WARCODE (GRC) – Post-modern delusions, 2019 🇬🇧
OK, this is significant. It is my first ever album review for Subterráneo and I hope it will not be the last. So, in case it is the last one, then please let me brief: this is a good album and you should consider it! I am joking, so let’s go to the serious stuff.
With this album WARCODE establish themselves as a solid death metal outfit from Greece (Trikala), with distinctive thrash references emanating through their sound and approach. Call it thrashed death if you’d like to dive in subgenre nomenclature. You may even get some hints of groovy riff structures but this is more of a death metal band with a mission.
The band has been around for over twelve years and they have only released one EP and two full albums. But I reckon the one in question is WARCODE’s breakthrough to the wider European underground death metal scene, beyond the narrow local constraints that any band faces when it embarks in the oceans of metal. Mind though that this is a self-released album, no label has been involved yet. So, Post-modern delusions serves as a call to labels seeking to find solid and talented as hell bands that have something to say. I have not watched WARCODE playing live yet, but I hope to get the chance to do so the soonest possible, because based on studio material currently in my hands they sound hugely promising.
So, their sophomore album, Post-modern delusions, is a departure from their debut back in 2014 (Vortex of chaos). The band has invested enough time and effort to produce a death metal sound that has little to envy from more recognisable names of the genre. Blast beats are hammering to the ear and riffs are ripping. Short solos are well integrated and embedded in the tracks, providing more classical metal aesthetics without taking out any bit of heaviness. Lastly, vocals convey the message to the point without unnecessary tricks, and what message this is!
The main theme of the album is ruination, exploitation of people and civilizational decay in the modern world. A situation most of us are familiar with, as the band draws inspiration from lives in their home country as it comes out (does it?) of a ten-year recession. Track after track, and there are nine of them in the album, the WARCODE guys are out to deliver an awakening to those that choose to be indifferent. The lyrics are highly political without being filled with hatred, extremism and nonsense, that are as vacant as they are appealing these days. Should I name songs like “Introvert of reality”, “Ruination” or “Left drained out” for people to get the point? Hardly. Music dresses lyrics beautifully, and I am still wondering how and why on Earth I discovered WARCODE late. It is a record that will make you move, and there are times that feel like these guys are on a vantage point, a moral high ground of sorts, and look down on the rest of us, bathed to our everyday lives having become comfortably numb.
To conclude, this is an unknown band to most people outside Greece, with a self-released album, that has something to say beyond the usual clichés and tricks death metal bands like to employ. Although I am not a dedicated fan of death metal, Post-modern delusions deserves every attention from die-hard genre fans seeking out new bands; it may also be appealing to a more thrash audience. It could be the soundtrack to a riot if you like! And one last thing as vinyl lover: I am looking forward to the band releasing this amazing album on wax someday.
And for all those metal fans wanting to check the band’s work, here is the latest video by WARCODE:
