War of Words

While Fight’s debut album War of Words isn’t necessarily dated, it’s the kind of album that could only be released in the early 90s. Groove metal was picking up, and a post-Vulgar world left seemingly every band trying to keep up. It sure would be easy to accuse Rob Halford of doing similarly. From the outside, he seemed to be in a vulnerable position following his exit from Judas Priest, and applying his melodicism to harsher sounds seems like a recipe for disaster, even if 1990’s Painkiller had pushed his screams to new literal highs.

What really separated Halford’s vision from the legions of bandwagoners was his honest-to-god enthusiasm for the style. He developed an affinity for Pantera when the Cowboys from Hell supported Priest on the Painkiller tour, and musicians for Fight were recruited from younger bands developing just under the radar. Halford also wrote the twelve songs on War of Words himself, further reflecting his desire for change and the determination to make it happen himself if necessary. As he once sang on “Let Us Prey/Call for the Priest,” he knew what he wanted, and he knew where to get it.

To Fight’s credit, War of Words is unique by groove metal standards. It’s a rather organized take on the subgenre, as songs are tightly structured and performances are consistently rigid. There’s room for exploration and variety, but the music never goes off the rails with nary a trace of tough guy posturing in sight. Halford himself is in top form, offering a mix of post-Painkiller shrieks, gruff bellows, and occasional melodic lapses. His vocal lines may be more simplistic and songs like “Nailed on the Gun” and “Contortion” are packed with backing gurgles, but it all sounds surprisingly natural.

The other musicians also deserve credit for an organic execution. Fellow Priest member Scott Travis’s drumming is grounded yet technical with a steady mix of double bass and fills. The guitar tone keeps a bass-heavy crunch, processed to match the era but never losing itself to the treble that has sadly diminished much of Dimebag’s power in hindsight. There’s clear chemistry, and the musicians’ ventures through meaty grooves, thrashy beatdowns, and slower moody fare never sound out of place.

But while the songs themselves are sufficiently varied, the actual writing on War of Words can get monotonous. The riffs work well despite their basic nature, but the same boneheaded chants on every song make the choruses damn near interchangeable. It works incredibly well when songs like “Into the Pit” and “Vicious” contrast them with the more drawn out verses, but when others like “Life in Black” and “Laid to Rest” aim for moodier ground, a mere title recital just isn’t going to sustain the atmosphere.

Groove metal would probably have a more favorable reputation if there were more albums like War of Words. Rob Halford’s enthusiasm allows him to take on a new style with confidence, and his experience helps him shape the sound to suit his more structured methods. There’s clear influence from the last couple Judas Priest outings, particularly in the higher vocals and drumming, but Tipton and Downing never could’ve made material like this. It’s a shame that Fight’s second album couldn’t sustain the momentum, but this debut kickstarted a chain of fascinating directions for Halford’s career before the inevitable reunion a decade later. Essential listening for Halford fans, and worth checking out for anybody curious to hear a different take on groove metal.

Highlights:
“Into the Pit”
“Nailed to the Gun”
“Cortortion”
“Vicious”
“Reality, a New Beginning”

Originally published at http://indymetalvault.com

It was the early 90s. Judas Priest had survived a trial concerning a connection of the suicides of two young men to their music, and they released the classic Painkiller album in 1990. Whilst things were starting to look up for the band, Rob Halford's musical tastes and desires were beginning to change; he was turned onto the newer metal bands - notably, Pantera. Rob Halford consulted Priest about changing up their musical style to fit the then-modern metal scene. They were unwilling to shift to a new sound so quickly, so Halford formed a new band called Fight to suit his musical needs. Tensions rose between him and his Priest bandmates and he left the band in 1992, allowing him to fully focus on Fight. It's worth noting that Judas Priest drummer Scott Travis was also a band member, though Travis' decision to join Halford in this band apparently had little effect on his relationship with the remaining Priest members, and so he stayed in the band through the 'Ripper' Owens era.

