Warish‘s first full-length album, Down in Flames, is as fiery as its namesake. Their self-titled debut EP hit so hard that it was like going four rounds with a professional boxer. The image of a supersonic jet pilot on the cover of Down in Flames is not happenstance. It’s a reflection of how this album makes you feel – strap in and hold on.
The opening track, “Healter Skelter,” with its wild guitar licks and break-down-the-walls drumming is not unlike the angry Beatles track of the almost same name. “You’ll Abide” brings in thrash punk elements as Riley Hawk sings, “I don’t wanna be like them. I’ve got an evil mind. It was made for sin.” The drums somehow get bigger on “Big Time Spender” with Hawk dropping his vocal register and the bass dropping even more to turn the song into a Black Sabbath-like dirge.
“Bleed Me Free” pushes the speed back up to F-14 levels and has Hawk wailing like Kurt Cobain on rare Bleach-era cuts. “In a Hole” blasts by so quick that it seems like it clocks in at under a minute instead of just over twice that length.
The next four tracks, “Bones,” “Voices,” “Fight,” and “Shivers” are the four tracks from their self-titled debut EP and are each full of burning jet fuel power. They follow it with “Runnin’ Scared,” a fierce, wild track that layers distortion over Hawk’s vocals as well as the guitar and bass (which remind me of Motorhead arrangements). The album ends with the almost-peppy “Their Disguise,” in which I can’t determine which instrument is leading and who is trying to keep up with whom. I mean this in the best possible sense. Each of the band members burns up the last of their fuel reserves on it.
Down in Flames is heavy, fuzzy, angry, fast, and one of the hottest metal records so far this year. Their self-titled EP was just a warm-up. This is a full-on brawl.
Keep your mind open.
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