Wage War Delivers Their Best Album In Almost A Decade With ‘Landfall’

Modern metalcore staples Wage War have returned with their sixth studio album, with ‘Landfall’. This marks their first release since both 2024’s ‘STIGMA’ and the ‘IT CALLS ME BY NAME’ EP from earlier this year. This band has had quite an interesting journey throughout their career, as they’ve experimented in the past with different sounds. They’ve returned with a record that explores all of their strongest traits, and serves up songs for everyone who’s ever been a fan of this band.

It’s no surprise that this album has some heavy rippers when it comes to tracks like “Silk”, “Song of the Swamp”, and “Way of Pain” that highlight what people fell in love with this band a decade ago. Tracks like those really show that they haven’t lost a step whenever they lock back into giving us a heavy banger. They also give us some tried and true melodic tracks to balance out the record like “Stay with Me” and “Blindfold”. They really show off just how far they’ve come as songwriters and deliver some of the more catchy songs of this kind. Then there’s songs that feel like a bit of a swerve for the band. A song like “God Complex” gives us a bouncy heavy type of track but similar to a band like Thornhill. I do think it works for them, and it’s a cool song to have in the early part of the record. They also give us “Spellbound”, which feels more of a spooky vibe type of track and I didn’t expect this band to go with a sound like this, but I’m into it.

Vocalists Briton Bond and Cody Quistad have proven to be one of the more dominant duos in the genre. Cody’s angelic pipes mixed with not only Briton’s screams, but his deeper vocals is a mix that has proven to succeed time and time again. Cody really shines on the closing track, “Silhouette”, and he continues to sound as good as he did since the debut record.  Briton also sounds great on “Stay with Me”, as he’s gotten more comfortable singing on the last couple of records. I also wanna give a shoutout to drummer Stephen Kluesener, who truly kills it across this entire album. His drums feel both intense and calculated, to where it’s exactly what each song calls for. Lead guitarist Seth Blake also does a great job with the riffs on this record. From the opening track to “Spellbound”, you can tell this band is still heavily influenced by Slipknot when it comes to their more heavier tracks. 

All in all, I think ‘Landfall’ is easily Wage War’s best record since ‘Deadweight’. They somehow manage to showcase their strongest qualities across their career, and deliver some super solid tracks to show why they’re still one of the bigger bands in the genre today.