TANK
WAR MACHINE (BLUE VINYL)

»War Machine«, originally issued in 2010, marked Tank’s first album after eight years. Founding member, bassist and singer Algy Ward, who died way too early in 2023 at the age of only 63, had left the band in 2008. He was replaced by ex-Rainbow vocalist Doogie White. It was guitarists Mick Tucker and Cliff Evans forming the core of the reborn Tank, both members of the band since the mid-80s. They were joined by Chris Dale on bass (who had worked for Bruce Dickinson’s solo band) and Dave Cavill on drums.

Guitarist Cliff Evans talks about the situation of the band back in 2010: “It was around 2003 that Algy had made the decision not to play live shows anymore and became uninterested in the band’s future. He had some health issues to deal with and he distanced himself from Mick and myself so we were unsure if Tank would continue or not. We didn’t hear from Algy for several years, so it was clear that he was not going to resurrect the band. Mick and I made the difficult decision to put together a line-up and see if there could be a future for Tank. We had no intention of finding a direct replacement for Algy as that would have been impossible so we planned to bring in a world class vocalist who could really add something to the band in the studio and on stage. Doogie White was our choice.”

Stylistically, »War Machine« was indeed a bit of a departure from the earlier Tank stuff, it didn’t sound as tough and as street level as in the early days. The guitarist explains: “Those early Tank albums sounded so raw and energetic which was mainly attributed to Algy’s punk sound and attitude following his days in The Saints and The Damned. Later albums did start to take on a more classic rock influence and had lost the punk edginess of those early albums. There would have been no point in trying to re-create the sound on those early original albums.”

The ultimate re-issue of »War Machine« on High Roller Records comes with three bonus tracks: “Dead Man Walking”, a new recording of “Honour And Blood” and a live version of “Phoenix Rising”. Cliff Evans comments: “I wrote ‘Dead Man Walking’ with Doogie and it was originally more of a demo song than an album track but it has a cool Saxon vibe to it so we thought it would be a great bonus track. ‘Honour And Blood’ is always a great song to play so we’re very happy to make new recordings of this song. The live version of ‘Phoenix Rising’ I think was recorded in Poland in 2012.”

Luckily, the unmastered original mix of »War Machine« has been found, forming the basis of this ultimate re-issue, with Patrick W. Engel being responsible for the current re-mastering process.