WARHOG. Yup, really? But hey, what's in a name. There are Warhorses, so why not WARHOGs? This one is still a puppy, as it is only four years in existence on this planet. But in that time this creature has been quite active, with a debut album in 2022 (“Call Of The Voyager”), and a live album (“Live Voyager”) in the same year. Now, two years later, the WARHOG has raised it head again and has come stampeding in with an EP of over 25 minutes, which has been named “The Dystopian Chronicles Vol. 1”.

WARHOG hail from Dallas in Texas, USA, and make a brand of Heavy Metal that includes a lot of Groove. And it is a combination that is quite feasible, very much trendy at the moment. The question here is whether is does the trick for WARHOG, at least on “The Dystopian Chronicles Vol. 1”. Well, let me be clear that the answer is twofold. On the one hand it does work, as the music in conjunction with the melodic voices work well together. It gives an aire of heaviness with some elements that take away the gravity of the matter.

I'll start off that I find the intro “Already There” to be anything but, it doesn't suit the rest of the material at all. The spacy keyboard sounds are just 2:40 minutes of wasted space to my ears. Luckily the songs themselves show another picture. They are heavy, they have body, they rock, roll and groove, all in their own way. But what does become obvious very early in the listening process is that this is not a mature WARHOG, but one still emancipating into the full example. Can you blame the beast? No, not at all, but it does make “The Dystopian Chronicles Vol. 1” into a challenging listen.

The reason for that is that the songs give you a vibe of not being ready yet, not being completed. They all have their own strong points. It might be a certain riff, a refrain, the comination between music and voice, or even the use of the keyboards. Unfortunately you never get the feeling that you are listening to a band that has thought through the whole process until the end. They are still in the middle iof their text book. It makes “The Dystopian Chronicles Vol. 1” into a lesser product than WARHOG should have allowed it to be. Finish everything to a quality and standard we as listeners as well as you as musicians will be very comfortable with.