COLDWAR call it a day… Posted: 11/01/2016 by John O'Brien
I have to say, I didn’t see this one coming… AT ALL!
The mighty COLDWAR… One of Ireland’s long standing and heaviest metal bands have only gone and split up. The news came in a brief message via the bands facebook page just last night, 10th Jan 2016. The band had survived many trials during their seventeen year run, including the death of founding member Paul “Skinny” Kelly back in 2009. And were after releasing the best album of their career with “Panthiest”, so it’s safe to sat that this is a huge loss to the Irish metal scene as a whole.
Here’s hoping the members move on to other bands projects and we at least get something new out of this.
“Coldwar call it a day.
We would like to say we have had an absolute blast over the last 17 years. We sincerely thank everyone who came to our gigs, bought our merchandise, put us up/put up with us and generally supported us. Much appreciated!
We went to many beautiful parts of the world, played with a lot of great bands and met loads of strange and wonderful people!
Cheers,
Coldwar”
One of the well established ‘Old Guard’, COLDWAR originally formed back in 1999 as a Hardcore/Punk band infused with a healthy dose of Metal, by Bernard “Brayo” Brady and Paul “Skinny” Kelly with the intention of playing a hybrid mix of Metal, Punk and Hardcore. Soon after Ian Lawless was offered the job as guitarist and the first full line-up was spawned into existence.
The trio set about gigging and rehearsing and in February 2001 recorded the classic “Gods Of War” demo which was released soon after. Consisting of eight tracks and clocking in at a little over 20 minutes it packs a hefty Hardcore punch. And by the same time the following year they had bulked up the line-up with the addition of Paul Nash as a second guitarist and recorded their debut album, “Whore Bred & Hell Raised”.
As time passed, the band evolved into a vicious Hardcore infused Death Metal outfit, going down a more Death Metal road after these two releases. Brayo left the group after the ‘Whore Bred…’ album. He was eventually replaced by Marty McElhinney, who has remained a constant in the band from then on. Trevor McLave, who had previously been in STAGNATION with Skinny, was also enlisted as the bands new vocalist. It was this 5-piece line-up that recorded the 2004 release, “In The Suns Dead Rays” through Lawless’s UNDERGROUND MOVEMENT label. But Ian too left the band just before they recorded their 2007 album “Bloodfire Sunset”. Eoin Broughal joined on guitars in 2009. And then…!!!
On the 17th November 2009, the band were dealt a massive blow when founding member Paul “Skinny” Kelly sadly passed away. The band were obviously devastated.
Not only was Skinny a founding member, but he was also the only remaining original member in the bands line-up at that time. It was ‘make or break’ for the remaining members, who eventually decided to carry on the bands legacy that Skinny had started a decade before, and Paul, Marty and Trevor had contributed to and been a part of for almost as long.
Continuing the more extreme direction the band had taken, they were joined by Andy Coade on bass and two years after the tragic loss, that incarnation of COLDWAR released the opus, “Christus Deathshead” in 2011, which was self-released by the band and distributed through Code-7. 2012 saw the band still rolling forward. And by the end of 2013 Eoin was replaced by Dave Greene, who is also a member of Black Metallers WOUND UPON WOUND. And work began on the bands next album, “Pantheist”, which was released through Candlelight Records in April 2014, to unanimous praise from all corners of the Metal World.
