DamageWar

Out of the industrial sprawl of Guarulhos in greater São Paulo, DamageWar have spent over a decade burrowing through the Brazilian thrash underground with the kind of working-band persistence that keeps regional scenes oxygenated. The four-piece announced themselves in the mid-2010s with the self-released EP Plagued by Angels of Death in August 2014, a tight document of riff-forward thrash that earned them a spot on the bill at the Guarulhos Underground Heavy Metal Grave gig later that same month. From there they pressed on at street level, returning in 2018 with the Dead Skin Devourer single and, later, the EP Dead Eyes Upon Me, which paired a title-track original with a cover of MX's 'Dirty Bitch' — a knowing nod to the lineage of paulistano thrash that runs back to the late-1980s heyday of São Paulo's most savage exports. Both releases were tracked at the band's own Damagewar studio with production, mix and master handled by Rogério Oliveira, the kind of in-house DIY pipeline that has long defined Brazilian extreme metal economics. The group's sound sits at a crossroads the band themselves describe as thrash, heavy and progressive metal: the spine is unambiguously thrash, with the gallop and bite of the genre's Bay Area and Teutonic forebears, but the arrangements have room for the more measured technicality and shifting tempos that Brazilian players inherit from their progressive metal neighbours. The lineup has evolved over the years, with experienced bassist Eduardo Ossucco joining to bolster the low end, a move the band signalled publicly through Brazilian metal media. They remain an active part of the Guarulhos scene that orbits the long-running Guaru Metal Fest, a circuit that has hosted thrash legends like the American Whiplash and continues to feed homegrown bands like DamageWar.