Bolt Thrower

Production: Low compression and muddy sound give this a roomy, obscure aesthetic.

Review: Metal and punk like a double helix converge every other generation and every other meeting shapes a viable hybrid, and Bolt Thrower grafts into one of these, grindcore, by making heavy metal songs using punk chord progressions, technique and blocky, guileless direct delivery. The resulting messy onslaught uncovers its heavy metal roots in the ordering of its songs, yet signals a clear punk heritage in how it renders classic heavy metal riffs in a crustcore/hardcore style of mostly chromatic intervals in rigidly symmetrical rhythms.

Starting with several tracks heavy on finger-wiggling, noodly lead guitar, In Battle There is No Law surges into existence with a sound that takes a Slayer approach to speed, invents a riffing style like G.B.H. meeting Possessed, and breaks up its songs with dramatic elements in the style of older grandiose heavy metal. Unlike most grindcore, which takes a literal-minded and individualistic view, Bolt Thrower borrows from the heavy metal appreciation of the epic and ridden with mortal conflict, requiring a vaster presence than short choppy songs complaining about modernity. This need spurs them to expand songs and shift between faster, motivational tempi and dragging slower ones for the contrast needed to maintain such a worldview.

Tracklist:
1. In Battle There Is No Law (5:01)
2. Challenge for Power (3:34)
3. Forgotten Existence (3:44)
4. Denial of Destiny (2:30)
5. Blind to Defeat (2:20)
6. Concession of Pain (2:57)
7. Attack in the Aftermath (3:11)
8. Psychological Warfare (3:31)
9. Nuclear Annihilation (3:29)
Length: 30:17

Copyright © 1988 Vinyl Solution

Beyond Slayer, a heavy Sepultura influence permeates this early album, but many past greats contribute their own suggestions, from the Pestilence-like pacing of riffs to pre-choruses that sound suspiciously like an Angel Witch or Iron Maiden gambit. Preferring a default speed of a moderate fast tempo. Many riffs, like those of Repulsion, use a chord or two with a lightspeed melodic fill of single notes, creating a resurgent cyclic rhythm like the circular motion of the legs of a galloping horse.

The hybrid works for Bolt Thrower because they escape the one-dimensionality of most grindcore at the same time they escape the rock conventions of most metal, letting them create a sound with the musical nihilism of punk but the theatrical artistry of metal, pushing both genres past their comfort zones. While the band did not flower on this early and less-practiced offering, watching them assemble a brand new type of grindcore -- and an enduring voice -- makes this album worth owning on an intellectual level. The ripping, high-intensity songs and ludicrously exuberant guitar work make it a keeper for listening.

Production: Full, slightly murky sound.

Review: With this album, Bolt Thrower initiated a pattern which endures throughout their catalog of finding a new style and then growing into it over a two-album spread. On Realm of Chaos, the riffing gets tighter and the heavy metal influences recede to give us a stripped down type of grindcore that aspires to the architectural riffing of death metal, giving it a grandeur and musical depth that outpaced other bands in the genre and caused many to start claiming Bolt Thrower was not grindcore.

Yet, in the words of noted metal critic and DJ Aditya Sharma, "All [Bolt Thrower] ever do is grind," and this album grinds onward with abrasive riffs that set two rhythms to convergent opposite tonal directions and let them grind against each other, finally culminating the song like a NWOBHM ballad with a moment of reconciliation and then a restatement of themes before conclusion. With more instrumental practice, the band are able to shape their riffs into rigid cadenced forms that collide in precise and sparse ways, giving the music greater inertia.

