Ordered to Kill

At the time of the release of their debut, I read an interview with At War. They were asked why they had chosen the militaristic image for the front cover. The answer was surprising. "We don't have a weakness for war, we are just passionate hunters!" Okay, I never saw hunters with this kind of guns. But this is surely my own fault. The more I think about it, the more I am sure that I also misinterpreted their lyrics. Songs like "Ordered to Kill" "Rapechase" or "Eat Lead" had most likely a well hidden pacifistic message.

This nonsensical self-marketing aside, At War had a lot to offer. Just like The Ramones, Motörhead or AC/DC, the three-piece had a fine instinct to combine primitive patterns with very catchy melodies. (The fine difference, that the other bands were commercially successful, is an entirely different matter.) Already after having listened to the album for the first time, I was able to sing the easily accessible songs from memory. Admittedly, my brain was much younger than today and it was therefore no great challenge. But even today, with thousands of brain cells dying each day, the tracks do not overstretch my intellectual capabilities. The mixture of power, speed and thrash metal is highly effective. At War waived any kind of long agenda. Their only aim was to kill the enemy in the most efficient way. Driven by restless guitars and whipping drums, the opening title track unleashed immediately a high level of energy. It became obvious that the guys were able to manage the catchy parts without being prone to any form of cheesiness. Among other things, the one-word-chorus of "Capitulation", highly primitive yet absolutely excellent, confirmed this thesis.

At War also knew how to design tempo changes in the most dynamic manner. Of course, in accordance with their simplistic general approach, they saw no reasons for the integration of a high number of breaks. Nevertheless, a song like "Mortally Wounded" showed the efficiency of this rarely occurring stylistic device. To achieve maximum results with minimum efforts seemed to be the goal of At War and nobody could deny that they were very successful in this respect. The song material did not suffer from any major flaws. Instead, songs like the title track or "Capitulation" were extremely well constructed. Hence follows that each and every piece has withstood the test of time, although it is a debatable question whether it was really necessary to record the Motörhead cover.

The short playtime of the full-length was the result of the no frills dogma of the band. Thank God, the most famous son of the Austrian city Braunau, Adolf Hitler, was so friendly to stretch the running time. A sample of one of his irritating speeches kicked off "Ilsa (She-Wolf of the S.S.)". It's always a good idea to make a song about the Nazis. American patriots and left winged Europeans have not much in common, but all of them love to hate this ugly kind of Germans. This means that you cannot do much wrong. Just watch an obviously moronic movie about the concentration camps and transform its content into your next composition. Well researched lyrics are always welcome and it doesn't matter that the artists are not able to offer a single German line without several mistakes ("Ya Volt und Zeig Heil mein Commandant" instead of "Jawohl und Sieg Heil mein Kommandant" is printed on the inner sleeve.) However, At War were inspired by the eponymous trash movie from 1974 and in order to emphasize their militaristic image, they offered this song. No doubt, it enriched the album due to its musical power, regardless of the sloppy lyrics. The aggressive riffs and the powerful drumming created coherent verses and an explosive chorus. Too bad that Ilsa had forgotten to contribute some voluptuous background vocals. Anyway, lines like "Sex with her don't come first / She'll castrate you her Nazi curse" boggled my juvenile mind.

The vigorous production gave no reason to grumble and the vocals of bass player Paul Arnold did not lack of charisma, although he was definitely no natural born lead vocalist. All in all, this was a fantastic debut. Every fan of thrash metal and every enemy of complexity should lend an ear to this album. Its only annoying detail was that the cover announced a bonus track with the promising title "Fuckadaffi". I still regret that this bonus was missing with the effect that Ilsa had no opportunity to have a drink with the likeable dictator from Libya. Well, you can't always get what we want.

Just as many metallers debate on whether or not Metallica is great, the few people who've heard of At War have many polarizing opinions regarding their sound. Some say that they're unsung heroes of the thrash metal world, standing up to the popular "poser" bands that dominated the airwaves. Others believe that they're just another Slayer/Motorhead ripoff wanting to be a part of the thrash metal scene. Me? I've just gotta say that I'm in between. They do have that speed and sheer aggression that we all demand, but there are some aspects that I feel they could've touched up upon a little more, that way, they'd have less detractors.

