Ventura, Calif.’s Warbringer pulls the trigger on its second album
for Century Media, nailing another pure thrash-metal bull’s-eye that
evokes the classic ’80s sound pioneered by bands like Metallica.
Waking Into Nightmares rarely strays from the blueprint drawn
up for Warbringer’s vengeful 2008 debut, War Without
End—unless you count a more polished production job courtesy
of Exodus axman Gary Holt and the installation of jazz-trained drummer
Nic Ritter behind the kit. Despite the upgrades, guitarists John Laux
and Adam Carroll remain content with one face-scalping riff after
another, as with “Scorched Earth” and “Prey for Death”; they refrain
from shoehorning odd time signatures into the band’s blunt, apocalyptic
style for musicality’s sake. Only the atmospheric arpeggios of
instrumental track “Nightmare Anatomy” suggest Warbringer is capable of
more than inducing teenage whiplash.
Whatever your age, you need to don a neck brace—or at least
pull the car over—before blasting “Senseless Life,” the band’s
signature anthem, where shrieker John Kevill pitilessly notes: “If you
can’t think for yourself, then you’re already dead.”
Curiously, Kevill’s lyrics eschew the subject of war throughout
Nightmares. For this reason alone, the language feels
significantly less inspired this time around. Why scream about serial
killers when real murderers pose as leaders of the free world? There’s
always the third album.
This article appears in Jun 4-10, 2009.