The music on this album does indeed sound mostly like a cross between Judas Priest's classic heavy metal sound and Pantera's groove metal sound, with guitars that have more of a crunch. The songs are kept fairly "to the point" so to speak, meaning there are no 6/7 minute Priest-style epics found here. However, much of Travis' hard-hitting speed metal drumming style heard on Painkiller transfers over to this album, perhaps a redeeming factor for Priest fans if Halford alone wasn't enough to reel them into the new musical territory of Fight. Halford's singing style is pretty much the same as it was in Judas Priest; he uses none of the growling styles of vocalists like Phil Anselmo and Max Cavalera (who was venturing further into groove metal territory with Sepultura during this time), choosing instead to continue showing off his high-pitched screams and shrieks, though he does also often sing in a lower register. Often he will have gang-style backing vocals accompanying him, such as in "Nailed to the Gun" and "Vicious", which helps re-create the in-your-face attitude of the bands Halford was influenced by.

Unsurprisingly the album may sound derivative to some, but the material is actually rather strong, enjoyable and seldom boring. The instrumental musicians recruited by Rob Halford do a great job at re-creating the groove metal vibe whilst not straying too far from the classic-metal territory of Priest. "Immortal Sin" is a fantastic mid-tempo song with damning guitar riffs with some dark melody thrown into the mix, and "For All Eternity", one of the more mellow songs on the album, showcases Halford singing with just as much passion as he ever had in Judas Priest. Lyrically, the album contains a number of dark themes, such as betrayal ("Life in Black" - "You never took care of me / you just watched me fall"), greed and suffering ("Contortion" - "Money sucking greed / all these mouths to feed / shoot it through the brain / selfish and insane") and religion ("Kill It" - "I eat the holy bible / I am the plague!") though they rarely carry as much hostility as bands like Pantera and Sepultura did, with "Vicious" being the main exception to this ("Vicious! Vicious! Fucker! Fucker!").

War of Words is full of solid metal tunes, and Rob Halford achieved what he pretty much set out to do with it. However, I do feel that Judas Priest fans like me will probably appreciate this more than non-Priest fans. There isn't really anything on this release that is particularly groundbreaking, but it's the sound of a great veteran singer stepping out of his comfort zone and handling it well. After one more album with this band he decided that his experimentation in "street-metal" had run its course, and moved into more industrial territory with 2wo, before eventually returning to his metal roots with his self-titled band, as well as rejoining Judas Priest. But Halford started off his run without Priest pretty damn well with War of Words.

From a historical context, Fight is a band that has largely fallen victim to the infamous other project (Two) that Rob Halford involved himself in during the 90s. As such, few people talk about it, save some who were into the early 90s groove/thrash explosion and happened to see this band on the same circuit as Pantera at the time. It’s sort of ironic that Halford’s interest in the newer metal scene created a fissure that eventually led to Judas Priest breaking up in 1992, primarily because when they recruited Tim Owens to replace him, they went in damn near the same musical direction as this with “Jugulator”.

My opinion regarding this era of music are pretty far from favorable given the general lack of depth in the material that it yielded, but there are always exceptions to every rule, and that is precisely what “War Of Words” is, an exception to what was becoming a rather tyrannical rule of bands who became artistically lazy at the behest of the recording industry. This is an album that is more in the style of the transitional Pantera album “Cowboys From Hell”, along with a fair helping of Cro-Mags influences and a small smattering of latter 80s metal along the lines of Armored Saint’s “Symbol Of Salvation”. To put it plainly, anyone who is expecting the successor to “Painkiller” should steer clear of this and pick up the latest Primal Fear album.

Having said all of that, this is not an album wholly devoid of familiarity with Halford’s work with Judas Priest, but it is very clearly locked in a different genre. Rob’s vocals are dirtied up a bit to somewhat resemble the grittier growl of a thrash vocalist, though most of the really deep and harsh yells are handled by guitarist Russ Parrish, but the signature screech that he employed in the past to help define the classic heavy metal character of sound is still very present. Much of the early songs on this album function as something of a bridge between the old and new, particularly the grooving speeders “Into The Pit” and “Nailed To The Gun”, which flirt the closest with that nasty sound that Exhorder first brought to the scene a few years prior and led the way for Pantera to, in turn, lead the rest of them.