There's no doubt that we've got Slayer and Motorhead influences clashing with each other at every second, but the Motorhead influence is most prevalent in the band's cover of "The Hammer". Bassist/vocalist, Paul Arnold's gruff and growling vocals bear an uncanny resemblance to those of Lemmy's, making the cover version sound like Motorhead actually decided to re-record the song and make the guitars a little heavier. That's exactly what it sounds like. If you've never heard of At War and you heard the song, you'd think that Motorhead actually did re-record it due to the striking similarities. If At War wanted to be Motorhead clones, they've truly achieved it by covering "The Hammer". When it comes to other songs, however, the Slayer influence gets more attention. Of course, since they are indeed a thrash metal band, they have got to have lightning-fast tempos, but many of the faster ones show up more often than others. The songs are already at moshing speed, but the band somehow felt that the songs weren't fast enough. "Mortally Wounded" fluctuates between a medium-paced tempo, which some people would mosh in, and a hyper-fast one when it gets to the verses. They also play with many of the basic power chords rather than inserting a tritone, which Slayer would do. For this reason, At War sounds like they couldn't come up with more imaginative hooks, as the hooks here are all too easy to play (and thus the songs can be covered without any difficulty).

On the other side of the coin, thrash metal really doesn't require much in terms of getting at least some attention. Having a hyper-fast tempo and aggressive riffs are the key to having some good thrash metal. Unfortunately, they're abused so much that they just start to get boring. That's why some people detest At War's ways of playing. I suppose I might appreciate a few songs for what they are, but not as much as songs from other bands. Based off of the exploitation film of the same name, "Ilsa (She-Wolf of the SS)" is one of the best examples of the band's tendencies to create some decent songs, but not decent enough to be considered essential classics. It's got that aggressive riffing, tempos that attempt to break the sound barrier (especially during the guitar solo), and backing vocals shouting the song's title (part of it, at least). These characteristics show up in nearly every thrash metal song in human history, both the good ones, and the bad. They're what are needed for a band to be considered "thrash metal", but there has to be some more brain power involved to make the songs less boring. Although At War didn't take that into account, they at least made some material that could appeal to a few people, and by a few people, I mean those that are die-hard thrashers who don't really care how their band sounds.

Apart from the fast drumming and riffing, the musicianship isn't all that spectacular. I did mention before that Paul Arnold had vocals that were similar to Lemmy's, and that's just about it. He just growls through his lines without much energy, and not as much energy as Lemmy would put out. If you're going to be a thrash metal vocalist, you have to put more power into your vocals, like Bobby "Blitz" Ellsworth of Overkill. He growls sometimes too, but he puts more effort into his growls, and he screams as well. Paul Arnold doesn't do that at all, and thus his vocals seem to fall flat. His bass playing isn't much better, as the bass is barely heard. It seems like he follows the song rather than plays a unique bass line. In "Ilsa (She-Wolf of the SS)", he only plays one note as a form of rhythm (Steve Harris he ain't!). At the first listen, it may seem like guitarist Shawn Helsel has some very good soloing skills, but if you listen to every song by the solo, you'll notice a few similarities. I get that every famous guitar player has his/her own style, but Helsel's style is less skilled, as he seems to fool around with the whammy bar once or twice (some examples being "Ilsa (She-Wolf of the SS)" and "Rapechase") and has a tendency to play the same kind of arpeggios. A good try, but a better guitarist has to come up with better skills than that, and Helsel didn't seem to get the message.

You know those cheap store-brand knockoffs of various products like batteries that aren't as good as the products made by more famous brands? That's kinda what At War's "Ordered to Kill" feels like. It's basically a cheap knockoff of better thrash metal bands who put more effort and imagination into their work. While some songs may be pretty decent in some respects, in others, they're incredibly bland. If only the band was more creative and tried to come up with some new guitar tricks or lyrical themes that didn't involve war or sex, then it would've been the next Metallica, if not better. That's not how it happened, and therefore, the band would be another one of those obscure bands that hardly anyone would remember (or care to remember).

We’ve all at some point in our lives known that one guy who took the Nazi lyrics and imagery of bands such as Motörhead and Slayer seriously, thinking it’s so cool and brutal. I always felt like At War were those type of guys, but then I might be one of those too for taking At War seriously.