Tracklist:
1. Intro (1:17)
2. Eternal War (2:07)
3. Through The Eye Of Terror (4:22)
4. Dark Millenium (2:58)
5. All That Remains (4:38)
6. Lost Souls Domain (4:13)
7. Plague Bearer (2:54)
8. World Eater (4:54)
9. Drowned In Torment (3:04)
10. Realm Of Chaos (2:49)
11. Prophet Of Hatred (3:52)
12. Outro (:59)
Length: 38:07

Copyright © 1989 Earache

Spanning the gamut of underground metal styles, this album includes as much Slayer-influenced riff forms as it does punk and fellow grindcore influences; for example, "Lost Souls Domain" shares a riff with Terrorizer's "Fear of Napalm." That is not to say it is in any way derivative, because the patterns created here live on in altered form throughout much of death metal and grindcore, and we start to see the Bolt Thrower song pattern of two-chord grinding riffs highlighted with longer, often single-note-picked melodic lead riffs which add an atmospheric context to the raw fomenting id thrust forth by the simpler riffing.

Where the chaotic In Battle There is No Law laid out the ingredients, the second Bolt Thrower album defines a clear fusion and creates a framework onto which the band built the rest of their career, with the remaining major evolution left to go occurring within that archetype. While the first album is appealing for its youthful energy, and later albums are refined and clear, the raw impulse of dissident music plus an epic view of history emerges in an appealing form on Realm of Chaos and explains why this album remains a favorite two decades on.

Production: Good room sound with full bass and gracefully muted highs.

Review: Developing linearly in the style of the previous album, Warmaster infuses melodic development into the relentless grind and steps back from full-on speed to give songs more breathing room, and a sense of pauses between assaults, replenishing the epic heavy metal tendencies to which Bolt Thrower have adapted their deconstructive sound, giving this album the feeling of retrospection over a long day of challenges and appreciation of their meaning.

Audibly moving into the more "epic" realm which their subject matter, and metal-ish tendency of stacking grinding riffs up against melodic lead riffs to create both atmosphere and a subconscious forward thrust, Bolt Thrower nonetheless capture what is good about all underground music: having lost the convenient harmonic centering and verse/chorus format of rock music, underground metal and grindcore songs structure themselves architectonically, meaning that all parts justify each other and complement each other, which transcends linearity and emphasizes isomorphism and phrasal dialogue.

Tracklist:
1. Intro...Unleashed (Upon Mankind) (6:13)
2. What Dwells Within (4:18)
3. The Shreds of Sanity (3:26)
4. Profane Creation (5:33)
5. Destructive Infinity (3:56)
6. Final Revelation (4:03)
7. Cenotaph (4:17)
8. War Master (4:01)
9. Rebirth of Humanity (5:06)
Length: 40:53

Copyright © 1991 Earache

This creates a wonderful maze effect where just when the listener is feeling comfortable with a pair of riffs supporting each other, a third drops into the mix and creates another option, which is then invoked later by yet another and helps conclude the song. This style of writing gives depth to the music, and Bolt Thrower pursue it with an uncanny ability to shape their riffs around subconscious forms in an almost Jungian sense, evoking shadowy figures from dreams and fantasies as if they were characters in theatre.

While a melodic underpinning thrives in these songs, it is subtler than the work to come and more architected than the earlier output of this band, showing a maturation process in which the music gains intensity and is not simplified to be an artifact of its audience as happens to most bands at about this point in its career. Grinding and then releasing that confined energy into melodic fills, Bolt Thrower layer new depth onto their style -- and for the listener, open worlds to explore.

Production: A more compressed, digital distortion and roomless sound.

Review: As a band grows, its members find new ground to explore and if they have a strong vision, do not get sidetracked into exploring technique for its own sake but instead adapt that technique to the original but now expanded mission of the band, which is what Bolt Thrower did with The IVth Crusade: they applied Iron Maiden-style melodic riffing to their grinding works, notably in the melodic lead riffing fills that follow grinding rhythm riffs set in opposition to produce a sense of movement sliding out from under abrasion.

With The IVth Crusade, Bolt Thrower move out of their first mature stage and into a second which is marked by not only the more obvious melodic song construction but a more explicit statement of epic conflict in themes and imagery, with more song structure experimentation to match. Compared to the album to follow, this work is more diverse in varied structures but per the nature of experimentation, loses some degree of intensity as complexity causes song narrative to veer away from its most recognizable themes.

