Los Angeles has had a rough time recently with all the forest fires when they were facing some extreme heat, followed by huge amount of rain, causing very muddy landslides. Both of those phenomena were rather devastating for the population around the city. Thankfully their resilience is high, and they keep their heads up. Sometimes this happens through music, as now, with the NWOTHM band SABER. They have been torturing human and animal ears (I just don’t want to rule anybody out) since 2018. This album, “Without Warning”, was originally released in 2021, but with a session drummer called Trevor William Church, who also happened to produce the album. With the arrival of a permanent drummer, Jesus Delgado, the band decided to rerelease the album on the same day as their brand-new slab of music called “Lost In Flames”.

And I have to be honest, the differences between the two albums are minimal. Their brand of super simple Old Fashioned Heavy Metal is played at the utmost enthusiastic level I have ever encountered. You can feel it radiating off the album. If you want a comparison, think of SAXON. Not musically, but at how they are able to make simple songs sound so extremely interesting. SABER has the same gift, and becomes very apparent when listening to “Without Warning”. I really like the way the band is in your face, trying to impress you by just doing their thing. And I’m not always a fan of singers with higher pitched voices, but I have to admit that Steven Villa is exactly the right fit for the Heavy Metal played on “Without Warning”.

What I read though, and what really surprised me, is that on their bio they claim that Bandcamp has “Without Warning” being named as one of Bandcamp's best albums of the year and outranking EXODUS and IRON MAIDEN on Brave Words’ annual Top 30 list. What baffles me though is that it is released on such a small label. After that success I would have thought that other labels would have shown a distinct interest. I’m certainly not dissing RPM-Roar, as they have made sure that SABER is getting all the attention and promotion they can get. As you might have gathered, I really dig SABER and “Without Warning”. I feel this is exactly what everyone needs when you are stressed, as the enthusiasm that the band is showing will almost certainly rub off on you.