caught my interest was "Future Ages Gone". This track is, at parts, a return to the Warbringer album "War Without End" in it's ferocity and aggression. It's definitely one of the highlights of the album and is a welcomed return. This ferocity is also noted even moreso on "Treacherous Tongue", a two minute pure thrasher track. Directly following "Treacherous Tongue" is "Echoes from the Void", which I think is the strongest track on the album. It combines the aggression that we heard in the "War Without End", with the complexity and musicality that the band added with "Waking into Nightmares". There are very few filler tracks on "Worlds Torn Asunder", each track definitely has it's memorable bits and they're all extremely thrashy except for "Behind the Veils of Night" which is an instrumental piece, however it leads into "Demonic Ecstasy", the last track of the album which is a fantastic closer.

Another aspect of "Worlds Torn Asunder" which needs to be noted is the departure of "Waking Into Nightmares" drummer Nic Ritter, and the addition of Carlos Cruz (formerly of Hexen.) With Cruz replacing Ritter, we lose some of the complexity in the drums that was praised on "Waking Into Nightmares", but we gain a ton of speed and aggression. Carlos' drumming is very powerful and definitely a good addition to the mix of John Laux's guitars and John Kevill's vocals. It should also be noted that while the debut "War Without End" and "Waking Into Nightmares" had roots in the Bay-Area sound of thrash, "Worlds Torn Asunder" has much more of Teutonic thrash sound to it, like Kreator.

If I had to name a complaint about "Worlds Torn Asunder", it'd have to be that upon multiple listens some of the weaker tracks blend into eachother and become forgettable. However, the good tracks on the album more than make up for it. Overall, "Worlds Torn Asunder" is a strong record for Warbringer, and it's bound to get them some more fans in the metal community. After touring non-stop for almost two years, they definitely deserve the recognition.

Stand-out tracks:
-Living Weapon
-Future Ages Gone
-Treacherous Tongue
-Echoes from the Void
-Demonic Ecstasy