As the album progresses, things tapper off into down-tempo land and the groove elements become even more blatant. Particularly in the case of the heavily repetitive and almost plodding “Laid To Rest” which all but predicts Pantera’s slower repertoire on the next 3 albums they would put out after 1993. Even the somewhat Priest oriented mid-tempo rocker “Immortal Sin” is painted into a bit of a “Vulgar Display Of Power” picture with the deep, muddy guitar tone, even though the lead guitar work is leans towards the clarity of the 80s sound rather than the effects-steeped noise Dimebag was starting to play around with. But all of these songs are actually repackaged into something listenable because of Halford’s powerful voice, which refuses to full conform to the comical jock shout and blatant Layne Staley worship that was everywhere at the time. A single listen to the title song “War Of Words” alone demonstrates that although Rob switched sub-genres, he didn’t try to switch his voice along with it.

If the general groove metal scene had continued to follow a model along the lines of this album and a few other early offerings, rather than continually up the ante set by “Vulgar Display” by repeating riffs into oblivion and just being pissed off for little discernible reason, it would have been a lot better for it. This is a style of music that does have some potential for innovative maneuvering and even outright originality at times, but it’s so rarely explored that it’s flat out ridiculous. There are a few clunkers on this album, but for the most part “War Of Words” is one of those albums that mixes things up and keeps it interesting, and while Halford’s voice is the prime attraction, this is a solid collective effort by 5 very capable musicians.

Now many people said that this is Rob's best work outside "Judas Priest". I say it's not...though it is quite good, but it doesn't deserve that much praise. Clearly we can see that this is actually a mixture of Priest and something that tries to sound grooveish but doesn't succeed that much.

To be honest I expected much more from Rob, and he pretty much disappointed me. I personally believe that a musician is a great musician in two cases, either sticking to genre that best suits them (or doing solo work in which case this digression applies to that, too) with their unique style that does its share in keeping the sound just about right or if forming a new band and trying a different genre, adjust their musical style to the genre, simply letting the feeling of the genre flow, thus making them able to perform the genre in a right way, as it should be . This is of course pointed at Rob. Although he is a METAL GOD, and has his own epic vocal style I believe that he fails miserably in trying any different genre other than heavy/power metal that he's used to. For example, his other great fail, the "2wo" band. Although it's an industrial band and not many metalheads, including myself, like industrial music, he failed at that too, or should I say "2wo". So in the end, "Fight's" songs sound more like a work of a DJ who sampled Rob's Priest vocals and put them on a new matrix rather than a whole band project. But still we, the fans, forgive him and he's still on the top of the metal throne among other great legends.

As far as riffage is concerned, to be honest it's pretty much good and nothing much more can be said about that. It's not completely original as we can hear some (again) "Judas Priest" parts to the riffage, although they sound a bit more heavy and with just a pinch of thrash in them. Sometimes the guitar sounds dull; if it's supposed to be "thrash", you're supposed to bring some energy into it, but it seems to me that the band didn't quite get the whole "thrash metal" idea right.

So all in all they sound OK, though nothing special about it. The drumming is also nothing much new, but solid is the drum line, rhythm section machine, and so is the bass line, too. To be honest, "Fight" as a band had some great potential, but failed quite much. They sound more like they're forced to make songs that sound thrashy. Although the whole and complete idea sounded good, the structure of the songs fail at three things: naturalism, vocal innovation, and the whole energy part.

I usually grade an album into 5 sections, each with a maximum score of 20% (0% means totally idiotic to 20% masterpiece). Those are drumming, bass lines, riffage, vocals, and lyrics, so to sum the 60% up these are the scores: drumming-15%, bass lines-10%, riffage-15%, vocals-10%, and lyrics-10%.

To close the review up, I'm going to give a final opinion on this album. It's plain mediocre, it's not entirely original, and it fails at some points. The vocals don't match the music, though it really is worth listening to, but only if you wish to expand your knowledge of the metal music.

I just bought this album about a week ago, wondering what Fight sounded like after being disappointed in the new Judas Priest album, Angel of Retribution. While this isn't classic Judas Priest, it's still a lot better than Priest has put out since Rob Halford's departure.

