At War were originally formed in 1983 in Virginia Beach, Virginia. With the line-up of Paul Arnold (bass, vocals), Dave Stone (drums) and Shawn Heisel (guitar), the band recorded two raw thrash metal classics in the form of "Ordered To Kill" (1986) and "Retaliatory Strike" (1988) before taking a long break. It wasn't until 2009 that the band returned in their old form with their third album "Infidel".Paul Arnold, the mouthpiece of At War, explains what happened to the band after "Retaliatory Strike" from 1988: "We carried on until 1993/94. But the negotiations for the follow-up to "Retaliatory Strike" led us straight into a dead end, because grunge was giving many metal bands and labels a hard time. And we were definitely no exception. That's why we took a break. At War never formally disbanded, but there was just too much going on in our personal lives at the time."We played a few new songs live at the end of the eighties and continued to compose," Arnold continues. "We even recorded a demo, but as we weren't satisfied with the recordings, we never released it."When "Infidel" was recorded in 2009, At War remembered the material they had worked on 20 years ago: "The record is a mixture of pieces we composed in the late eighties and new numbers. We took some of the old, unreleased pieces, dissected them and integrated parts that we liked into completely new compositions. In my eyes, "Infidel" was light years better than the first two albums in terms of songwriting and production. I'm still glad that we decided to record with Alex Perialas at Pyramid Studios again. I think "Infidel" is the best representation of the band At War to date."Infidel" includes a re-recording of the song "Rapechase" (from the first album "Ordered To Kill").At War are currently working on their fourth studio album, which will hopefully be released later in 2024.
