The Realms of Fancy

Very little is known about the Russian death metal band Warhead, apart from the description of their myspace; the only thing I was able to find was review for their last album "Strange Age", which was about six years old. It's a terrible thing for a band with so much to offer on their first album. Warhead has the uncanny ability to seamlessly link heavy and soft sections together as if it were a natural fit. They have a tendency to bridge softer plucked sections between the heavier sections; they even occasionally feature clean plucked sections over some of the heavier riffing to great effect

Some examples of this are "Son of the Nature" and "Difference" both feature a clean, relaxing beginning before shifting into heavier territory a minute or two after; "Son.." features a beginning that reminds me a bit of 50's or 60's pop music except with a rather odd feeling to it. "Saint Hate" sports a clean wandering solo between sweet heavy . I can find nothing out of place with the instrumentation, some instances might seem a bit rough like the entrance of the clean solo on "Saint Hate" and some parts of "The Prayer Of The Vampire" but these are minor at best and never make too much of a negative impact on the music. The album is flush with wonderfully delicious riffs that originate from both thrash and death metal, with the occasional progressive touch and there is no song here that's left without. While there may be one or two instances the riffs underwhelm but these moments are few and brief.

However this is not a perfect album, the production is decent with most everything in the right place and being somewhat audible (nothing is inaudible mind you, but things tend to get a bit quite now and again); however the vocals are slightly out of place, like in their atrocious follow-up the vocals are louder than the rest of the recording but given the vocals are typical 90's death metal growls (and the occasional scream) it does little to negatively impact the music. But there is one instance where the production briefly applies that effect to a clean lead in one of the songs although here it overpowers everything excluding the vocals. The lyrics are another sour note, they are all written in broken English and sung the same with a heavy Russian accent; but it's not such a issue given the vocals are not essential to the music beyond its general role.

All in all this was a fantastic listen, this is easily one of the best progressive death album I have ever had the pleasure of hearing. If I had to compare it to something I would say Empyrean Sky would be closest; minus the clean vocals, the keyboards and the romanticism. Everything here is shorter and a bit more down to earth while still strongly maintaining a both heavy and progressive edge.