Out of the Ashes

*Written for the 10th MA Virgin Reviews Challenge

Warminister were another short-lived US heavy metal band in the 1980s that managed to secure a deal with small time Racer Records to fire out a debut EP – it would be their last. Though having a cool name, and a decent enough musical direction, small time promotion, their Dayton, Ohio location, and a swarm of competition (hell – even Cleveland sported some awesome heavy metal acts in the form of Axtion, Attaxe et al), the band simply folded and disappeared into the ashes of time, with only four songs of medium quality to their name. A sad, though all-too-familiar story in the tragicomedy known as ‘eavy metal.

Anyways, though an all-round decent enough heavy metal offering. It might be a bit too straight forward for you power and thrash metallers out there. For sound comparisons, we’re dealing with a mish-mash of Armored Saint, Axtion, Luv Hunter, Witch, Attila, Motley Crue . Kinda rockin’ at times, but perhaps not dimensional enough to satisfy the power fans out there. It’s also a bit of a mixed bag – not just in terms of song-to-song, but within songs. Case and point – the ridiculously titled ‘We Rock To Rock’ – I mean seriously, out of all these unimaginatively titled “rock anthem” type tracks – this has to have one of the silliest titles and subsequent lyrics – and that’s a scene with some pretty awful contributions. Besides that though, apart from the chorus, that song actually sounds pretty good. ‘Get Started’ is probably the best cut on the album – the vocals are great, and there’s plenty of high-pitched screams, rip-roaring guitars, and quite a high tempo right the way through, particularly near the end. A nice finale really pulls this one together.

Anyways, the production on this thing aint too bad – bass sounds cool and winds around behind some fairly quiet though crunchy guitars. There’s some vocal effects going on in a couple of the tracks, but altogether, though a couple of the songs are pretty decent, you could say the record is fairly straightforward, possibly one-dimensional heavy metal. ‘With You All Along’ showcases a bit of a different side – well, not really. It’s their token love ballad attempt – and draws the bands sound closer to bands like Maxx Warrior, Cinderella, Sweet Savage or at the hardest Motley Crue. It’s not the worst 80s power ballad ive heard, and the production really carries it through quite nicely.

A straightforward heavy metal album, with the sound drawing ever so slightly close to the glam metal sound of Sweet Savage at times, but largely being comparable to Attila as a whole (seeing as though this band had this sort of schizophrenic aspect to their personality too). Decent enough effort if this is your sort of things, but no overly brilliant touches or anything. If you could track down the vinyl it might be worth picking up, otherwise yeah, nah.

-DeathRiderDoom