At War may be one of, if not, the first metal band too fully embrace the nature of war for lyrical content. I just wish they would have embraced the nature of songwriting for musical content as well. Now this isn’t bad, there definitely are some pretty catchy tunes to be found between the fillers of this album, or maybe they aren’t fillers. Maybe the album is supposed to be a generic and uninspired thrash metal album and the few songs that are actually worth re-listening to are the fillers. Who knows? But really, this is a decent attempt at dirty speed metal and though it appears to be a bit childish, it still has a charming effect to it.

There is a definite Motörhead influence to be found on this album. The riffs is one thing but the vocalist sounds like if a less drunken version of Lemmy met a drunker version of Cronos. They even covered “The Hammer”, which is, dare I say it, almost as good as it’s original and is easily the best song on the album. Besides being very Motörhead influenced, the riffs make it hard for me to put a specific genre on it. One minute it’s crossover and the next it’s speed metal. There is a technical thrash edge to be found on some of these otherwise punkish tunes too. The solos are short and they probably are for a reason because they aren’t really good and making them longer would just drag down the album even more. The drums are loud and the double bass drum is all over the place and the bass is nothing special.

The production is what you would expect from a underground thrash metal album from 1986. It’s raw but decent.

You’re better off just ignoring this one. If you’re a real sucker for this style though, I suggest you check out “The Hammer” cover, “Ilsa (She Wolf Of The S.S.) and “Eat Lead”.

John Rambo. First Blood. Chuck Norris. Delta Force. Such are the products of the 80s craving for warfare and bloodlust, huge action films with unforgettable firefights and dialogue, all conveniently and ironically to coincide with the end of the Cold War era. But where was the thrash equivalent? Well, it was actually quite common during the 80s to include some gas-masked or muscular, vested, grenadier with a bigger arsenal than most small nations, struggling against injustice before or after the bomb dropped. Virginia's long lost and now found thrash cult At War represent a little less foolery in their brand of war metal, and a more honest, if underwritten depiction of violence and other topics, like the horrors of rape or experimentation at the lethal and lovely hands of a female S.S. officer...

Ordered to Kill was the trio's first entry into the arena, and like so many other New Renaissance Records releases of its time, it brings back fond memories. Who were these three men strapped with machine guns and camo emerging from this North American logo beneath one of the more distinct, if simple logos and military title font? They were Paul Arnold, Shawn Helsel, and Dave Stone and they were about to deliver one of the more blunt and hammering sounds of East Coast thrash metal. The writing on this debut is hardly perfect, and the band's second effort would be a step up in quality, but it's still decent enough if you like the crude sounds of a band like early Slayer, Hallows Eve, Sacred Reich or even Maryland's obscure Indestroy, who were on the same record label.

The title tracks opens with a few capable artillery rounds of smooth, rugged riffing, Paul Arnold's voice sounding quite like Tom Araya's lower end capacity in the 80s, without the swerves into a middle range or the bloodshot screaming. The solo is quick and forgettable, the entire experience rather cheap, but who cares? This was the 80s and you were banging your head, because you spent the $6-10 on the cassette or LP. "Dawn of Death" is mildly faster, but a little messier as it shifts from the momentum riffing to the war drum breakdowns. "Capitulation" is one of the weaker pieces on the record, with the song title being bludgeoned to death in the chorus to the loss of all affectations. Next we break into the Motörhead section of the record, beginning with the original "Rapechase" with its rolling punk-fueled aggression, and followed by an actual cover of "The Hammer" from Lemmy and friends. Both of these are actually pretty good, and one wonders if the band had followed their influence more closely for the entire album, if it might have made more of an impact.

But the final tracks return to the straight thrash sound, with some dirty, spent round casing riffs in "Mortally Wounded". I'm not a fan of the vocal breaks in this song, they get a little dull and again, the rather poor writing steals the potential power of the track. "Ilsa (She Wolf of the S.S.") opens with a Hitler sampler, not unexpected, and breaks out some of the finer musical moments on the album, with some deadpan thrashing rhythms and an excellent chorus which burns with a little of that Lemmy NWOBHM flame. Unfortunately, the finale "Eat Lead" is simply not that tolerable, with a mix of basal thrash 101 riffs and rather sloppy lyrical presentation. I don't mind the brief melodic guitar riding between the verses, but the rest is pretty dull.

