Warpath-Damnation

Self-produced
2008



While Germany and the United States had thrash bands pouring out all over the place twenty years ago there were never a whole lot of thrash bands coming out of the UK. You had Onslaught and Sabbat and a few smaller name acts, but not a huge amount even though their seemed to be a fan base for it because thrash bands from other countries played there. Anyway now with the thrash resurgence we are seeing more thrash acts coming from there such Evile, Gama Bomb and now Warpath. Many of the newer thrash bands have looked to Slayer, the Bay Area scene (Metallica, Exodus and others) the German thrash scene (Kreator/Sodom/Destruction) and others) or a combination of two or more of those sounds for influences. Yet it takes about a minute into the opener here which is the title track to realize that Warpath's prime musical influence is Megadeth. Primarily "Peace sells" and "Rust in peace" eras as they rely on a similar style of finger bending, slightly odd paced riffs. The vocals are far more standard as no one has ever been able or really tried to sing like Dave Mustaine. There are also some shades of peak Slayer mixed in here and there as well. They rely on the opening riffs and that works wonders, but they don't always do enough into the song to really keep the momentum rolling. It's not a lack of energy as much as it is that they need to work on the songwriting a little and bring some more ideas into the fold. Those killer, slightly crazy whirling riffs are at the beginning of every song, they just need to keep fleshing more ideas. However one thing that they have no trouble in doing is being very heavy and and this is in large part due to having an above average rhythm section. Even if not every song is going to grab you, their spine-rattling, pounding heaviness already made enough of an impression on me. I can't tell you how many time I have pulled out an album from the 80's by some thrash band I once liked only to realize that they have not aged well largely due to the fact that they were just not that heavy. So I think having that strong background going is really likely to help Warpath to get some notice and they just need to work around it and keep building in other areas. They have certainly done enough establish a very firm foundation and seem to be on the right track.

http://www.myspace.com/warpathuk