WARFORGED: “THE GROVE | SUNDIAL”

 Album Reviews  No Responses »
Oct 032022
 

(This is another typically extensive review from DGR, and this time the subject of his attention is a new album by Warforged, which is out now on The Artisan Era.)

The launch of Chicago-based Warforged‘s first EP Essence Of The Land was promising. In the weird melange that is the progressive tech/death/prog/seventeen-other-subgenres world that Warforged exists in, that 2014 release felt like it was a few steps ahead of the game: a forecast of where many participants in that particular subsection of the prefix-core genre would be aiming in the future.

In the long run they were correct, because the following five or six years saw a huge explosion in ‘everything and the kitchen sink’ style writing where bands were willing to try anything in order to break out of the endless breakdowns and guitar noodling mold. Warforged just happened to beat everyone to the punch by a few years.

They were so on the forefront of that movement that other than the “Two Demons” single in 2015 it would be almost five years between the EP and the group’s first full-length – the incredibly indulgent hour and twelve minute monster that was 2019’s I: Voice, wherein not a single song would come in under the six-minute mark and about a third of them leapt well over the nine-minute hurdle. Continue reading »

A TRIO OF REVIEWS: ADVENT SORROW / IRON FLESH / WARFORGED

 Album Reviews  1 Response »
May 162019
 

 

I was chatting with DGR recently (yes, we do in fact keep in touch outside of the site) and we both agreed that we’ve now reached that point of the year (and it comes every year) where our list of potential/possible reviews has become so massive and unwieldy that we’re just going to have to cut our losses, accept that some of the stuff we’d dearly love to write about isn’t going to get covered, and focus instead on doing our best for those artists/albums which we do get a chance to write about.

So, in that spirit, here are three new albums, one from an old favourite, one from a current favourite, and one from a potential new favourite, all of whom are well worth checking out if you haven’t done so already. Continue reading »

AN NCS VIDEO PREMIERE: WARFORGED — “VOICE”

 Premieres  1 Response »
Mar 192019
 

 

Something unsettling is happening in this video, but it’s not clear what. Something mysterious and perhaps unnatural, off in the dense woods across the expanse of a long gray lake. People seem to be watching this on a screen, made frantic by what they see, or what they think they see. Maybe something else is looking back at them.

Meanwhile, as we’re drawn into these perplexities on our own screens, the band Warforged, blinking in and out of view like fireflies at midnight, throw themselves into a song called “Voice“, which is even more mystifying and destabilizing than whatever is going on in the woods. There is no way to predict what happens in the music, or the shocking and sometimes violent ways in which the music changes. Paradoxically, it becomes absolutely transfixing. Continue reading »

NU SCENE AND HERD: THE SCHOENBERG AUTOMATON, WARFORGED, LAMB OF GOD, BLACK FAST, PERIHELION, DYSTROPHY, NEKROGOBLIKON, DIRE NECRO CERBERUS, GLADIUS SKY, INIQUITOUS DEEDS, SHAPE OF DESPAIR

 RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  4 Responses »
Jun 102015
 

 

(Austin Weber has stepped up for round-up duties today, with a collection of new music and videos from 11 bands.)

Seeing as Islander is once again away in a work-related hell setting, I figured I’d step in again and keep our readers up to date with several newly released jams as well as newly released albums from a variety of bands.

Unfortunately, however, I’m low on spare time, as you may or may not have noticed from my recent absence from posting here at the site these last few weeks. So, I’m going to try something new and say nary a word about the songs/albums posted below — much as that fucking pains me to do! Not because I don’t feel strongly about each and every one of them, but simply because it’s almost 6 AM here, I haven’t gone to bed, and need to be up again in 4 hours. Thankfully, you came here for the music more than anything I would hope.

Without further ado… Continue reading »

SHORT BUT SWEET: WARFORGED — “ESSENCE OF THE LAND”

 Album Reviews, SHORT BUT SWEET  2 Responses »
Jan 082014
 

(Earlier this month TheMadIsraeli briefly raved about a Chicago band named Warforged after seeing their video for part of a new EP. Now he reviews the whole thing — still raving.)

Warforged will be the face of American neo-tech death.  Count on it.  If you have become a fan of the heavily blackened and post-y direction of bands like Fallujah, Warforged are an example of the absolute pinnacle of that stylistic hook.  Essence of the Land isn’t a mere EP, or a mere first glimpse, it’s a powerhouse mission statement.

The EP is a sixteen-minute suite of next-level proggy tech precision that looks to boggle the mind and shatter the bones.  This is a perfect song and an absolute haymaker of a way to introduce yourself to the metal audience.  So many things here are so right: The weird intersection between neo-classical and outright alien angular tendencies, the exceptional caliber of riffing and interplay between guitarists Paul Alculessi and Richard Stancato, the scathing vocal assault of Adrian Perez’s transitions from blood-vomit gutturals to blackened last-breath gnashes, it’s all so fucking good. Continue reading »

BANDS YOU NEED TO HEAR: WARFORGED

 Metal News, RANDOM FUCKING MUSIC  10 Responses »
Jan 022014
 

(In this post, TheMadIsraeli introduces us to a death metal band named Warforged, who have a new EP on the way.)

If Warforged release a full length this year, I predict it’ll be at the top of the heap.  I’ve been hearing things about these Chicagoans for a while, but nothing substantial had ever come out and what I could hear from their earliest efforts was severely underdeveloped and, now in hindsight, was totally unrepresentative of what they do.

Based on the sounds from their forthcoming debut EP, Essence of the Land,  Warforged play progressive tech-death with a heavy black metal influence.  The array of influences you can hear are many, emanating from sources such as Martyr, Spawn Of Possession, Gorguts — mostly from the alien, angular, tech-death circuit — while also channeling bands such as Emperor, Daylight Dies, In Mourning, and The Faceless.

I figured now was a good time to write about these guys because they have just released a video for not one, but three songs, suggesting that the EP, the album art for which you can see above, is an epic suite.  This video is ¾ of that suite, and it completely bewilders and amazes me.  I don’t think you’re ready for this. Continue reading »