Tracklist:
1. The IVth Crusade (4:58)
2. Icon (4:10)
3. Embers (5:17)
4. Where Next to Conquer (3:49)
5. As the World Burns (5:25)
6. This Time It's War (5:50)
7. Ritual (4:29)
8. Spearhead (6:46)
9. Celestial Sanctuary (4:37)
10. Dying Creed (4:17)
11. Through the Ages (Outro) (3:44)
Length: 53:22

Copyright © 1992 Earache

In the construction of spacious and definitive song structures, the use of resonant melody opposing chromatic rhythm riffing, and the attempt to shape the album around a concept where songs get more abstract until it concludes in the dirge "Through the Ages" in which melodic doom riffs underscore a reverberating chant of English warfare from ancient to modern times, this album reveals not only the influence of the Swedish death metal that formed death metal's cutting edge at the time, but an effort to grow into both style and artistic substance.

Although this album is not as finished as ...For Victory, it retains the rough and somewhat irregular approach that imbues Warmaster with dense layers of personality, and in its internal struggle for clarity finds a moving vision of what it is to grapple with these issues, as if in a parallel to young warriors attempting to locate the meaning that enables transition to adulthood and the sacrifice that entails. For these reasons, this album remains a perpetual favorite among those who find a harmony of meaning in the art of Bolt Thrower.

Production: Reasonably clear, bass intense, and reverberating as if acoustically roomed.

Review: Bolt Thrower hurled forth for their first effort a potent speed grind album, In Battle There Is No Law, and then another fast, grinding album Realm of Chaos, but in the two albums after it, Warmaster and IVth Crusade, edged toward making an album of songs which were powerful in isolation but too much alike to be heard as an album; earlier release felt this tension as well, but to lesser extremes.

...For Victory not only overcomes this problem but ups the ante and creates a unique extension of style as well as epic songs with amazing prophetic lyrics. The grind is structured, melodic even, but the ragged vigorous sawbone of Bolt Thrower riffs is flamboyant in the reductive abrasion that plays off its own dark melodic sense to remind us of context and then brutalize the listener again. Resounding explosivity of fundamental differences in tone and rhythm hangs suspended in the atmosphere as a smoothly oiled machine slides a frame of reference from underneath it, and motion begins from within to counteract.

Tracklist:
1. War (instrumental) (1:16)
2. Remembrance (3:42)
3. When Glory Beckons ( 3:59)
4. ...For Victory (4:50)
5. Graven Image (3:59)
6. Lest We Forget (4:37)
7. A Silent Demise (3:54)
8. Forever Fallen (3:47)
9. Tank (MK I) (4:15)
10. Armageddon Bound (5:13)
Length: 39:32

Copyright © 1994 Earache

This album treats war as a metaphor for modern life, and writes about modern conflict brilliantly; as an artistic document from the metal/grind camp, it has few peers to match its ambition in defining concept and sound as synchronized with the sonic demands of the genre. As is rational for the course of pure grinding ancestry, jarring expectancy riffs and percussive slams alternate in animal motion to generate the precariously balanced ecosystem required to generate melodies which transcend motion for pure shape and in that, a symbolic communication of desire with perhaps behind it emotion.

Overlays and melodic forays extend blunt phrasings and overall structure to songs is more contrapuntal than repetitive, leading from relatively sedate phrases to low-hung dirge riffs and then culminating in charging grind, forming a song from first echoing patterns in different places and then bringing those places and their formative tensions together in a unison of dischord. Lyrics are discernible from hearing the vocals, although singing is in the same hoarse battlevoice that called out over the music of earlier albums: heavy and dark, foreboding and apocalyptic. Of note are the title track and Armageddon Bound.

