WARPSTORMER, whose name is a subtle nod to the tabletop universe of Warhammer, are influenced as much by the ferocity of bands like High on Fire and Baroness, as they are by ambitious sci-fi centred classics like Jeff Wayne’s War of the Worlds.
“As you might expect given the name, we draw pretty heavily on sci-fi and fantasy themes in our lyrics,” explains vocalist Richard J Morgan. “But in such a way that they serve as a sort of creative vessel for exploring the more psychologically harrowing aspects of 21st century life.”
Their 2022 EP, Here Comes Hell – recorded by Morgan with close friends Matt Folley (drums) and Green Lung guitarist, Scott Black – was released to critical acclaim in 2022 as both a statement of intent and brutal smackdown on the recruitment market. Having since established a working line-up, adding bassist Simon Doggett; guitarist Adam Davies and drummer James Loh, the band’s debut self-titled album arrives this November on the recently established label, London Doom Collective.
“The first EP got us up and running,” continues Morgan. “It attracted a line-up of excellent players who understood the vibe of what we were trying to do, and we spent the next year or so rehearsing, writing and playing as many shows as we could. By the end of that year, we headed into the studio to make our first full record as a proper band. We’re really pleased with how it’s turned out and very excited to share it with a wider audience, live and on record.”
Recorded in and around appearances at Desertfest London and Bloodstock Open Air over the summer with producer Wayne Adams (Green Lung, Gnome, Wasted Death) like the “warpstorms” that inspired its creation, the album is a hellish, messed-up realm of sonic chaos. Melding stoner-doom, thrash, and classic metal into something akin to ‘speed doom’, WARPSTORMER conflates existential bleakness and bludgeoning, yet catchy riffs, into one unmissable package.
WARPSTORMER’s self-titled debut will be released on 29th November 2024 via London Doom Collective and can be pre-ordered in several editions and formats including Cosmic Blast (transparent magenta/purple splatter, limited to 50 copies) and Eldritch Blue (100 copies) LPs, with CD, cassette and digital versions rounding out the offerings (pre-order here).
We asked the band to talk to us about 3 releases that have influenced them as musicians and the WARPSTORMER sound, which you can read below. We’re also proud to offer you an exclusive listen to their new single ‘A Liar’s Crown’ here:
Green Lung – Woodland Rites
Richard J Morgan (vocals): A couple of us have known Scott, who plays guitar for Green Lung, for well over a decade (he did us a nice big favour and played guitar on our first EP, before we found Adam). Seeing the band which he assembled a few years back go from strength to strength has been hugely inspiring, both in terms of everything they’ve achieved since the release of their Free the Witch EP, and the sheer musical craftsmanship evident in their song writing. While there’s a fair bit of disagreement in the W/S camp over which is their best LP, Woodland Rites is a great example of a debut album that sees a band come out all guns blazing with a comprehensive statement of intent. This is what we set out to achieve with WARPSTORMER – hopefully it will see us hit the ground running and give people an attention-grabbing introduction to the band. Another way in which Green Lung influenced us is in the attention they pay to crafting songs – all the guitar heroics in the world are all well and good (and we love guitar heroics, particularly when Scott’s doing them), but in our view they’re more exciting when they’re wrapped around a fully-realised composition that’s engaging enough to get lodged in people’s head. We tried to keep this in mind during when creating our record; “Sick riffs you can hum” is a principle we’ve tried to adhere to as much as possible.
Mastodon – Crack the Skye
RJM: If there’s one album where the Venn diagram labelled “Members of WARPSTORMER’s Musical Tastes” fully intersects, it’s probably Mastodon’s 2009 masterpiece Crack the Skye, and that certainly filtered into how we approached the making of our new record. Everyone has something to say about this one…
Adam Davies (guitar): The main thing I can offer about this is that Brent Hinds is a MASSIVE influence for me when it comes to the guitar solos on WARPSTORMER. The solos from ‘Divinations’ are just a genius example of how to play over ‘the changes’ – in this case, that nasty riff with the flattened 5ths and minor 2nds. In general, they’re tremendously good at playing in a loose semi-improvised way while still acknowledging and emphasising the chord changes underneath – something that really informed how I approached solos on our album. Sort of mapping out the territory first but then letting go of the reins as the solo continues.
Simon Doggett (bass, vocals): Crack the Skye is one of the finest examples of collectively reaching the best performance in the studio. Brann singing ‘Oblivion’ because he had the melody but also the right timbre to fit the song. It’s funny to think back on that now because I firmly put Mastodon in that ‘singing drummer’ category of bands, and he went years and years without a microphone. It takes a degree of trust, collective vision, shared artistry, and manageable egos to get to that level of performance, and it’s something we all take a lot of inspiration from.
RJM: “Letting the drummer sing” is something that opened a whole new sonic territory for Mastodon as a band I think, and it’s an approach that came into play during the production of our album. Wayne (Adams, Producer) pushed us in directions we maybe hadn’t fully considered, particularly when it comes to the vocals, and seeing how well that sort of thing worked on this album gave us the confidence to go with it.
SD: Yeah, it’s Wayne’s fault I’m singing verses on stuff, and I hate him. Talking of Brann Dailor, we should probably let the drummer say something.…
James Loh (drums): Crack the Skye was probably the first album where Brann audibly exercised more restraint – in contrast with the previous albums – and what’s most impressive is how he managed to keep things interesting as he weaved in and out of the transitions across the album. ‘The Last Baron’ and ‘The Czar’ are shining examples of this. It’s still not to say that he didn’t have flashes of technical brilliance throughout, just that it’s now in a more controlled, more tasteful setting, which set the course for how his playing evolved in the records following this. The other thing that still shines through for Brann of course is how he conceptualises his drum parts – being heavily influenced by Randy Rhoads, the way he thinks about how fills and rolls flow into a song and transition are like none other, where they support the solos or rhythm guitar parts so effectively, yet they have their own rhythmic and musical arc as well. So not the most intense or technical showing on this album, but rather the most tasteful and musically rounded.
Converge – Axe to Fall
JL: It could well be any album from Jane Doe onwards, given how disgustingly good Ben Koller is as a drummer; Axe to Fall is very much just Ben Koller doing what Ben Koller does best – embodying pure chaos executed with absolute precision. The man basically can play anything but has decidedly settled on hardcore as his MO, and between the grooves and tempo shifts throughout the album (‘Dark Horse’ being one of the best examples of this), it’s essentially a visceral beatdown meant to sonically overload the listener at any given time, all the time. Totally underrated, and unfortunately so.
RJM: As James says, picking a favourite Converge album is HARD, but if you put a gun to my head I’d probably pick Axe to Fall. It’s an album where the band is almost aggressively willing to branch out and try different things, and while it hangs together as a whole album, each song has a distinct personality too Also, Kurt Ballou’s production work was a touchstone for all of us throughout the creation of WARPSTORMER. The man’s got a real knack for making things sound dense and gnarly but still clearly defined. I don’t think Wayne will mind me revealing that the main guitar sound we landed on for the album was influenced by some discussions he had with Kurt when Petbrick was touring with Converge.
