| CD REVIEW Winds Of Plague |
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Band : Winds Of Plague After releasing their sophomore album Decimate The Weak in January of last year (album quite expertly and to the point described by collegue Ivan, review posted 30/02/2008), Los Angeles based Death Metal act Winds Of Plague took some time to find and break in a new keyboardist, which they found in Kirsten Randall (joined February 1st)…after which they set out on the Metal For The Masses Tour with As Blood Runs Black, Stick To Your Guns, The Ghost Inside, and Veil Of Maya from mid April to late May…following that up with a participation to the Stateside Thrash And Burn tour alongside Darkest Hour, Parkway Drive, Misery Signals, Stick To Your Guns, Arsis, Abigail Williams, Arsonists Get All The Girls, and After The Burial. During the summer, the release of their “The Impaler” video stirred some controversy, being rejected by MTV for containing “….graphic language and questionable content…”. Prior to starting on a string of dates in October, Art Cruz (who’d previously played with Azuza) takes over the drum stool, and after that the band is hand-picked by Glenn Danzig to support him on his 20th anniversary Danzig tour of North America. Other bands invited were Dimmu Borgir, Moonspell, and Skeletonwitch. Prior to the new album’s release, Winds Of plague was confirmed as one of the bands on the Summer Slaughter US festival tour (running from early June to late July), also including After The Burial, Beneath The Massacre, Blackguard, Born Of Osiris, Darkest Hour, Decrepid Birth Dying Fetus, Ensiferum, Origin, and headliners Necrophagist and Suffocation! In the US, The Great Stone War was released on August 11, and made available in a number of special editions. The Hot Topic stores edition included a bonus DVD featuring a making of the album documentary and footage taken from the Atticus Metal tour. An iTunes digital download came with exclusive bonus track “Halloween”, a cover of the Misfits track. If you’ve already read the expert review of the Decimate The Weak album, you know what to expect. For those among you who haven’t bothered yet: expect extremely brutal but melodic Death Metal with soundtrack-ish qualities…mainly induced by the great keyboards, and partly due to the fact that this is indeed a concept album (the story of which I refuse to give you here, on the grounds that it will be much nicer for you to dicover it all by yourselves), and the music therefore written in order to be very descriptive. If you’re looking to actually listen to some material, seek no more, but surf to myspace.com//windsofplague, where you’ll find 3 tracks off the new album peacefully (huh huh…) posted alongside no less than 5 pieces off the previous album! Great stuff, and definitely deservant of more listening sessions than I was able to give it prior to reviewing the album (if I am to catch up by Friday next week – and this is Sunday – I “only” have but 15 albums to go through!!! Crazy world!). Darn…before I forget: Martin from Terror does a guest vocal on the track “Forged in Fire”, and I guess the female backings on “Classic Struggle” come from Kirsten? Following the Summer Slaughter dates (and starting July 31st), WOP joined Dying Fetus, and Chimaira as support of Hatebreed on the Decimation Of The Nation tour (lasting up to September 3rd). A full US headliner tour already in the planning for later this year, the band will first join Loyal To The Grave for support slots of the Terror tour of Japan in September, and then hop on a plane to Australia to join Suffocation in Arch Enemy’s Australian tour. Also, WOP will be playing Europe later this year! Keep checking the band’s MySpace page for details on that! 90/100 Tony. |