Review ENFORCED ‘War Remains’

Richmond, Virginia is known for fabulous metal bands, thinking about representatives like Municipal Waste and Lamb Of God. Enforced is also hailing from this metal melting pot. Three years after founding the band. the quintet launched their debut album called ‘At the Walls’. The record created attention at Century Media who signed the band and unleashed their sophomore album ‘Kill Grid’.

With ‘War Remains’ the next longplayer is waiting around the corner and the band again created a sonic blast. The untamed blend of thrash- and death metal is the base for ten bone crushing metal tracks. Hereby Enforced don’t solely push the pedal to the metal although a higher pace is a pillar for their sound.

‘War remains’ isn’t an excessively long record. In contrary. With 34 minutes the longplayer mirrors the brutal efficiency of thrash metal. There are no bells and whistles. What blasts out of the speakers is the boiled down essence of grooving metal, sound heavy as hell.

There are some references to bands like Slayer when listening to the brilliant ‘Hanged by My Hand’. And there is the infernal opener ‘Aggressive Menace’, a tune with a title, that can’t describe in a better way what to expect after having pressed the ‘Start’-button. There is no intro. Instead, there are screaming guitars and wrecking ball-like rhythm section that tears down everything in their way.

The more crossover-based ‘Nation of Fear’ is a song you shouldn’t miss either. I had to think about bands like Exodus while listening to this headbanging treat. Things get faster again with ‘Ultra-Violence’, a crushing sledgehammer the band swings.

The passion for a solid groove is what the title track mirrors. Speed is not everything and Enforced manage to find the sweet-spot between moderate pace and high-speed without losing their basic musical approach and direction. And the expand the range, the band starts the closer ‘Empire’ almost doom-like before giving the song the punching power when shifting gears. ‘Empire’, in a way, combines all the elements of Enforced 2023. Slow-paced, fast blasts and massive riffs, that is what the album is about and what gets summed-up by the closer.

Enforced accomplished a stellar metal album. There are no frills and there is no decoration. What reaches your ears is raw and untamed metal. The ones that stand still while listening to these songs definitely entered the wrong genre.