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Warning SF Reviewed - 07/20/04
Aftermath
[Relentless Records]

What's old is new all over again! Classic 80's thrash bands reuniting is nothing new in this day and age, but what is a bit unique is when an old 80's band reemerges and manages to recreate that oldschool 80's thrash sound perfectly without sounding too modernized. Such is the case with Warning SF's (SF=San Francisco) newest album "Aftermath". Not only is this album very reminiscent of 80's metal, it actually IS 80's metal to some degree. "Aftermath" is made up of rerecordings of some of their older songs they recorded back in the 80's, and it sounds great. There seems to be a little bit of a trend recently with bands rerecording their older material like this. I know Iced Earth did it a while back along with a few other bands, and Twisted Sister is in the process of doing something similar. All I can say is that as long as bands can pull it off as greatly as Warning SF did, I'd like to see more of it.

The music is very reminiscent of the really early thrash bands, except there's a bit of keyboards here and there which those bands never or rarely used at all. I'd like to hear the original versions of these songs and see if Warning SF (known then simply as Warning) used the keyboard back then. Anyway, you can expect to find power chords-a-plenty here with tons of double bass drumwork. Some of the guitar parts sounded very familiar to me and upon doing some research into the band, I found out that one their guitarists is Jon Torres who played in Laaz Rockit, Angel Witch and The Lord Weird Slough Feg among other bands. The songs are all very well structured and the songwriting and musicianship is top notch. Professionalism is persistent throughout almost all aspects of the band.

The lyrics are written really well and the lyrical content seems to focus on death and the end of the world, which fits in perfectly with the 80's metal atmosphere. The vocalist Torre Carstensen is the one small gripe I have with this band. While he's a good (sometimes great) singer, at times he sounds too much like James Hetfield. And I mean his vocals sound like the NEW Hetfield style of vocals, not the "Kill 'Em All" era vocals, which isn't a good thing at all. You know how Hetfield will take a word and elevate and lower it a few octaves towards the end of a word? Yeah, Torre is like that at all times. In fact, he's such a good Hetfield clone that he could take James's place if James ever started to get drunk again and did us all a favor and died. Haha, just kidding. We don't want James dead, do we? Ahem... Anyway, like I said, Torre isn't bad at all, he just needs to find his own voice and leave James with his patheticness.

The production on the album is stellar. I've never heard any of their older albums from the 80's, but I'm pretty sure the production on those wasn't nearly as great as this. Thankfully, the keyboard used here seems for the most part to be way in the background. It's more of a filler instrument and I'm glad it's that way instead of it being a focal point of the band.

The packaging and layout of the album is pretty damn nice if I must say so myself. It includes everything that should be included in all albums. The cover art is totally amazing depicting the San Francisco City Hall in ruin after an earthquake in 1906. The Warning SF logo kicks all kinds of ass, and the booklet also includes all of the lyrics, numerous band photos and a brief description of the history of the band.

I totally recommend this album to any fan of thrash from the 1980's. If you love older Metallica, Exodus or Testament, you should love this band. Another buying point of this album is that the last three tracks are tracks taken from their first 1985 demo. That release date puts them on the scene just a few short years after Metallica, Exodus and Slayer. You can tell too because you'd swear that the guitarwork on these demos were done by Hetfield, Hammett and Mustaine. Totally "Kill 'Em All" in style. I'd never even heard of this band before I got this in to review, and I am a BIG fan of 80's thrash so I guess you can say they were fairly underground. I think it's great that bands like this are reuniting so those that never experienced them in the 80's can now. And I'm also glad that record labels like Relentless Records will never let true thrash die.



Tracklist:
01. Intro
02. Road Death
03. Aftermath
04. Thunderhead
05. Sounds Of Armageddon
06. Happy Doomsday
07. The Noose
08. Fall Upon Your Knees
09. Not A Chance In Hell
10. Metal Maniac

Rating: 8.5/10
Release Date: 2002
Length: 35:19
Review By: Britton D.
Total Reviews: (1)

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