Warning (GER) - Warning (1982)^{Release ID: 6679}

Now I don’t like to shy away from the controversial topics & are known to make a big call or two on occasion so be prepared because I’m about to make one or two here. Although Germany was still in its infancy as far as legitimate metal goes, 1982 brought us a ground-breaking German metal release of genuine intrigue & artistic experimentation in the debut album from Hamburg’s Warning (not to be confused with the French hard rockers from the same period). Warning was the brainchild of record store owner Ed Vanguard & record label employee Hans Muller; a collaboration that would spawn two studio albums over two years. But this is no generic metal release. In fact, “Warning” sounds like nothing I’ve heard before or since. It’s an extremely bold & ambitious piece of work that draws upon a diverse & largely unrelated array of influences but presents them in a way that surprisingly makes a lot of sense. Those influences extend far beyond those of your average metal band too with progressive electronic sounds being interspersed with the synth pop of Kraftwerk & a distinctly gothic atmosphere but unlike many people, I think “Warning” is still fundamentally a metal release. An unusual & avant-garde one to be sure but a metal release nonetheless.

To my ears the basis of their sound is built on the crushingly heavy riffs of Witchfinder General & the first three Black Sabbath albums only here it sounds even darker & more mysterious than anything that had come before it from the early doom metal movement. The vocals are extremely unnerving with an ultra- deep male vocal delivery taking several different approaches including unhinged screams, dark gothic scriptures & what could only be described as proto-death metal growling. That’s right folks! You hear correctly. I said death metal growling. I’ve read that the drumming is performed by a real drummer which surprises me because the rhythms found on “Warning” sound quite cold & mechanical so I had assumed they were the result of some primitive drum machine programming but apparently not. Melodically, we hear the suffocatingly heavy metal riffs being coloured by a bizarre array of electronic sounds. Some that would have sat comfortably on the soundtrack to “Blade Runner”, others with a decidedly danceable & qwerky synth-pop edge to them. And then we get those moments where we decend into the sort of depressing atmospheres that the likes of My Dying Bride have journeyed many years later. But remember….. this was 1982 & no one else in the world had ever attempted anything like this.

I’m honestly not sure how the public could have been expected to accept such approaches in 1982 but here it is. Even the doom metal elements are ground-breaking because Witchfinder General had certainly not sounded this dark before. Some tracks are almost sporting a proto-funeral doom sound in their lumbering & minimal guitar assault on the listener. Strangely, through all of this, the opening cut “Why Can The Bodies Fly” was a hit for the band & it peaked at number 11 on the German pop charts; possibly due to its inclusion on the soundtrack to the 1983 crime show “Peggy Has Scared”. Interestingly, “Warning” is one of the rare releases we’ve featured on the "Metal Academy" podcast where I was completely unfamiliar with it prior to conducting my research for the show however I was very surprised to find that I knew “Why Can The Bodies Fly” very well upon first listen & after a few minutes of racking my brain I was able to recall that Austrian death metallers Pungent Stench had covered the song for their 1993 “Dirty Rhymes & Psychotronic Beats” EP which highlights Warning's appeal for fans of extreme metal. 

Overall, I have to say that I really enjoy “Warning”. It’s a fascinating release that draws me back again & again as I try to understand & make sense of what I’m hearing & ultimately find myself giving in to its charms. I feel that it’s the first genuinely avant-garde metal release from anywhere in the world & it seems to have been largely overlooked which is a gross injustice in my opinion. I strongly urge you to give it a few spins with an open mind. Particularly if you're a member of The Infinite.