The album starts off with Into The Pit, a great metal anthem that coulda been on Painkiller. It keeps up the fast pace with Nailed To The Gun, a great thrash track with screamed backing vocals on the chorus. These two songs get War of Words off to a great start.

From there, the pace slows down a bit, but without getting light and sappy. There are no love ballads here, just mid-paced rockers like Life In Black and Immortal Sin.

The title track, War of Words, comes in fifth, and while it's not what you'd expect from Rob Halford, it's a great anti-government thrasher. The next track, Laid To Rest, is another mid-paced rocker, nothing special, but not too bad, either.

Seventh track For All Eternity is the obligatory ballad. It's still got balls, though, as the heavy chorus riff tells you. I'm not a big fan of ballads on metal records, but, on the scale of things, this one ain't too bad...

The next song, Little Crazy, is a slow, heavy, modern rocker, with a riff that hits you like a ton of bricks. Rob's voice is uncharacteristically deep, but it suits the song well.

From there, the pace picks up again, as the album ends with four fast tracks. Contortion has another shout-em-out chorus combined with some good 90's thrash riffing, and is one of my favorite tracks from the album. Tenth track Kill It is good, but doesn't really stand out.

Eleventh track Vicious is the one song that I didn't like at all. Halford goes back to a higher-pitched voice, which contrasts against the backing instruments. And the chorus, with everybody shouting Vicious, Vicious! Fucker, Fucker! is caveman dumb.

The last track, Reality, A New Beginning is a good way to end it. Halford integrates the high-pitched vocals with the thrashy background quite well on this track, sounding a bit like a sneering Dave Mustaine. When the track ends, however, there's a five minute silence, before "bonus track" Jesus Saves kicks in.

Now, this is a BAD way to end an album. Halford's vocals sound unnatural, as if they were sung through a vocoder or some other device. And, after all, the song is about Jesus, which is just plain lame. I probably woulda given War of Words an 80 if it wasn't for Jesus Saves...

I must say, this record can't be compared to the classic Priest albums at all. It follows the metal trends of the era, the sorta slowed-down grungey thrash sound. But it's not a bad record at all, and some songs (Nailed To The Gun, War of Words, Contortion) are really good. A decent find at a used record store; I paid 8 bucks for it, and I'm not disappointed.

Rob Halford knew exactly when to abandon the incredibly pretentious and out of touch monster that was Judas Priest. While "Painkiller" was a soaring metal cruncher it bore the IQ of an 14 year old and showed that Priest had finally peaked and needed a rest. As a man in his late 30's-early 40's it became obvious that Rob was looking to sing less about "metal monsters" and "metal meltdowns" and more about something that hit closer to home for him. Politics, AIDS, insanity, new beginnings and deep secrets became the grist from which Rob would pull his rather tormented vocals. I hate particularly when people call this a "Pantera" influenced record as this record does little "groovecore" and slams more convincingly as a mixture of low-down street thrash and late 80's crossover such as Cryptic Slaughter and the Cro-Mags. Rob took something tough, fresh and fast and made a one-dimensional but pummeling record in which he growled, screamed and shouted his way through thoughtful lyrics and a scooped "tone of hell" production. His backing band was ferocious and young enough to put Rob back in the position of making music that found a purpose beyond trying to be "video game" styled entertainment that was long tiring on the worldwide metal throng.

Among the many highlights on this record include the double-time "Into the Pit" and "Nailed to the Gun" displayed a chugging machine-grind that benefits from Halfords throaty delivery. Slower numbers like "Reality - A New Beginning", "Little Crazy" and "Immortal Sin" give room for passionate vocal performances that finally show Rob tackling ideas that were actually important to him as the time. "For All Eternity", "Laid to Rest" and "War of Words" also provide strong moments for the band as well. "Life in Black" may not be the most exciting track and "Kill It" may be a bit 'durrrrrrr' but but the rest is a strong example of a man who wanted to try something new and embraced the sound as an honest personal expression.

