bolt thrower and me had a long time coming. i heard the name thrown around quite often in combination with old heaven shall burn stuff and given the fact that i love old heaven shall burn stuff, i actually wanted to check them out way earlier. what always put me off was the obvious war affinity in lyrics and artwork. i could never share the fascination and think that wars should be an invention mankind got rid off long time ago and only discuss about the idiocy of it in school lessons. anyway, i still ended up with the band's second full length on some nice vinyl colour. how come? good question.
well, i watched a few bits on ebay on auction by the same seller. among his offerings were this copy of bolt thrower's "war master". albeit the cover looked absolutely cheesy and beyond, i was attracted to it. so i did a bit research about the band and found out that they loosely based their lyrics on the tabletop game warhammer. i am no player/worshipper by any means but i got introduced to the game in my teens by an old friend who was very enthusiastic about it. he gave me endless lectures about warhammer back then and i thought it was a cool game. i couldn't warm up with playing it because it was too tactical but i liked the idea of collecting those figures and painting them in your favoured fashion.
serious nerd stuff, and nerd stuff is something i can rely to very well. suddenly bolt thrower became very interesting. i finally listened to some stuff of "war master" and liked it. in the end this record was the only i succesfully bid on and i am really happy to have it. it is a re-press from 2013 and earache kept completely true to the original release from 1991. even the lyric booklet is included. i read that the lyrics were not warhammer related anymore but the artwork from the gatefold sleeve and booklet is obvioulsy leaned on warhammer fantasy and 40k. cool in a way, love the alice cooper warrior in the centre. musically this lovely old school mid-tempo death metal but you already know that. 200 copies on white with blue splatter vinyl. earache records. 1991/2013.
