Warfather’s debut, 2014’s Orchestrating The Apocalypse, wasn’t exactly the grand re-entrance Steve Tucker deserved. After fronting Morbid Angel through three albums – two of which are stellar, and one of which is certainly solid enough, especially compared to what came after – Tucker was replaced by the returning David Vincent in 2004. Ten years later, Orchestrating The Apocalypse appeared, and though it took a decade, it sounded like it took about two days – sloppy, marred by poor production, and just generally feeling unfinished, that album was anything but a victorious comeback.
Now, two and a half years later, having rejoined Morbid Angel in the interim, Tucker is back with Warfather Mark 2, and thankfully, The Grey Eminence is a marked step up from its predecessor.
With half of the Apocalypse line-up gone now – most notably drummer Deimos, whose terrible tone and ragged performance did the band few favors – this line-up wastes little time in proving itself improved. All of Grey Eminence benefits massively from a sharper, stouter production, handled by the trustworthy Erik Rutan (himself ex-Morbid Angel, of course). Previously razor thin, the guitars are thicker, with a greater midrange presence; the drums sound like drums and not cans and boxes; and most importantly, the band sounds like they’re all playing in the same room, and not trying to keep up with one another from different parts of the building. Tucker’s growls are clearly intelligible, and combined with the classic Floridian “tremolo-pick-and-palm-mute-chunk” bent to the riffing, the whole of Eminence nods definitely toward the first wave of death metal while retaining a modern sheen.
Eminence’s only real critical fault is a minor one, and that’s this: It’s not exactly the most original album around. It lacks the musical personality of a Morbid Angel, missing the weirdness of Azagthoth’s guitar parts and falling closer to the more down-the-middle bruising of a Krisiun or a Malevolent Creation. It’s death-by-numbers, but that’s the nature of this beast – Warfather doesn’t break any new ground, but now that they sound like an actual, professional band, the ground that they cover, they certainly cover well enough to make a respectable job of it. Tracks like “Headless Men Can No Longer Speak” (like, duh) and the thrashing “Carnage Of The Pious” are solid ragers in that straightforward death metal mold, the latter featuring some of the album’s catchiest riffing. The lumbering gait of “Judgement, The Hammer” gives way to driving blasts in the second half, with double-tracked vocals atop twisting riffs, for a three-minute display of no-frills pummeling that’s both a highlight and an example of Warfather’s middle-ground approach. In all honesty, I could single out any number of them – “For Glory Or Infamy,” the title track – it’s all shades of Grey Eminence, and it’s all cut from the same cloth.
In a year that’s seen some stellar death metal from far more progressive or technical outfits like Blood Incantation and Gorguts (and a year that still has an Asphyx record yet to come), Warfather’s return to a simpler aggression is somewhat refreshing. Sometimes you don’t want to think, and you don’t want to mess about with atmosphere or jazzy dissonance – sometimes you just want to get a punch to the skull, and in those times, The Grey Eminence delivers one that will likely leave you sore, but not quite knocked out.
