Warmen is now back.
Formed in 2000 by Janne Wirman (keyboards, ex-Children of Bodom, ex-Kotipelto) and his brother Antti (guitar, Exlibris), the band accompanied by Jyri Helko (bass, Oceanhoarse) since 2009 recruited Seppo Tarvainen (drums, Wretched Path, ex-The Scourger) and Petri Lindroos (vocals, Ensiferum, ex-Norther) in 2023 to announce their signing with Reaper Entertainment and the release of Here For None, their sixth album.
Warmen Are Here For None kicks off with a mysterious keyboard, quickly followed by the rest of the band to create that epic, driving sound between motivating vocals, backing vocals and catchy riffs. The guitar offers a few leads, taken up by the keyboard, while the rhythm section carries us through to The Driving Force, which reveals much more aggressive parts on the verses, creating a real contrast with the catchy choruses. Lead parts once again occupy the center stage, as they do on A World Of Pain and its vivid warlike tones, which barely subside when keyboards become more joyful, leaving the five members to deliver their frantic riffs. Melodic Death and Power Metal influences lead into Too Much, Too Late, a more rhythmic, disquieting composition with dark, driving Heavy Metal roots, to which the band add their motivating touch before returning to a keyboard-wrapped rhythm on Night Terrors, a composition with majestic passages reminiscent of the band’s early productions. The vocal parts add the track a raw edge, which finally lets loose on Hell On Four Wheels and its wild riffs drawing on the full range of the band’s influences, as well as heady melodies to accompany this full-speed storm, which crashes before letting The End Of The Line offer us a sound between catchy riffs and airy keyboards. The track remains rooted in this energetic, motivating mix, but is also filled with lead parts and a few backing vocals, before returning to a thick groovy sound on Death’s On Its Way, which keeps its fix of violence with jerky riffs. Keyboards however soften the choruses, as they do on The Cold Unknown, a slightly slower, more impressive track which once again places the emphasis on well-crafted melodies, before Dancing With Tears In My Eyes closes the album with sounds driven by the visceral howls emerging from a quite simple but dynamic rhythm.
Warmen has evolved during its absence, and the integration of new members allows the band to offer a more aggressive sound. Here For None celebrates both their return, but also the addition of new elements that allow them to develop their approach.
85/100
Few questions to Antti Wirman, guitar player and founding member of the Finnish Melodic Death/Power Metal band Warmen.
Hello and first of all, thank you very much for your time! Could you please introduce yourself and the band Warmen without using the usual Metal labels such as “Melodic Power Metal” or stuff?
Antti Wirman (guitar): Hello and thank you for your interest in Warmen! My name is Antti Wirman. I’m the guitar player of Warmen. Warmen started in 1999 as a solo album project by my brother Janne and since then we have released five albums. At first the idea was to release only one instrumental Metal album but after the first album we realized that we wanted to collaborate with different guest vocalists who we knew from Finland’s Heavy Metal scene. From the first five albums you can find all styles of Metal from 80’s Hard Rock to 2000’s Modern Metal.
The name Warmen links the two former members, your brother Janne and yourself, is it easy to include other band members to the band? What about the very new members, like Seppo Tarvainen (drums) and Petri Lindroos (vocals)?
Antti: Former members of Warmen (Mirka Rantanen and Sami Virtanen) are our good friends since forever and the whole idea of Janne recording a solo album came up when we were hanging out in our favourite music store where Mirka and Sami were working back then. After the first album when we were thinking about different guest vocalists I think everyone agreed to join quite easily. Same thing happened with Seppo and Petri. Both are our old friends and it didn’t take much to convince them to join. We played the demo versions of the new songs to them and they both agreed to join after they knew what the new musical style of Warmen is.
Here For None, your sixth album, will be out soon, how do you feel about it? Do you already have some feedback?
Antti: We are all very proud of the album. We put so much effort into it and it’s the best Warmen album to date ! I can’t wait for people to listen to it.
How would you sum Here For None up in only three words?
Antti: Aggressive, Melodic, Metal !
Here For None appears nine years after the previous album, and with new members, how did the composition process happen for Here For None? How did you personally evolve through those nine years?
Antti: After the sudden ending of Janne’s band (Children of Bodom) he felt like he didn’t want to do music anymore. After convincing him to continue, we realized that we can’t concentrate on music in Helsinki because of all the hassling going on all the time. You know, family, friends, work, all that. We then decided to pack up our gear and travel to our cabin which is far away from everyday activities. There me, Janne and our bass player Jyri composed three new songs during one weekend and we were very excited about the results ! We found out that the direction that the new Warmen album was going was something more aggressive than in the past and so we decided to continue that path. We did a couple of more sessions at the cabin and then we had enough songs to start the recordings of the album. Personally for me and my guitar playing I can see that age brings you lots of confidence. You don’t have to show your skills all the time, you can just concentrate on things that sound good.
Where did you find inspiration for this album, and what is the most natural song you created for Here For None?
Antti: For me the inspiration came from our cabin. There’s nothing else there. It’s in the middle of a forest and by a lake. Easy chilling and playing the guitar. Of course we all still had in mind Alexi Laiho’s sudden death and we talked about it a lot. In my opinion The Driving Force is the song that was the most natural. It was the first song we wrote.
You just played very few shows (if the website setlist.fm is right), would you like to bring the band Warmen to stage again?
Antti: YES ! And we will. We have a record release show at Summer Breeze festival in Germany this summer and we are planning more shows after that. I love playing live.
Are there any musicians or artists you would like to collaborate with? Whether it is for one song, or maybe more.
Antti: There are many guitarists that I would love to collaborate with but at the moment Warmen is a full band and we are not planning to do any collaborations.
If you had to create a release show Here For None’s release show, with which bands would you love to play with? I let you create a poster with Warmen headlining and three other bands!
Antti: Warmen, Slayer, Extreme, Alice Cooper!
That was the last question for me, so thank you very much for your time and your music, last words are yours!
Antti: Thank you very much for taking the time to read this interview. Here For None will be released 18th of August and I really hope you will like it !