At War were certainly not firing complete blanks on this debut, and I do find the raw production of the record endearing to this day, but the actual composition was somewhat lacking. If you're looking for a sound similar to Motörhead or Tank, updated for the new era of harsh, warlike thrash guitars that were exploding in the 80s, then this album might have some value to you. Otherwise, this was clearly left in the dust by Master of Puppets, Peace Sells..., Reign in Blood and many other albums of its day. The Virginians received their orders to kill, but this first mission was not a success, and casualties were high.

-autothrall
http://www.fromthedustreturned.com

The human memory is a strange thing, for some reason the human mind can struggle to remember important information, such as when to take medication, or a girlfriends birthday, yet at the same time, it can recall the most useless of things imaginable. It could be hundreds of Simpsons quotes, or where to find videos of people getting hit in the groin on the internet, or in the case of thrash metal, it's remembering shitty generic bands with nothing of interest to offer, At War is one of these bands.

This is why I had trouble getting into thrash, this is why I initially complained about the genre being boring and repetitive, maybe not this band in particular, but any of the hundreds of bands like them which developed in the 80's and achieved nothing of interest, and still managed to be remembered and praised by many thrashers more than twenty years after they existed. Why bands like At War are still remembered I have no idea, because this is the epitome of generic, uneventful, and just plain boring music, but still I found about this band and many of their average, unimportant associates, with very little searching into the genre. The fact that a person can be recommended this album before Demolition Hammer should make people realise that this is trend that is hurting the legacy of the genre.

Obviously, I can't blame the band for the way that they have stuck in the minds of the children of the 80's, which is impressive considering the drugs, and it wouldn't be fair to think that they planned to make my early journeys into the genre less enjoyable. Nor can I blame them for merely being one of the more well known of the army of bands beating out tired ideas in a half arsed manner, especially considering this was created in 1986, so the majority of the best thrash was still only just being released, meaning that they were into the genre pretty early, and not just following along with the cool kids. However, I can blame them for releasing poor music...

At War trade in bland, user friendly, non-catchy and uninteresting mid-paced thrash with average instrumentation and pathetic vocal delivery. The songs are of a standard length, consist of painfully common riffs which sound somewhere between the first Metallica album and Motorhead, just worse, and less inventive. There's two fast tracks total on the album, namely the "Ordered To Kill" and "Mortally Wounded". The title track is pretty good, we probably get exposed to the main riff one time too many, but it's a good song, not top quality thrash, but close. The second quick song doesn't get my praise though, the riff is boring, and the “play fast-stop playing and let our pathetic vocalist sing-play fast again” approach makes the piece that little bit more irritating. In fact, there is exactly one good song on this album, the title track, a few riffs in Ilsa(She-Wolf Of The S.S) and the solos on "Rapechase" and "Eat Lead" are the only parts of this entire album that stand out. That's it. There isn't another moment on this album that you are missing anything. Hell, even with their huge Motorhead influence they didn't manage to make their cover of "The Hammer" any good, mainly due to the fact it's played exactly the same way, with flat and boring production, and with poor vocals.

In fact, it's the production and the vocals that make this album so unenjoyable. As I said, musically, they're just redundant. All the instrumentalists play their music without screwing up, of course, they’re not doing anything interesting either. On its own, this is the embodiment of an album playing to all the standards of the genre and no more. However, add this dull music to the horrendously flat production, and the inept vocals and you've got an album which will simultaneously bore you and piss you off. The production isn't poor as such, it's just criminally flat, the drums are probably the most hindered, which have no kick to them whatsoever, but with that said the guitars are a disappointing muffled monotone mass, soon as any notes are played quickly after each other fast they become basically indistinguishable. The solos do sound pretty good though, mainly because they momentarily avoid the flatness that the album possesses. The vocals however are just annoying, he's obviously trying to sound like Lemmy, but he's not naturally as rough, and he only delivers his lyrics in single syllable bursts, similar to early Hetfield, but again, just more irritating.

This album is not worth your time; At War is just another one of the thousands of second rate generic acts that spawned when the genre got big. While it's one of the earlier ones, Ordered to Kill is not any better than any of them, it's certainly worse than quite a few, just avoid it, the title track is good, but not worth sitting through the rest of this album for.

