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Across the world, the music scene of Seattle is renown for giving birth to amazing acts like Queensrÿche, Nirvana, and Pearl Jam. From the maw of Washington's famous metropolis comes forth another great group: Global Warning. On their newest release, they take their place as one of the best independent groups to enter the Christian metal community in years.

For fans of metal, Global Warning's "coming of age" release, Enemy Within, is magic cover to cover. Of course, this doesn't mean the album is without fault. Like most albums, Enemy has two faces.

The style here, almost without exception, is alternative metal, heavily based on subtuned fifths. While the vocals are heavily influenced by Metallica, and the music is quite similar to the later, Black Album alternative era of Metallica, Global Warning does have a unique sound. The music is mostly angry and rebellious, quite appealing to metal fans even as young as their teen years. Songs like "Empty Inside" and "Solace" retain a positive message even with this negative sound. A pleasant aspect of the band is they can write about their spiritual beliefs in a way that doesn't preach to the listener.

Putting aside a few minor problems, the production of <I>Enemy</I> is quite impressive. Especially well-recorded are the drums, whose high-toned snare and tight toms and kick give the album a very new, tight sound. Global Warning are electronically clean in their approach to music. But in this mass of electronic production arises a problem; the sound of the guitars interfering with the bass. The guitars are subtuned and subtuned to the point that the low frequency interferes with the bass. There are only a few tracks where a listener can hear the bass as a separate sound from the guitar, as on many tracks, the bass lines double the guitars on many songs. In addition, the guitars' tone is frequently overdistorted, creating a dirty and unpleasant feel to some of the songs.

Global Warning are a talented new group. Although there is a noticeable lack of variety on Enemy Within, they have developed a refreshingly unique while comfortably familiar sound. 

Tom MacMillan
THE BAKER STREET MUSE