by Ed Rivadavia

Warlord's second release, 1984's verbosely named And the Cannons of Destruction Have Begun , is one of those "is it or isn't it" live albums, and was originally intended to serve as a "soundtrack" for a proposed video release. But, due to its nearly nonexistent production budget and amateurish technical setup (the fog machine had to be borrowed from Metal Blade labelmates Slayer , for one), the project was only given minimal promotion upon its release, so that its original ambitions of bypassing MTV into the hands of eager metal fans went largely unfulfilled. Still, for what it's worth, Warlord put in an enthusiastic performance behind excellent songs like "Lucifer's Hammer," "Aliens," and "Child of the Damned" -- all of them key tracks to underground American metal in the early '80s. [Note: this very collectable video was released on DVD in 2001 with the slightly modified title of Warlord Book I: And the Cannons of Destruction Have Begun.]