“…you feel the bullet enter your throat, drop to the ground on your blood start to choke…”

There was little surprise when the album Ordered to Kill released by Virginia natives At War had the three of them on the front cover out in the sticks armed and camouflaged like they’re looking for an invigorating game of paintball. The war shtick was their thing, and with an ongoing argument of which is the first war metal band, At War would be right there firing into the sky, proclaiming that if not the originators, they’re one of the early forces to use the concept at length. While I never had a problem with the guns n’ glory reverie, it’s the band’s relatively lackluster style I’ve never been sold on.

Not a bad band, At War had its heart in the right place with its debut, but most of the time Ordered to Kill comes off apprehensive and controlled like a normally well-behaved kid looking around for witnesses before stomping a flower. Much of the pizzazz speed metal can easily muster seems debilitated in many of these eight tracks, starting with the title cut and “Dawn of Death”, the pair of tracks commencing the lp, and is owed in part to the lyrical verses being sung along with the rhythm in a “Fight Fire With Fire” style except without the apocalyptic anxiety. While the vocals of Paul Arnold are fairly poisonous and not the least bit shrieky, they’re relatively bridled compared to the flaring vehemence of Dave Overkill of Destructor and the tree-splicing going on over in Razor. For “Capitulation”, the vox manages to find its own mind, but even with (or should I say because of) the passably memorable main rhythm, the spectrum of thrash where things get fiery is still a landscape or two away. “Mortally Wounded” leaps closer to the edge with more determination than many of its precursors, but after forty seconds the unchanging scary verse-pointless rhythm-scary verse-pointless rhythm conveyer belt, stuff can only one-dimensionally enliven things.

“Eat Lead” and “Rapechase”, the well-chosen songs for the Speed Metal Hell I and II compilations, are the most dominate of the bunch with the latter inching ahead with its quickly picked main riff and commanding chorus. “Ilsa (She-Wolf of the S.S.)” goosesteps into action with one of Hitler’s more popular speeches kicking it off, and while the main riff activity isn’t very noteworthy, the admissible chorus and most dizzying burst of speed the band has erupted with cashes in a little higher on the currency chart. Not last (actually the lead off of side two) or least, the cover of “The Hammer” is on the money, sounding like Motorhead with someone less distinct craning his neck at the mike while Lemmy sits at the bar.

The demo quality production is pretty consistent in New Renaissance’s playbook, and no doubt a beefier and bassier backbone would’ve spiced up the lp’s sneer. Even the mud from that river Paul’s standing in on the cover would’ve probably done something for it, but wouldn’t cake anymore imagination onto the spindles of songwriting. They’ll have to be happy bayoneting the enemy in the ear on the second shelf.

This is thrash goodness, weak production or not. This Lp is from '86 so of course it's most likely good on some level, let's see if At War deliver.

The albums starts off with anything you'd expect from an '86 thrash album. Overall some good guitars and good guitars, but it's buried underneath all the monstrosities of 1986, and sounds absolutely nondescript, and hardly profound in any way. There's also a question of consistency, as some tracks sound very similar but clearly aren't as good for various reasons. This starts with the misstep in Capitulation, which doesn't have the greatest intro and the chorus sounds really forced, Capitulation just doesn't sound good as a one word chorus, unless you're in 5/4 or something comparable.

Rapechase continues with a Motorhead speed metal type of approach (though not nearly as high in quality), though the lyrics are quite silly, even by speed/thrash standards.

Then there's the highlight "The Hammer", which is of course a Motorhead cover, and done very faithfully. But the fact that this is clearly the highlight of the album should be and is quite unsettling.

Ilsa must be a real person, because that's an ugly name. No offense to the Ilsa's of the world, but I wasn't even sure if Ilsa was even a female name. That being said, this songs kicks ass, though not on the usual '86 thrash monument level. The lyrics are good too, aside from the problems with the main character. Best original song so far, with some pretty loud bass of all things.

Eat Lead. Damn right. This song is a great track, the riffs are good, lyrics are awesome "death to false metal" type stuff, without sounding cheesy or pretentious (like our favorite kings of metal *wink wink*). The part at 2.25 is killer, they play a drawn out riff (a la Motorhead) while the drums and bass are still thrashing along, killer.

So what lies within is an album just above average, the good tracks are just that but still standard fare for '86, and nothing screams mediocre because nothing really stands out at all. The next album is different, and much better.