Warlord- From The Ashes to The Archives [Review and Unboxing]

When William J. Tsamis, founder of legendary Epic Metal masters Warlord, sadly passed away on the 13th of May 2021 at the age of only 60, it looked as if the premature death of one of the most creative forces in American metal had come. However, Warlord bounced back, with a new line-up and a brand new studio album entitled »Free Spirit Soar« (on High Roller Records) to huge critical acclaim. With guitar and bass parts of Bill Tsamis saved from original recordings, the current team of Mark Zonder (drums), Jimmy Waldo (keyboards) and Giles Lavery (vocals) (plus Eric Juris on guitars and bass on two of the songs) is now following »Free Spirit Soar« with an additional album called »From The Ashes To The Archives – The Hot Pursuit Continues« A limited edition release to mark the occasion of the bands summer dates in 2024. Singer Giles Lavery explains: “What we wanted to do with some of these songs was to revisit some of the songs from the »Rising Out Of The Ashes« record with this line-up (and using Bill’s guitar and bass tracks) – to give fans an idea of how they are going to sound live this year. Please don't get me wrong, i think Joacim Cans did a brilliant job on the »Rising Out Of The Ashes« originals, so these new versions are to be seen very much as a companion to the 2002 versions, rather than any kind of ’replacement’ for them. However, the mixes this time around are a little heavier and rawer, and to me it sounds more sonically like it's the 1980s era Warlord, (a sound which really suits the band) ironically the 1980s is when most of these songs on this new collection were written, long before they were recorded for Lordian Guard... "Winds Of Thor" for example was part of the very first Warlord Demo back in 1982 It may require a little bit of imagination, but it's almost like, in an alternate reality, IF there had been a follow-up EP to »Deliver Us« and if we can imagine these songs had been recorded and released in 1986 or so, rather than hearing them for the first time as Lordian Guard recordings or later as Warlord in 2002... this could be a look at "what could have been” from a sonic perspective. The vinyl of »From The Ashes To The Archives – The Hot Pursuit Continues« contains eight songs whereas there are fourteen tracks on the CD version. Once again, Giles Lavery has all the details: “Tracks 9-14 are tracks that have appeared on the various expanded reissues and compilation albums over the years, some of which are now out of print, and thus we wanted to consolidate what we thought were the best of these unavailable rarities for this collection on the CD format. Of note are the pre-production recordings of some of the »Deliver Us« tracks from 1983, recorded mere days before the EP was tracked ... so these are every bit as good quality wise as what ended up on the EP, however, you can hear many differences between the two versions. In addition and as mentioned, we wanted to have a special compilation for the Warlord live dates in 2024, something that celebrated the band’s past together with the present line-up.
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