A crimson dusk consumes the tapestry of the Great War.
Call it nostalgia, but there was something truly spellbinding about the early strides towards extreme metal made by the thrash scene in the mid-1980s; a sort of vintage mixture of sinister blackness and high-speed carnage that would pave the way for even darker material.
Spearheading this revolutionary stylistic precedent on the European front were Teutonic elites Kreator, Destruction, and Sodom, the latter of which proved to be a consequential figure in driving the style towards something a tad more dangerous than even the seminal works of Slayer.
In more recent years, with the rebirth of the subgenre in the early 2000s, German successors to the legacy set forth by Sodom have been few and far between, whereas other nations like Greece and South America have been hotbeds for extreme thrashing with a blackened edge. But in the 2010s, a near-dead-ringer for the glory days when Angelripper was leading his fold into the late 80s emerged, Rhineland in Warfield, a similarly styled power trio with all the fire, fury, and youthful vigor of the aforementioned original.
Having first made a sizable splash in the decrepit pool of the thrash underground with their 2018 debut Wrecking Command under the banner of independent metal label Metal On Metal Records, 7 years of subsequent effort and toil have found them on the roster of the powerhouse Napalm Records and an explosive sophomore LP in With The Old Breed that reaffirms the ways of old with a pummeling modern production.
The elements at play might lead one to chalk this up as a tribute band that started coming up with original material, with the sepulchral ravings of bassist/vocalist Johannes Clemens sounding like a somewhat more maniacal Tom Angelripper, and guitarist Matthias Clemens’ frenetic riff work and wailing solos often paralleling a vintage Fran Blackfire.
Combined with an unrelenting, high-speed battery out of drummer Dominik Marx and a songwriting template right out of 1987, it’s pretty easy to see this as the album that Sodom could have written between Persecution Mania and Agent Orange. But closer inspection reveals a band that is building upon an existing framework as much as they are paying tribute to it.
As with any great surprise, the first ingredient begins with what is expected, and Warfield sets the battle scene in a truly classic fashion. The explosive riff machine of an opener, “Melting Mass,” lives up to its name by hitting the pavement at full speed and keeping things concise and to the point, sounding the most like something a late 80s German thrash trio with a love for Motorhead would concoct.
Not long after this introductory kill session wraps, things evolve into something a tad more elaborate than standard Sodom emulation, with the frenzied follow up “Appetitive Aggression” throwing in some more diabolical and tremolo-steeped riff work that gets a little closer to Slayer territory and going mad enough in the machine gun drumming department to almost cross over into death metal territory.
The final part of this album’s warp speed opening trifecta “Soul Conqueror” builds upon the same technical and chromatic template and starts playing with the atmosphere with some tasteful guitar layering, resulting in something a little difficult to recreate live but possessed of a compellingly black demeanor that feeds into the undead soldiers at war imagery that adorns this album’s cover art.
The further things go, the more elaborate and diabolically rich the sonic tapestry becomes, until Warfield finds them becoming less a band following the Teutonic masters and more one that takes their legacy a step further. The more mid-paced and mixed-up “Fragmentation” and “Dogs For Defense” showcase Matthias’ riff work becoming a full-on technical nod to the late 80s Bay Area masters, often accomplishing a dueling assault via overdubs that the likes of Forbidden and Vio-Lence would gaze upon with pride.
Meanwhile the sinister beast that is “Tie The Rope” gets so gallop happy in the guitar department and chock full of harmonized fills that it almost turns into a homage to Iced Earth’s Night Of The Stormrider set to a late 80s German thrash foundation. The neck-ruining mayhem of “Lament Of The White Realm” and the cacophonous coup de grace of a title anthem “With The Old Breed” tread similarly complex realms of riffage, but sound a tad closer to an orthodox mid-80s thrash excursion with a crazier, 2020s mindset.
But the song that truly breaks away from the pack and solidifies this trio as their own phenomenon is the towering 7 minute epic “GASP”, which seamlessly combines the down-tempo mystique of Slayer’s “South Of Heaven” with incidental symphonic moments right out of Celtic Frost’s Into The Pandemonium playbook, amounting to a modern horror masterpiece set to thrash.
Thrash metal revivalists paying homage to the classic German sound might be a dime a dozen, but this team comes to the plate with the benefit of the home field advantage and enough musical gravitas to easily stand as a cut above the rest.
Fans of the old school Sodom sound from 1987 through 1992 are the primary audience of With The Old Breed’s signature style, but even the most fervent of fans that mosh within the orbit of the Teutonic Trio and other heavy-hitters from the more recent revival days like Suicidal Angels, Angelus Apatrida and Nervosa might come away surprised at the sheer level of auditory violence and intensity that just oozes out of every moment of this opus.
Warfield might not be the first band to adopt the motif of German warfare during the days of The Great War and set it to the darkest crevices of thrash metal, but they’re not the old breed that you’d want to mess with while on the other side of the trenches.
Musicians:
- Dominik Marx / Drums
- Matthias Clemens / Guitars
- Johannes Clemens / Bass, Vocals
With The Old Breed Track-list:
1. Melting Mass
2. Appetitive Aggression
3. Soul Conqueror
4. Fragmentation
5. Lament Of The White Realm
6. Tie The Rope
7. Inhibition Atrophy
8. Dogs For Defense
9. GASP
10. With The Old Breed
Order With The Old Breed here
With The Old Breed is a blistering, expertly crafted homage to the Teutonic thrash greats, but one that charges far beyond mere emulation into something more technical, theatrical, and vicious. With battlefield precision and a blackened edge, Warfield's sophomore effort cements the trio as a formidable force in the modern extreme thrash resurgence
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