Legendary US Metal band Warlord was formed in 1981 by Mark Zonder and William J. Tsamis. One year later, in 1982, the song “Lucifer’s Hammer” (based on a novel by Larry Niven and Jerry Pournelle) appeared on the prestigious compilation album »Metal Massacre II«. This resulted in a deal with Metal Blade Records, with Warlord recording their debut mini-album. »Deliver Us« was released in 1983 and is today considered as the blueprint for what was later to be called “Epic Metal”. »Deliver Us« was followed by »And The Cannons Of Destruction Have Begun…« in 1984.
After a long hiatus, »Rising Out Of The Ashes« appeared as the comeback album for Warlord in 2002, while it took another eleven years for the follow-up »The Holy Empire« to see the light of day in 2013. Up until the present day, »The Holy Empire« would remain the last Warlord studio album with all new material, as William J. Tsamis sadly passed away on 13th of May 2021 at the age of 60.
However, with »Free Spirit Soar«, a brand new studio album by Warlord with all songs having been recorded between March and September 2023, it’s Drummer Mark Zonder and singer Giles Lavery paying tribute to the musical heritage of Bill Tsamis. They are joined by Jimmy Waldo on keyboards/synthesizer, Phillip Bynoe on bass and Eric Juris on guitars. “We wanted to finish these pieces of music ‘for Bill’,” explains Lavery, “and the material we felt was certainly strong enough to inspire us to do so.” Regarding the guitar parts he specifies: “Bill is there where we could pull his tracks off the demo recordings, in much the same way the Beatles were recently able to rescue John Lennon’s voice from an old demo tape. Eric does most of the heavy lifting on guitar, but all music was written by Bill and we stayed very, very faithful to what he wrote.”
All in all, Giles Lavery is very satisfied with how »Free Spirit Soar« turned out: “It was a bit of an uncharted adventure delving into Bill’s demos and unfinished music, and also having to write lyrics and vocal melodies to the songs – the only two exceptions being the two Lordian Guard songs that we selected to ‘Warlord-ize’ …as has been tradition on every Warlord album since »Rising Out Of The Ashes«. Everything but two songs have vocals for the first time, so that entire area of the composition is new … As for the music, I think much of it is unheard, a few bits and pieces you might recognize from some of the catalogue reissues, instrumental bonus tracks etc. As producer of the album it was my job to sort through all the pieces and pull together songs.”
