Wage War

The basic precepts of modern metalcore – the drop-tuned stop-start riffing, the scream/clean vocals, the brutal majesty of a well-delivered breakdown – can be absolutely thrilling, especially in the live arena. They can also be somewhat limiting, which is why so many bands have meandered from more or less straight-up metalcore beginnings to dip their toes into different musical waters. So it is with Wage War. It’s been a gradual evolution and this is still recognisably the same band who released Blueprints in 2015, but Manic is quite a different beast.

On Wage War's fifth studio album, STIGMA, the band pushes their signature sound with industrial grit and electronic sheen, completely leveling up. Inspirations on this album come from musical heavyweights including Rammstein, Static-X and iconic films such as The Matrix and Blade. There is a song for every emotion on the record encouraging fans to dance, mosh, vibe and reflect.

On Wage War's fifth studio album, STIGMA, the band pushes their signature sound with industrial grit and electronic sheen, completely leveling up. Inspirations on this album come from musical heavyweights including Rammstein, Static-X and iconic films such as The Matrix and Blade. There is a song for every emotion on the record encouraging fans to dance, mosh, vibe and reflect.

On Wage War's fifth studio album, STIGMA, the band pushes their signature sound with industrial grit and electronic sheen, completely leveling up. Inspirations on this album come from musical heavyweights including Rammstein, Static-X and iconic films such as The Matrix and Blade. There is a song for every emotion on the record encouraging fans to dance, mosh, vibe and reflect.

Da sich WAGE WAR erst nach dem großen Metalcore-Boom nach der Jahrtausendwende als Empires gründeten, gehören sie definitiv zu den Nachahmern der Pioniere und haben bisher tatsächlich auch keine zukunftsträchtigen Akzente für ihr Genre gesetzt. Ihr drittes Album zeigt nun eine Band auf der Schwelle zu musikalischer Autarkie.

Summer 1945. While the victorious nations celebrate a return to peace, an iron curtain comes down to divide those who were formerly allies. For fifty years, the Communist Eastern bloc will confront the West, led by the Americans. This is the Cold War, the War of Worlds. In Indochina, Korea and Vietnam, the big nations wage war on each other through other peoples. And the emergence of nuclear weapons leaves mankind under perpetual threat of a new Apocalypse.

It is time for the final cross-country tour of America's longest running festival, ever. Warped tour took the continent by storm, providing major cities with an all-day music festival. This is the end of an era. Warped Tour's Final compilation features new tracks from the following bands.

Blending the current trend for all things noisy with something altogether more 'composed' we end up with a curious concoction of Cliff Martinez and Wolf Eyes, stopping at planet Badalamenti for a strong cup of Joe ("black like midnight on a moonless night"). Frost's primary influence (and sound source…) for the album was Michael Gira's seminal noise-rock band Swans, an influence which bubbles majestically on the album's central piece, cunningly titled 'We Love You Michael Gira'. The track starts simply enough; shifting, moody synthesized tones sitting eerily next to shivering waves of guitar noise before both give way to the sort of glacial blip-work that would make Mika Vainio jealous, and then it hits you; chunks of percussive noise that enter the sound-field like a serial killer bursting into the family home, gritty and abrasive, raw and untamed. The Swans factor isn't lost in this track, it's something that needs to be played so loud that it almost hurts the eardrums for full, visceral effect and proves as if proof be needed that Ben Frost is a rare producer who really knows how to use the loud as it should be used.