WARMEN – Here For None – LP – 180g White Vinyl [AUG 18]

LP – Limited Edition 180g White Vinyl housed in a Gatefold Sleeve. Only 300 copies in this edition.

For many years, WARMEN was something like a solo project by Janne “Warman” Wirman, or a musical balance to his main band at the time. When the keyboardist wasn’t touring the world with Children Of Bodom, he was regularly recording albums with his brother Antti Wirman (guitar), Jyri Helko (bass), Mirka Rantanen (drums, Kotipelto, ex-Hevisaurus) and various session singers. After the premature end of Children Of Bodom and the tragic death of Alexi Laiho, Janne initially fell into a deep black hole and wasn’t sure if he ever wanted to make music again. In the end, his environment helped him to focus on his great passion for music again with WARMEN.

The processing of this difficult time should also have an impact on the songwriting: “My brother Antti, bassist Jyri and I write the music together in WARMEN and I told them that I didn’t want to write any more songs like before. No patchwork, but real songs. Together we went to a cabin in the woods for a weekend and wrote really good songs. That’s when I realized that I still wanted to make music and a really good album with WARMEN. That was my personal comeback into the music business,” explains Janne, only to then add that WARMEN now sound significantly heavier than before: “So we went into this hut and asked ourselves what we really wanted musically. And it turned out to be more aggressive and extreme. It wasn’t just my feelings after the Bodom ending, it felt right to all of us. We’re glad we were able to capture this moment of the band. We used to be more Power Metal, which we enjoyed, precisely because it was different from Bodom as well. Now that I don’t have Bodom anymore, I want to approach Heavy Metal a bit more seriously and aggressively. We are very excited to see how the fans will react to this. I think we’re more into melodic death metal now. Before Bodom ended, I had written a few new songs for WARMEN that were more in the synth wave direction. We quickly realized that these songs sound too happy for us today. Too many keyboards, too much happiness. The new songs still have our typical melodic moments, but overall they are much heavier than before in terms of the basic mood and the riffing.

Consequently, drummer Mirka stepped down and parted amicably with Janne and the other guys, and was replaced by death metal proven Seppo Tarvainen (Church Of The Dead). While there was a coming and going of guest singers in the past of WARMEN, the new band claim and the new musical orientation should also be made clear vocally. The new, perfectly fitting man on the mic is none other than Ensiferum’s Petri Lindroos! “The Wirman brothers sent me a message asking if I would be interested in singing for their new album, and I said of course I am. It sounds like a very cool thing to do and also very metal, states the new raspy voice. And so it’s no wonder that HERE FOR NONE literally overwhelms the listener with its variety, the well-known guitar-keyboard duels and an extremely large portion of aggression, as the brutal ‘Death’s On Its Way‘ impressively proves.

HERE FOR NONE heralds a new era – true to the motto “The king is dead, long live the king”, WARMEN are not only musically departing to new, heavier shores – due to the new line-up it can now be said justifiably that WARMEN are taking on the musical legacy of Janne’s former band in a spectacular way. I will always be Janne from Bodom. That’s okay with me, I’m happy about it and I don’t have to hide my past. I also see that as a positive thing for WARMEN, Janne knows about his good reputation and the attention he gets in the scene. The band will also present this legacy live at selected events, such as the release show at the Summer Breeze Open Air. Until then, the brutally varied, yet extremely coherent HERE FOR NONE is the new reference work in terms of melodic heaviness from Finland!

Tracklist:

Side A
1. Warmen Are Here For None
2. The Driving Force
3. A World Of Pain
4. Too Much, Too Late
5. Night Terrors

Side B
1. Hell On Four Wheels
2. The End Of The Line
3. Death’s On Its Way
4. The Cold Unknown
5. Dancing With Tears In My Eyes (Warmen Version)