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Although they enjoyed a promising career start when their song "Lucifer's Hammer" was featured in the second volume of the legendary Metal
Massacre compilations, Los Angeles' Warlord saw their scant, poorly produced releases get lost in the shuffle of more talented bands
exploding out of their hometown like so much devilish popcorn. Little is known about the band's origins, so short was the lifespan of their
original incarnation, but suffice to say they were formed in the City of Angels in 1980, around the same time as more famous luminaries like
Armored Saint, Slayer, and Metallica we ...read more
Although they enjoyed a promising career start when their song "Lucifer's Hammer" was featured in the second volume of the legendary Metal
Massacre compilations, Los Angeles' Warlord saw their scant, poorly produced releases get lost in the shuffle of more talented bands
exploding out of their hometown like so much devilish popcorn. Little is known about the band's origins, so short was the lifespan of their
original incarnation, but suffice to say they were formed in the City of Angels in 1980, around the same time as more famous luminaries like
Armored Saint, Slayer, and Metallica were first getting their acts together. Further confusing things, the members of Warlord adopted stage
names like Destroyer, Archangel, and Thunder Child, which were often applied to more than one musician. But at least upon the release of
their 1983 debut mini-album, one can confidently assert that Warlord consisted of vocalist Jack Rucker, guitarist/bassist Bill Tsamis,
keyboardist Diane Arens, and founder and ex-Russian Roulette drummer Mark Zonder. Like contemporaries Queensrÿche, Fates Warning, and
the aforementioned Armored Saint, Warlord were heavily influenced by the European metal aesthetic, and especially the then-prevalent New
Wave of British Heavy Metal, for their epic approach to songwriting. This mission/vision carried through to their extensively titled follow-up,
1984's And the Cannons of Destruction Have Begun..., which, in reality, was supposed to be a "live" soundtrack accompanying a complete (if
severely under-financed) band concert.
But other than introducing new vocalist Rick Cunningham and full-time bass player Dave Watry, this undertaking did little to advance the
group's cause; although it did become quite the collector's item in decades to come. The persistent Warlord did manage to patch a full
album's worth of studio material into 1986's Thy Kingdom Come, but decided to go their separate ways shortly thereafter, with the gifted
Mark Zonder soon resurfacing in Fates Warning. The Best of Warlord collection was released in 1993, and almost a decade later, original
members Zonder and Tsamis teamed up with Hammerfall vocalist Joacim Cans (by all accounts a very enthusiastic disciple) for a surprising
comeback album entitled Rising Out of the Ashes.
The band's activity ceased again soon after, until they returned in 2011 with Richard Anderson, originally their third vocalist who had joined
them in 1986, but never ended up recording an album. That changed with 2013's The Holy Empire, their third and still latest studio album. Warlord's habit of continually rotating singers showed few signs of change in recent years, with Anderson being replaced by Giles Lavery for
the tour for The Holy Empire, and him in turn stepping down in favour of Nicholas Leptos. The group's most recent release, The Hunt for
Damien, featured re-recordings of classic Warlord tracks with their new vocalist. « hide |
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