While many debated the value of Fight, I feel that this first record with it's snazzy and rather confrontational artwork, lyrics and strong political stance made dolts like Pantera and the like look rather immature and left to the rednecks. This would also be Rob's last extreme vocal performance for quite some time as he would explore other vocal styles for a period of time before coming back to the screaming metal style on his own.

This is a classic that stands for quite a bit and draws a reaction from anyone connected to the Priest camp. I for one found it passionate, grinding and rather impressive from a man who had only been singing about the "wings of steel/deadly wheels", "metal meltdown" and "hell patrol" just a few moments earlier.

I suggest that fans of old-skool metalcore, Rob Halford and even those who liked the more brutish Judas Priest tracks to purchase this...

The details of the story around this are a little sketchy. Some accounts I've heard are that Rob wanted to do a side project while still in Priest. When he did this, Priest announced he had left, yadda yadda yadda, bad blood ensued and Priest was no more (for the time being at least), but at the time Rob made this, he was still in Priest (I guess Scott Travis was forgiven because he wasn't a longtime member).
Honestly, this isn't that far removed from Painkiller aside from the fact that neither of the the guitarists is a Tipton or Downing. I suppose I'm being a little harsh on it by calling it one dimensional, but most of the songs are one speed with a fairly simple verse/chorus/break format with only a few riffs and a repetitive chorus, however, they are done in an irresistably catchy format that you can't help but sing and bang along to. I can't say that there are really any bad tracks on here, but I would say that the track arrangement is such that most of the better tracks are up front and the good (but not great) tracks are near the back. One good thing is that all of the songs are between 3min and 5min long, so they aren't too short, but they don't make you want to skip to the next track with their repetitive nature.
Rob Halford sounds as good as ever and fully utilizes his patented banshee wail, so if you are looking for that, don't worry. I must say though, it is funny to hear Rob Halford singing about the US constitution in War of Words, seeing how he's a full on Englishman.
All in all, I'd say if you're a Priest fan, then this is a must have.

Could Rob Halford be in a successful band that wasn't named Judas Priest?
And the answer is no. Two was just an embarssment to Halford's career and Fight did not last that long. But Fight sure did land a heavy impression with there first album. This album is straight out heavy metal, and well acheived! The first couple songs, Into the Pit and Nailed to the Gun are hard to listen to if you have heard them on Halford's Insurrection Live album, since they are done ten times as better. Some of the songs on this album are skippers, but there are a lot of good ones. The riffs and solo's are just amazing, and had Judas Priest done this album it would have been recognized as an even greater album. There are even some death metal mixed vocals on some of the opening songs. Also worth mentioning is the bass work. If you have this album turn on Laid to Rest and blast up the bass. It's a hell of a lot better than what Ian Hill did. Also the drumming is really great on some of the fast songs like Into the Pit, almost a unique style of drumming not heard of in straight out heavy metal such as Fight was. All in all this album is pretty good. The only problem I had with it was the vocals. Yes, the vocals! All in all vocals sound great, just like Priest. However, in some songs Halford will go low when it would be better if he hit his famous high pitches. Other times there plain out flat or wavy. Good songs to check out are: Nailed to the Gun, Into the Pit, Life in Black, Immortal Sin, War of Words, Laid to Rest, and Kill it! Definetly a good metal album, and the step that would launch Halford into his successful solo career!

So this is what Rob was doing in between Priest and his new solo band Halford. It's quite different, that's true, but I don't think it's all too great. There are a few quite excellent tracks on the album, but a few of them sound a bit uninspired and not very interesting. Well, let me look more carefully into the songs.

The first song is also the best. Into The Pit is pure fucking Painkiller material. Insane riffs, pounding double bass drumming, evil basslines and Rob Halford screaming his heart out in a menacing falsetto. Goddamn, this song pretty much beats anything from any of the two Halford albums. Actually, the only Halford song that can even compare to this one is Resurrection.

Nailed To The Gun up next, and this one is pretty damn excellent as well. It's a quite fast paced song, with sweet guitar riffing and nice basslines. A very catchy song, with a great guitar solo. This one as well is among the highlights of this album.

