JAG PANZER - Mechanized Warfare LP HRR 197, limited to 500 copies, 150 x ultra clear vinyl + 350 x black vinyl, 425gsm heavy gatefold cover Harry Conklin - vocals Mark Briody - guitars Chris Broderick - guitars John Tetley - bass Rikard Stjernquist - drums -Take to the Sky -Unworthy -The Silent -Hidden in My Eyes -Power Surge -Frozen in Fear -The Scarlet Letter -Choir of Tears -Cold Is the Blade (And the Heart That Wields It) -All Things Renewed clear vinyl LAST COPIES! black vinyl AVAILABLE

At least for the time being “Mechanized Warfare“ marks the last album in the current High Roller re-release campaign of classic Jag Panzer vinyl. The album was originally released via Century Media in 2001 and was available for a very short time on picture disc. After the “Thane to the Thorne“ concept album based of Shakespeare's “Macbeth“ the follow-up “Mechanized Warfare“ was a return to Jag Panzer's roots. “It is MUCH easier writing without the restrictions of a storyline“, comments guitarist Mark Briody. “In may ways it was cool to write a concept, but this did make songwriting much more straight forward. It was very easy to make a normal album after a concept album. With a normal album you typically pick the best songs, but with a concept album you pick the songs that fit the concept. So I had a couple of great songs that were ready but just didn’t fit with the concept of ‘Thane to the Throne’. This gave me a headstart for ‘Mechanized Warfare’. I’m not sure if this is true for Chris though (he wrote half of both those albums).“ According to Mark, there are a couple of key songs on “Mechanized Warfare“: “‘Take to the Sky’, written by Chris Broderick, became a big part of our live set. That is a great song. A couple of my songs, 'Cold is the Blade' and 'Unworthy' made it to a few live shows.“ However, there are a few songs on the album which were never performed in a live situation at all: “'Hidden in My Eyes', 'All Things renewed' and 'The Scarlet Letter' were never played live. These are all great songs, but for various reasons they never made the live set. We did a North American tour with Iced Earth and a few festival gigs in Europe. We had a good time with those shows.“ I read one review of "Mechanized Warfare" which said it is "an album without flaws". Mark Briody is surely still proud of the album: “I think ‘Mechanized Warfare’ is a fantastic album, but I would never say any album was ‘without flaws’. There is always something that could have been better.“ Maybe the cover? In comparism to the very early works and also “Thane to the Throne“ the modern graphics of "Mechanized Warfare" were a bit of a disappointment for me. Mark Briody begs to differ: “It was hand drawn as well, it’s not CGI. I personally love computer graphics, but after all the angry e-mails I got after ‘Age of Mastery’ we quit using computer graphics for artwork.“ As "Mechanized Warfare" was released only one year after "Thane to the Throne" would it be correct to assume that everybody involved in Jag Panzer at the time was still thinking the band could make it (band, label, management, tour bookers)? Mark Briody weighs his words carefully: “I’m not sure ‘making it’ was the plan, but rather just writing and releasing good metal. We had ‘Mechanized Warfare’ ready to go quickly, that is the reason it came out so soon. It was not a business decision by Century Media or anyone.“ Also, there was no tension between band members at all: “The relationship with Harry has always been good and it was good then as well. I’ve known him since we were six years old and he’s a major part of this band. The atmosphere in the band was great. Everyone was very pleased with the way the album came out.“ Some people have mentioned that Jag Panzer has over the years gradually turned from a heavy metal band ("Ample Destruction") to a power metal band ("Mechanized Warfare"). Mark Briody is not one of those people: “I don’t agree at all. I think we’re always a heavy metal band, that’s it. People sometimes mention things like the choirs and strings and say ‘that is when you became power metal’. But we did those things on 'Ample Destruction', too. Of course the songs are different, but there is nothing with the style of metal we did on later albums which is different from what we did on 'Ample Destruction'.“ Matthias Mader