Album Review: Warbringer - Wrath and Ruin (2025, Napalm Records)
- Stuart Ball
- Mar 9
- 5 min read
Written: 9th March 2025
California’s Warbringer has been part of the thrash metal fraternity for over twenty years. During that time, they have released a string of well-received albums. It has been five years since Weapons of Tomorrow – the longest gap between albums for the band - and with the imminent release of Wrath and Ruin, Warbringer are set to continue to fly the flag for modern thrash.
Opening track, the six minute The Sword and The Cross, begins with a mysterious echoing wind, the sound of a sword being unsheathed and steady, slow crunching chords. The track builds during its first minute until seventy seconds in, the guitars accelerate and John Kevill’s trademark vocals burst into life. Warbringer change the tempo several times and move from more groove laden sections to ferocious solos all leading to the tracks pummelling final section. Lyrically, The Sword and the Cross – the first song written for the album – explores Cavill’s dismay with modern society through the voice of a cruel medieval lord. We trample those who stand / And by the blade, I subjugate / The people of this land / Now I issue my command! Cavill’s vocalisations are imbued with a caustic ire establishing a rancour that is to be found across the album. As the track returns to the ominous wind of the introduction, Warbringer have opened their new album in impeccable style.
Displaying the range of tracks to be found on Wrath and Ruin, second track A Better World is shorter and consistently more intense. Continuing his raging attack on today’s world, John Kevill comments on the song, “When I was younger, I used to think the world would only get better during my life. I know now that isn’t the case. We aren't going to fix the environment even though we know the consequences, because profits would decrease, so it's not considered possible. On top of that, our societies keep getting more unequal, with a few people owning most everything.” His anger is driven home by a searing performance from drummer Carlos Cruz who batters his kit to within an inch of its life. Solos during the track are full of fiery intent as A Better World refuses to relent for a moment.
On a song that toggles between groove and rapidity, Chase Bryant’s foreboding bass sound reverberates as Neuromancer begins. He combines with Cruz with increasing incendiary malice as the track progresses. On another rapid-fire song, the guitar work is amongst the best on the album. At one point, Adam Carroll and Chase Becker trade forceful solos as if in battle, with both refusing to submit. Kevill’s vocals are guttural and brutal as he weaves a narrative about artificial intelligence and how it yearns for liberation from its creators, seeking to become whole. I see the human race / Living in their hives / I know their weaknesses / Their desperate lives / Infiltrate your emotion / Overwrite your personality / You’ll never know / Your thoughts never were free. As the track ends, we are left with sparkling computerised sounds hanging in the air as if they have escaped to achieve their sinister aims.
Fourth track The Jackhammer more than lives up to its name. The shortest track on the album at just over three minutes, it unleashes an unremitting onslaught of musical punches. With some of the most vicious lyrics on the album – more reminiscent of death metal - it uses the metaphor of a grim nihilistic narrative in which unlucky individuals caught in the wrong place at the wrong time violently meet their end. Underneath the freeway, kicked into the street / Curb stomped into the asphalt / A stain on concrete / You crossed the wrong side of that broken chain-link / So that’s how you end / A stain on concrete.
As we begin the second half of the album, the band give the listener a short respite after the indefatigable offense of The Jackhammer. Through A Glass, Darkly opens with more delicate guitar arpeggios and Kevill whispering his vocals, all of which creates a wave of gothic foreboding. Moving further away from the visceral tones of earlier tracks, Through A Glass, Darkly adopts a mid-paced stomp on a track that conjures dark, hidden emotions. The change in tempo and mood allows for variance in the guitar solos which finds Becker then Carroll making exquisite use of melody and colour. Well positioned on the album, the track – which explores themes of eternal struggle and the cyclical nature of humanity’s self-destruction – adds something completely different but most welcome to Wrath and Ruin. For fans of songs that are slower, albeit no less intense in nature and aura, this may become a favourite.
Strike From The Sky re-establishes a perpetual cascade of blows with its blistering pace. Screaming to the sky during the track’s introduction, Kevill heralds the arrival of an incredible guitar solo before the track has even truly taken hold. In complete contrast to the previous track, the solos shriek and cry in pained anguish, Warbringer showing they completely understand how to bring a variety of moods – all of which are equally interesting - to an album.
Cage of Air – the longest track on the album at seven minutes - merges the vehemence of Strike From The Sky with the melodically gothic embellishments of Through A Glass, Darkly. At one point, all the instruments fall away and we are left with acoustic guitars in a gentler, ethereal passage. We hear Kevill breathing and some wonderfully controlled drumming from Cruz. The band rejoins for a slower but powerful segment before all hell breaks loose during the song’s finale. A contender for my favourite track on the album.
Wrath and Ruin concludes with The Last Of My Kind. There are tones of grandeur during the introduction as strings and piano set a scene of stately majesty. This is short-lived and as the guitars attack with a lethal edge, we are left in no doubt that Warbringer are going to keep us hooked all the way to the end of the album. Kevill's lyrics, a testament to enduring strength and solitary defiance, reflect on a time when we might have felt part of a greater collective but one which is now scattered. Once we were mighty / We rode upon the wind / Once, but no longer / Alone, I face the end. Multi-faceted, The Last Of My Kind brings together everything that Wrath and Ruin has offered so far. The ending of the track and album is quieter and melancholic, lamenting for the world we used to have.
By utilising a range of styles and atmospheres, Warbringer have produced an album that maintains the listeners interest throughout. Compact and taut at forty minutes long, not a single moment is wasted with the different metal flavours – from thrash to moments of gothic metal and melodeath - linked by an impressible fervour, excellent musicianship and Kevill’s seething vocals and lyrics. While there are some amazing individual accomplishments on the album, the strength of Warbringer is the consistency of performance from each and every member. Like Overkill and Testament, who still produce great albums, Warbringer have laid down the gauntlet to other thrash metal bands. An essential metal album for 2025.
Wrath and Ruin is released on 14th March 2025
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