The first two songs were real asskickers, and building up hope for a truly amazing album. But here, the album shows strong signs of weakness.
Life In Black is the title of this song, and it's a bit boring. It's a dark, midpaced song with decent verses and nice, heavy riffing but an unbelievably boring chorus.

Immortal Sin is another mediocre midpaced song, though not as dark as the previous. Some more heavy riffing and nice verses, but also yet another incredibly boring chorus.

Next is War Of Words, the title track. This is the second greatest song on the album. Like Into The Pit, the song has heavy guitar riffing and piercing falsetto vocals by Rob Halford, but while Into The Pit was 100% insanity, War Of Words one is more aimed towards attitude.
Like I said, it's not as great as Into The Pit, but it still rocks like Hell.

Next, we have a quite decent song known as Laid To Rest. The song has some really excellent basslines, and nice guitar riffs as well. The verses are slow, and quite good, and a cool chorus with groovy guitars. The guitar solo must also be mentioned, it's very good.
It's nothing to rave about, but it's not bad.

For All Eternity follows. It is indeed a fine ballad, although Rob's vocals aren't all that incredible, aside from the powerful chorus.
Very nice, emotional guitar lines during the verses, and some heavier stuff during the chorus.

Little Crazy follows, this is another of my favourites. We begin with a cool acoustic intro with a catchy chorus before the heavy but catchy guitar riff kicks in. The entire song is very catchy and a fun listen, and Rob does a great vocal performance in it.

Next we have Contortion. It's a decent, quite heavy song. Cool guitar and bass riffing, but quite boring verses and chorus. The song is overall not terrible, but it's not very interesting. Oh yeah, and the song has a terrible bridge with mallcore sounding vocals. I'm nearly about to hurl when I listen to it...

Track number 10 is called Kill It, and this song has some fucking wicked riffing. The rest of the song is quite nice as well. Nice verses and an aggressive chorus, great basslines and great drumming.

Vicious is next, and this one is quite decent.
The lyrics are bloody strange. During the verses Rob sings about how nice he is to the person he sings about, while the chorus consists of nothing but this: "Vicious. Vicious. Fucker! Fucker!" Well, well...
This one as well is quite heavy aside from the verses, which are a bit more melodic.

Reality, A New Beginning is the next song, and this may be the weakest song of the entire album. The riffs are decently heavy but not very interesting. Quite boring, in fact. The verses are uninspired and dull, and the vocal performance is weak.

Then there is the hidden track Jesus Saves which closes the album off. Rob's vocals are edited in a weird and pretty damn stupid way, which sounds completely wrong. The song has a nice flow to it though, with quite catchy guitar riffing.
Overall, if it wasn't for the terrible vocals then this would've been a pretty damn fine song.

So, now I've gone through all the songs, and reached the conclusion that this is a pretty nice album, although some songs are a bit less interesting than others, while some are amazing.
It's a nice album, but could be better.

I've tried to classify Fight for many years now. They're one of those 'forgotten' bands no one ever talks about. I've owned the albums practically since they were still on the paper, (new) well.. Small deadly space anyway, but back then I didn't know that much about different metal genres - I thought it sounded really different from all the stuff I'd heard so I referred
to it as industrial metal. Today I know that industrial is lots of computer effects and keyboards but anyhow, not until now I realised: this is 90's heavy metal! Not any new wave-of-anything, just plain heavy metal product of the 90's.

And I know Halford's projects kinda got people to turn their backs because of that Two thing, even to this. I feel that's really wrong cause this is good stuff! There's like nothing non-metal about this and wonderful Halford screams all over. Even the guitarwork is beautiful compared to todays death/black metal bands who screw up solos time after time. Another thing I gotta mention: the bass! The bass is among the heaviest shit I've heard in a long time, not even Ian Hill's input to the Priest records was this obvious. That, along with the lead-heavy riffs and supertight drumming (Scott Travis beats the skins here) and Halford's excellent screaming, makes this an experience you shouldn't be without.

I'd easily pick this before the Halford cd's. If I had to choose some fave tracks it'd be "Into the pit", "Nailed to the gun" and "War of words" but of course there's lots of good songs here.