Biography

Bolt Thrower formed at a punk gig in a Coventry pub in 1986, following a conversation between friends, guitarist Barry (Baz) Thomson and bassist Gavin Ward. Inspired at that time by bands such as Sacrilege, Discharge, Candlemass and Slayer, the two decided to form a band that was heavy, aggressive, but more importantly, original. They were soon joined by Alan West, a friend of Baz's, who took the role of vocalist/lyricist. Andy Whale was suggested as a drummer by a mutual friend, and when he met up with the rest of the band to try out, he found he had similar musical tastes, and joined immediately.

The four-piece went on to write a number of songs and eventually recorded two demos In Battle... and Concession of Pain, the latter being sent to the much-respected British radio DJ John Peel. During this time Gavin Ward decided to switch to guitar and local bassist Alex Tweedy was the temporary replacement. When Alex left one or two gigs later, they agreed to let Jo Bench try out. She proved she was the right person for the job, and in September 1987 the new 5-piece line-up was complete. A few gigs later and the call came saying John Peel liked the demo and wanted to offer the band a radio session.

Bolt Thrower recorded 4 songs for their first BBC Radio One "Peel Session" in January 1988. After the transmission was aired on national radio, underground record label Vinyl Solution contacted the band and offered them a recording contract; the band agreed to a one-album deal. Alan West decided that the band was getting a bit too serious for him and was replaced by Karl Willetts, who was the band's backline driver and a longtime friend of Andy's. With this line-up Bolt Thrower went on to record their first album In Battle There Is No Law recorded at Loco Studios in Wales; unfortunately, it was mixed without the band's knowledge and released in the summer of 1988.

After constant gigging around the UK, Bolt Thrower grew in popularity and Earache Records, at that time the biggest independent label for extreme music, contacted the band who quickly signed with them. At the same time Games Workshop -- a fantasy wargaming company -- whose boss had heard the Peel Session when it was aired and was impressed enough to be interested in a collaboration with the band, also contacted the band. Incorporating both new label and wargaming, the second studio album Realm of Chaos was released on Earache Records in 1989, and featured cover and booklet artwork from the artists at Games Workshop.

The band were gaining a much wider audience, but as they didn't forget their roots, were proud to be given the opportunity to record two more Peel Sessions (which were later released as an album). In addition, during 1989 the band took part in the legendary GrindCrusher tour of the UK with Carcass, Napalm Death and Morbid Angel. This seminal event proved the band's reputation as being one of the most powerful live acts around. On the back of the success of the UK tour, they made their first tour of Europe in 1990 with Autopsy and Pestilence -- where they met Martin Van Drunen and their current tour manager Graham.

At the start of 1991 Bolt Thrower headed back to the studio. They recorded Warmaster at Slaughterhouse Studios, Driffield with Colin Richardson producing, and thanks to the clever scheduling skills of Earache it was released in the middle of their tour of Europe! The band also went on to make their first visit to the US this year and the Bolt Thrower name spread worldwide.

The following year, the band recorded The IVth Crusade at Sawmills Studios in Cornwall. The new album showed the band continuing their trademark style but adding musical erudition and scope rare among underground bands at the time. The band broke from their usual fantasy artwork and instead used a classical painting by Eugene Delacroix (1798-1883). The band promoted the album extensively with their World Crusade tour, which took them again around Europe (with Benediction and Asphyx) and in 1993, to Australia.

The recording of ...For Victory in 1994 (at Sawmills, again) was immediately followed by the bands second tour of the U.S. This unfortunately saw the departure of drummer Andy Whale and vocalist Karl Willetts, who decided they didn't want to continue in the band. The rest of the band decided to carry on, and the album was released later in the year, and Whale and Willetts were subsequently replaced with drummer Martin Kearns and Martin Van Drunen on vocals. With this ended the classic period of Bolt Thrower, who then saw the departure of van Drunen, a change of label from Earache to Metal Blade, and a series of albums designed more for the commercial heavy metal market than the underground grindcore one. The band continues at the time of this writing (2009).