Review by Jason Guest
Ex-Morbid Angel vocalist/bassist and vocalist/lyricist for Nader Sadek, Steven Tucker has returned to death metal with an utter bastard of a band. Simply put, guitarist Armatura, drummer Deimos, and bassist Avgvstvs are not human. And when combined with Tucker’s vocals, the apocalyptic death metal quartet known as WarFather – an apt name if there were one – is nothing less than vicious and merciless
With the opening ‘XII’, the relentless and barbarous nature of Orchestrating The Apocalypse is upon us, all four of the musicians united in a blitzkrieg of ridiculously rapid riffs, drums, and remorseless vocals. After the first three tracks provide a relentlessly ferocious introduction to the album, the first of three brief interludes appears, ‘Taunting The Deity’. Martial in tone, along with the mystical ‘Summoning The WarFathers’ and the battle-hardened ‘The Chaos Of’, they enhance the devastation of the other tracks by bringing their own slightly lighter shades to proceedings. What lies between these interludes however, are a bunch of biting, belligerent, and undeniably violent tracks of a vast scale. With ‘Legions’ and ‘Ageless Merciless’ clocking in at under three minutes, they both offer short bursts of unyielding fury that contrast well with the longer tracks, ‘My Queen Shall Not Be Mourned’, ‘Gods And Machines’, and ‘Ashes And Runes’ in particular demonstrating the bands ability to sustain (almost completely successfully) death metal might in complex and intricate structures.
In terms of production, as usual the bass could have been cranked a little so that we could distinguish it more clearly and that the bottom end would have a bit more weight. Deimos does a stellar job on drums but with a sharp kick and snare, the album could have done with a bit more weight in the lower regions. As with Nader Sadek, with WarFather, Tucker has further distinguished himself as a musician with much more to offer than just being the guy who once fronted Morbid Angel. This may not be original but in dragging us back to the roots of death metal and colouring it with a severely unhealthy dose of nuclear devastation, Orchestrating The Apocalypse is a sonic delight. Well, for those who find the end of days appealing of course…
7 out 10
Track Listing:
- XII
- Legions
- My Queen Shall Not Be Mourned
- Taunting The Deity
- The Shifting Poles
- Waltz Of The Solstice
- Summoning The WarFathers
- Ageless Merciless
- The Chaos Of
- Gods And Machines
- Ashes And Runes
- We Are The Wolves
